I got fried today.
Rains must be imminent now. Probably tomorrow. And the elephants were again feeling the heat. They were in the hills today and the only way I could follow them was on foot. So I had great fun walking after them from mud wallow to mud wallow. And it’s actually quite surprising how many seeps there are in the hills. They are never far from one.
All day I never did find Mandlovu and her family. Not sure where they are hanging out.
Leaving the hills I drove down to Malilangwe dam and found 5 young elephant bulls grazing in the open.
I was sure at some stage they would go swimming. So wait I did. There’s no shade along the dam and the sun was baking today, over 40C (over 100F) in the shade. Who knows what the temperature was in the sun. I was close to melting!
Eventually they did move in for a swim and swam for about 2 hours. I couldn’t blame them, but could have done with the same treatment myself. Anyway at least I was able to shoot a whole lot and took some 400 pictures.
After frying out there I headed back to camp for refreshment and a little cooling down before getting back in to the field.
About an hour before sunset the herd of elephants went to swim at Simbiri dam. So I was able to shoot piles more.
And while they were swimming the baboons were taking up their roosting positions in the surrounding hills on Hlamba Mlonga. It’s always such fun watching these guys. So human like! While they had their sundowner on the hill I headed back to camp.
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It must have been torture for you, Kim, to sit there in that awful heat and watch these guys having such a good , cool, time. I’m surprised that the herds with the cows and calves don’t just live at the dam, too, instead of making do with the small mud holes.
At what age to the male calves generally leave the family herd and go off to be with other males? Guess we aren’t likely to be around when Chipfongwe goes off but it would be fun to follow him as he ages.
Paula
Not exactly ballerinas, but they are more graceful in the water than I would have thought.
Everytime I saw one of those trunks poke up, I thought “Up periscope.”
I’m still thinking of your “near miss” with the elephants the other day. I know I have seen you let them come right up to you when you are sitting in the land rover. What makes them dangerous in one situation and not another?
Kim, you might find this link of interest.
http://www.elephants.com/bios.htm
It’s an elephant sanctuary in the USA that takes in abused former circus elephants or those that zoos no longer want. The individual stories of each elephant are heart-wrenching but what the sanctuary does for them is amazing. Be sure to check the diaries under “Our Elephants” and you can click on the Elecam in the upper right corner to see live video….but it’s not terribly clear.
It is work like yours and others who study these animals who have made us all more aware of the complex societies of the elephant and of their great intelligence. It is a wonder that more of those captured and imprisoned elephants, over the years, haven’t gone mad and rampaged.
Paula
Paula, I happened to be with a group of people a couple years ago when a lady remarked that her husband was “the head trainer of the bull elephant at a California zoo.”
She went on and on about what a dangerous job it was because male elephants were known to “suddenly and With No Reason, lash out.” After several people oohed and aahed about what a brave man her husband was, I made some comments to the effect that I saw tons of reasons why an elephant in a zoo, trained with a hook, and kept from other elephants would lash out, and that people who cruelly used wild animals for profit, not caring a bit about the natural needs of the animal, deserved to be stomped on a bit by an elephant who was “lashing out.”
After that, for some reason, I found it hard to find people who would chit-chat with me so I left the get-together early.
If you have never seen the online video of elephants being trained by circus handlers, don’t go looking for it. It will make you sick and stay in your mind forever.
When I see these elephants in the photos and videos that Kim so graciously presents to us and see how they care for one another, I am even more saddened when I think of those who have been caged alone.
Sorry, I’m going on and on. I’m venting and I know I’m preaching to the choir. Those of us that anxiously wait for Kim’s photos and news each day are obviously not the ones who need the lecture about letting wild animals be wild.
Paula and Pat — I second everything you say! I wish we could get everyone who goes to a zoo or the circus to watch KIm’s footage to see what elephants truly are. Thanks to scientists and researchers like Cynthia Moss, Joyce Poole, Katy Payne and others — and to filmmakers like Kim — we know so much more about these magnificent creatures and what they need to thrive, and the contrast between that and zoos/circuses becomes ever more stark.
Paula — Males leave the matriarchal herd in their teens. And the sanctuary you refer to is The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. Carol Buckley, the founder and director, is a true visionary and revolutionary.
I fully agree with the comments on the zoos and circuses! I wonder why we even have zoos anymore. In this day and age when so many claim to be so much more educated than the past generations, how do we still allow these places to have a place in our society? And these keepers, I wish more would be shown what true nature really is. It’s a cycle. The less animals left in the wild and endangered the more people want to “lock them up” to prevent extinction. But in reality are not making the situation any better. Its a debate that will go on until there are no more animals to fight over! When will the sadness end? And how many needless deaths will occur. Kim thank you for bringing reality into our homes. Its much better than anything you’ll find on the nightly reality shows on tv! I hope your work continues for many many years to come!
Cheers
Paula the bulls move off when they’re teenagers. So no probbaly won’t be around when Chipfongwe goes galavanting.
Pat. Their approach is usually very readable and i hope I can read it well enough. And usually when you’re just parked there they really have no reason to just suddenly charge.
if only the world was big enough to accommodate all the elephant and all the people. We’re running out of space for them in Africa. Scary.
Adding to the above mentioned concerns, what about elephant back safaris, most of those elephants used are seperated at young ages from their family herds, and supposedly trained, usually by force and un-natural methods to break the animals spirit. Seperating young elephants from their family herds causes stress to both young and old, sometimes causing older elephants to be more aggressive to humans. Next time you read about elephant back safaris think about it, its not just the zoo and circus. Watching the excellant footage provided by Kim only enforces the message, these wonderful, intelligent mammals should be left wild and to roam like they have been doing for ages. Saddly though in todays very advanced age commercial interest has become more important than leaving nature set the course, we as humans, sit atop the Animal Kingdom (homo sapiens) but as often fail to learn and understand from our mistakes.
Kim, I think the world is big enough to accommodate the animals and the humans. Somehow we have to find a way to convince the humans that they are not superior to
to other life forms on Earth. As the Elephant does well, so will I.
I think the Smithsonian National Zoo in WDC is one of the “better” zoos; yet their elephants in colder weather are confined to a cement-floored room, complete with iron bars and hay available. The Zoo brags that the elephants get a bath (hose-down) every day from their keepers. I don’t think the National Zoo is intentionally being cruel to elephants. I am surprised that the zoo is not more aware of the social needs of elephants — I don’t want to think they don’t care.
However, unless I am being mis-led, zoos in the US are paying lots of $$$ to China to study the Giant Panda — paying out more than they are taking in to help save this wonderful animal on the danger list. It seems, and I hope someone corrects me if I am wrong, that there is a Panda Oversite Board that is watching carefully to assure that the Pandas are not misused and that they are properly bred. If zoos would direct their interests toward the research necessary to save those animale on the endangered list, then I’m all for the zoos. I feel some zoos in the US are doing their best to contribute to the continuance of the Panda line. Correct me if I am wrong! Are the zoos doing this to the detriment of other animals?
When a zoo dedicates its resourses to saving a species, I can not fault them, even though I hate seeing an animal caged.
I have watched Tai Shan, the panda born at the National Zoo, since the day of his birth.
He is a doll, and I can’t stand to think ‘we’ will have to send him back to China at age 2.
However, if I am following correctly, China is commited to doing whatever is necessary to
continue the species, and Tai Shan may be bred to another Panda here in the US.
Again, I have rambled off topic, but I think there is a huge variance between the wonderful work Kim is doing vs the work that others (Zoos, etc.) are doing to save an endangered species. My wish is that all animals have an opportunity to live the way they were meant to live — and die the way Mother Nature meant them to die.
As long as the parties involved are truely acting in the best interests of Nature’s animal,
Those are superb pictures. Thank you.
Pat — Unfortunately, the National Zoo is NOT one of the better zoos. Last year they euthanized one of their eles, Toni, because of advanced arthritis. Toni had problems when she came to them from the Scranton Zoo years before, which were only exacerbated by National’s environment. National also still uses free contact management (keepers are in direct contact with the eles and use the ankus or hook to direct them); any enlightened zoo — and there are so few of them — use protected contact now.
The National Zoo is supposed to start work this spring on a new ele exhibit, which will cost a total of $60 MILLION, making it the most expensive ele exhibit ever. It would increase the size of the current exhibit (about 3/4 of an acre) to 4 acres — but they also want to have 10 eles eventually!
Joyce Poole, who directs the Elephant Voices project of the Amboseli Elephant Research Project, has said that big bucks like that could support entire POPULATIONS of eles in the wild! (Kim — I’d love your take on that, too.) Zoos use “conservation” as a marketing tool but they devote only a small fraction of their budgets to conservation programs in the wild and none of them have ever released any of their eles back to the wild. As far as I’m concerned, real conservation takes place in elephants’ natural habitats, not in the confines of a zoo.
And on the subject of when males leave the herd — the National Zoo had said it would separate Kandula, their male calf, from his mother Shanthi and the other cow, Ambika, when he turned five. He is now five so I will be interested to see if and when they follow through on their promise.
If Africa had $60 million for elephant conservation that would go a HUGE HUGE way in helping. But having said that, in the end we are always going to get to the problem where we run out of habitat for these wonderful animals.
It would be absolutely brilliant though if we could direct these sort of funds to Africa’s elephants!
I’ve given up believing that Zoos and Sanctuaries are doing their best for animals. After all I’ve read of the “great work” being done with pandas, I just read an article that the Wolong Sanctuary in China (supposedly at the center of this great conservation movement) sent Xiang Xiang, an adult panda, totally raised in captivity by humans, out into the wild. When he was injured by a predator, they took him in treated him and sent him back out again. Last update, they feared he had fallen from a tree where he had been chased by an animal. They think he may have a broken leg, and they have no idea where he is.
A spokesperson for the Wolong Santurary said, “We had to send him back out into the wild; otherwise our experiment would have been a failure.” I suspect Xiang Xiang thinks the experiment was a horrible failure.
Kim, keep getting your message out to the world that these wild animals don’t thrive when people think of them as “experiments” with success and failure rates.