The proudly South African YouTube channel ‘Kruger Sightings’ hit a massive milestone; they officially have 1 billion views.
Kruger National Park, South Africa – Latest Sightings Kruger was started in October 2011 by Nadav Ossendryver, and within its first year it only reached 100 subscribers; the next year was very much the same, but today, the YouTube channel has over 1.44 million subscribers.
Along with the YouTube channel, Nadav set up the Lastest Sightings Kruger website. The primary focus was on Kruger National Park sightings but has grown to include several game reserves across the African continent.
“When I first started, I really only focussed on the Kruger National Park. Right now we are starting to establish communities in various reserves. But at the time, I didn’t think anyone else was as obsessed with Kruger as me, let alone obsessed enough to follow other complete stranger’s sightings. So the last thing I expected was to get an audience of over 1m people.”
As Nadav shares so many sightings so we decided to ask him what his all-time favourite sighting has been throughout his life.
“Personally, one of my all-time favourite sightings was on a trip to the Kruger with some people who had never been before. We had been in the park for 3 days and had seen absolutely everything! Mating leopards, 20 lions in the road, wild dogs running around the car, you name it. But we hadn’t seen cheetah. On our last morning, we were leaving Lower Sabie camp to head out the park to go home, when an alert on Latest Sightings came in saying that there were 2 cheetahs 5 min from Lower Sabie.
So of course, we went! They were still there, right next to the road. We decided to pull up out of the sighting, but stay in the area, in case they get up, but giving others a chance to see the cheetahs. We looked in the road, and a hyena was chasing an impala right towards us. The hyena then chased the impala right into the cheetahs and the cheetahs chased the impala right into our car!
They killed the impala and ran deep into the bush. But I know the area quite well, and I knew that there was a road leading to where they went, so we quickly drove up that road. We were scanning hard, next thing, a pride of lions appeared and they stole the kill from the cheetah!! The cheetahs then popped into the road again and killed another impala. This was 2 hours of complete adrenaline.”
Having seen so many viral videos since it was launched, we asked Nadav what people could do if they spot a sighting worth sharing. He shared his tips on the best ways to make a good video.
- Authentic reactions. We love it when people are commenting in the background.
- The story has to be unique. We like looking for viral footage to add to our film and earn programme. And although a kill is spectacular to watch, it’s not always necessarily viral. We look for something that has a climax to it that will make someone share or talk about the video.
- The footage doesn’t have to be HD, or on a tripod, our most viewed videos were taken with a cell phone!
So next time you are at a sighting, keep those tips in mind. Lastly, we asked Nadav how he felt about hitting 1 billion views.
“Reaching 1 billion is an amazing feeling. The overwhelming response from our app-users and followers was very touching. It just shows how many people we reach every day with our great sightings. And how much it drives tourism to the various parks. My favourite comments were when people said that they “contributed 3 millions of those views”.
We love Latest Sightings Kruger and all the incredible videos they put online. Take a look at some of our favourites below.
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