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St Lucia Estuary - iSimangaliso Wetlands Park - Elephant Coast - South Africa
St Lucia Estuary StLuciaOrgZa is a small coastal town on the East Coast of South Africa. The town falls with in the tourism region, The Elephant Coast elephantcoast and is in the Southern most part of the iSimangaliso Wetlands Park iSimangaliso.

History
Evidence of early man living in the caves up high in the Lebombo mountains dating back 130 000 years ago provided scientist with clues regarding the lifestyle of this prehistoric settlers. From this cave alone almost 69 000 stone implements and various human remains have been recovered. Some of these tools date back to the middle and early stone ages. (130 000 to 30 000 years ago.

St. Lucia was first named in 1554 as "Rio de la Medaos do Oura" ("River of the Dows of Gold") by the survivors of the Portuguese ship Saint Benedict. At this stage, only the Tugela River mouth was known as St. Lucia. Later, in 1575, the Tugela River was named Tugela. On 13 December 1575, the day of the feast of Saint Lucy, Manuel Peresterello renamed the mouth area to Santa Lucia.
 * In 1822, St. Lucia was proclaimed by the British as a township.
 * In 1895, St. Lucia Game Reserve, 30 km north of the town was proclaimed.
 * In 1971, St. Lucia Lake and the turtle beaches and coral reefs of Maputaland have been listed by the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar Convention).
 * In December 1999, the park was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Mammals in the park
The park is also home to about 1,200 Nile Crocodiles and almost 800 Hippopotami.

Other Animals include

 * Leopard
 * Greater_Kudu
 * Black_rhinoceros
 * White_rhinoceros
 * Aardvark
 * White_rhinoceros
 * White_rhinoceros