The stately, water-loving waterbuck is always found close to the source for which it is named. These animals are abundant in Kruger Park.
Need Advice?They are grey-brown color antelope with white stripes on their faces and large, round noses at the end of their distinctively shaped head. They are easiest to identify from the back by a distinct white circle on their buttocks.
The common waterbuck ranges from northern South Africa through Mozambique, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia. They are one of the most beautiful antelope visitors to the Kruger National park can spot on safari.
These water dwellers are in no current conservational threat, although many expanding settlements and native overhunting threaten local waterbuck populations. Overall, populations throughout their range are decreasing slightly, mainly due to the decline of populations in protected areas. Their total population is estimated at around 200 000 individual waterbucks across Sub-Saharan Africa, in areas with a steady water supply where they may occur. 60% of this total occurs within protected areas, with an additional 13% found on privately owned land for commercial hunting or game viewing.
These animals frequently visit water sources. They are some of the most water-dependent antelope, even more than some domesticated animals, and are grazers. For this reason, they don’t wander far from rivers, dams, or waterholes near grasslands where they feed. In the Kruger National Park, these areas are around artificial waterholes, dams, rivers, and adjacent privately owned reserves, like Sabi Sands and Timbavati.
They form herds of a few closely related females with their young, led by one dominant adult male. Males are territorial, excluding adolescent males still making their way up the dominance hierarchy. Territory sizes are very diverse and depend on the habitat in question. In the Queen Elizabeth National Park, in northern Africa, the population density was very low compared to the higher populations around Lake Nakuru National Park, which has a constant water supply. The average territory sizes range between 10 and 40 ha (0,1 – 0,4 square km).
We recommend the following National Parks and Private Reserves for the best chances of spotting the waterbuck on safari game drives and bush walks.
Their social activities mainly involve attempting to obtain or defend territory or to provide for their offspring's health and well-being. Males fight over territory and indirectly for mates. They straighten their postures to make them seem bigger when displaying dominance and defending their territory and herd. Mothers groom, lick and call out to their young frequently. Their primary activities are feeding and resting.
The courtship of these animals involves them rubbing against one another, the classic foreleg-lifting, and them spreading their scents through urination. Males generally spend up to half an hour courting a female before they mate and may mate with many females on the day they are in heat. Females typically mate with one male and, on rare occasions, two. Males reach sexual maturity around six, while females achieve this around three years old. The gestation period of these animals is between 8 and 8.5 months.
When encountering predators, they snort and produce other sounds to alert the herd to danger before fleeing. In some cases, males attempt to defend themselves and their young against smaller-sized predators such as hyenas or leopards. They were thought to be less preferred prey due to their strong odor, but this has since been disproved simply by statistics of waterbuck killings by large predators, such as Lions in the Kruger National Park, compared with other choices of prey.
