Pilanesberg is an unusual place. Thousands of years ago, it was an active volcano. Over the centuries, the lava cooled and the volcanic activity ceased. The crater in which the game reserve sits now provides a special enviornment for the creatures and vegitation that flourish there. The Pilanesberg guidebooks tells us that this enviornment is truly unique in that Pilanesberg may be the only place where one will find Impala and Springbok and Red Hartebeest and Tsessebe living in the same territory.

The Pilanesberg Game Reserve was man-made, at least insofar as the animals are concerned. The location was selected, fenced off from the rest of the world, non-indigenous creatures and structures were removed, and the animals were imported to their new home at Pilanesberg. Several generations of animals have come and gone and the fauna roaming the land are as "at home" and comfortable as they would have been had not the hand of man interceded.