Djuma Cam: The World’s Oldest Nature Cam
Running Continuously Since 1998
Watch Djuma Waterhole Cam Live
Before YouTube, Facebook, and smartphones, a camera in the South African bush was already sending wildlife to the internet. That was 1998.
The Djuma Cam is still watching the same waterhole today.
As this article was being written, a leopard was calling in the bush just behind the camera. That's Djuma.
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How It Started
It's August 17th, 1998. Paul Clifford and Graham Wallington, working with Djuma reserve owners Jurie and Pippa Moolman, rolled a CCTV camera onto a solar-powered trailer and pointed it at Gowrie Dam.
The feed travelled over an analog microwave link to the lodge, where a PC uploaded a still image to servers in California every 30 seconds via dial-up.
In those early days the trailer was loaded onto an old game-drive vehicle the team called “Skadonk”, so it could follow animal sightings around the reserve.
The engineering was gloriously scrappy - jury-rigged power, analog signals bouncing through the bush, and a lot of patient tinkering to keep the feed alive. The moment that changed everything came when a pride of lions killed a zebra near camp.
The team drove out with a generator and lights, broadcast their first live kill, and watched as viewers around the world sent messages back through Pippa at the lodge. When the lions dragged the carcass out of frame, Jurie inched two vehicles forward - never stepping on the ground - to reposition the camera while the world watched. That was the moment it stopped being a novelty.
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3 Decades of Firsts
Djuma became a testing ground for almost every major innovation in wildlife broadcasting:
• One of the first wildlife cameras to test remote pan, tilt and zoom - early operators in Johannesburg controlled the feed while it still refreshed every 30 seconds.
• Virtual game drives in 1999, years before the technology existed to make them seamless.
• An autofocus workaround built from scratch because early analog cameras had none - operators triggered a focus sweep and selected the sharpest frame by file size.
• Experiments with drone support, 360-degree cameras, eye-level rigs, and remote-controlled rover cams, some of which later appeared on National Geographic television.
• An IRC and Boma community that formed around the feed - one of the first online wildlife communities, predating Facebook and MySpace by around seven years.
• A direct pipeline that launched some of the biggest names in wildlife broadcasting: Africam, WildEarth, National Geographic, and SafariLIVE all used Djuma as a launchpad.
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The Zoomies
Djuma is not a passive webcam. Remote volunteers from around the world - known as “zoomies” - log in on scheduled shifts to pan, tilt, and zoom the camera in search of animals.
When something moves at the waterhole, a human being is guiding the lens toward it.
Most webcams are watched by people. Djuma Cam is also guided by them.
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What You'll See
The camera frames Gowrie Dam, a waterhole that draws a steady flow of wildlife.
Animals need water, which makes a waterhole one of the best places on earth to point a camera and wait.
🐘 Elephants - often arriving in groups, sometimes filling the frame.
🦌 Impala - the most common antelope on the reserve, light brown and constantly alert.
🫎 Waterbuck - look for the distinctive white circle on the rump.
🦌 Nyala - males are dark with white stripes and yellow legs; females are orange with white stripes on the flanks.
🐊 A wide variety of birds and reptiles, including crocodiles when conditions allow.
🐆 Occasional big-cat visits - leopard and lion pass through, though never on schedule.
There will be quiet stretches. That’s part of it. The cam runs 24 hours a day, and the arrivals come without warning.
Source: Djuma Cam Story
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