The use of drinking sites, wallows and salt licks by herbivores in the flooded Middle Zambezi Valley

Summary In the unflooded Middle Zambezi Valley, water was available for drinking in zoogenous pools in the deciduous woodlands of the escarpment hills only during, and for a short period after, the rains. For 5 or 6 months each year these pools were dry. During the dry season the majority of large mammals drank either from remnant pools in stream beds, or migrated to the Zambezi flood plain where water was available in the Zambezi River and in pools on the flood plain. In the part of the valley filled by Lake Kariba the Zambezi and its flood plain have been inundated, and the lake shore now lies permanently in the deciduous woodlands of the escarpment hills. Although the former riverine dry‐season water sources have been removed, new sources are available along the lake shore. The suitability of the shore as a drinking site is affected by its exposure to wave action, its pitch, its soil type, and the vegetation type abutting on it, as well as by the preferences of the species using it. Elephant modify drinking sites on the shore by digging water‐filled holes at the water's edge in clay soil, and elephant, buffalo and rhinoceros create wallows in similar situations. The holes dug by elephant are much used by antelope, especially impala, for drinking. By analogy with elephant‐created pools in the woodlands, these zoogenous pools on the lake shore may have been a source of sodium for species drinking there. Such sources were not widely available in the dry season in the unflooded Zambezi Valley.