P380 Project 3-A
The Wonderland area is very seasonal, with cool, rainy winters and hot dry summers. Most of the rains fall on the coast and in the coastal mountain belt, with very little precipitation making it into the interior plateau region.
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THE COASTAL RESOURCES
The coast has some offshore islands, rocky tidepools, sandy beaches and plains. Scattered patches of "C-3" grasses and herbs grow on the sandy plains, and good grazing can be found along rivers draining the hills to the east.
Some small edible bulbs, such as gladiolas and lilies, occur in isolated pockets, but are difficult to find in the dry season because their leaves dry up and fall off after they flower in the spring.
Small browsing antelope (like springbok and steenbok) and large eland (mixed feeders) frequent this region, as do many small mammals, including porcupine, hare and "dassies" (rock hyrax). Springbok mate in the summer when the forage is poor. Seals commonly mate and give birth on the offshore islands in the spring and summer, and are extremely lean because they do not feed during the breeding season. This is the season when yearling pups leave their mothers.
Tortoise live in the plains, and are most active during the spring and summer. During the winter they hypernate in secluded spots. Many fish-eating birds frequent the area. Cormorants, for example, live in the region year-round. But other species are more seasonal: gannets breed on the islands during summer, then disperse, and flamingos winter in the river estuaries, feeding on schooling fish.
Aquatic resources include shellfish, and both freshwater and marine fish. Limpets are edible throughout the year, but the filter-feeding mussels are often toxic during the "red tide" summer months when they feed on dinoflagellates. Many of the marine fish spawn upstream during the summer, but several species such as the steenbras congregate at the mouths of rivers to feed when winter rains wash lots of organics downstream.
THE MOUNTAIN RESOURCES
The belt of coastal mountains are relatively low, with rocky soils, and many small caves and rockshelters. The area is quite bushy, with grasses in the drainage valleys.
Many of the bushes have small edible fruits, most of which ripen during the summer months. And several species of plants such as Watsonia with large, edible corms or tubers grow in large patches near rocky pools or damp crevices.
All the antelopes in the hills are small, territorial browsers, such as Grysbok and Springbok. Their births commonly occur in both the fall and spring. Tortoise are common, and the small, groundsquirrel-like territorial "dassies" (rock hyrax) are also abundant throughout the region, nesting in rocky crevices.
THE INTERIOR PLATEAU
East of the coastal mountains, Wonderland flattens out into a high, dry sandy steppe, with C-4 grasses, some succulents, small shrubs, and scattered trees. Some large grazing antelope and other large mammals range through this area, and it has moderate densities of small game, lizards, tortoise, etc, but few edible plant foods, and little surface drinking water, except in occasional water holes.
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Last updated: 4 April, 1998
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1998 Jeanne Sept
