Dzanga Forest Elephants

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Nov 30 2007 | By: admin

Hello everyone. I’m Andrea Turkalo and I have been working in the Central African Republic for the last 25 years and involved on a variety of wildlife studies including savannah elephants, western lowland gorillas and for the past seventeen years on forest elephants. Conservation of wildlife is my passion and I hope that my work is making a difference in the future of animals in this part of the world.

The Dzanga Forest Elephant Study now in its seventeenth year is the longest ongoing study of forest elephants, Loxodonta cyclotis. We have identified over 3000 elephants and are following their daily lives at the Dzanga Clearing in the Central African Republic.

The Dzanga Clearing in the Central African Republic attracts more forest elephants than any other clearing in the Central Africa region. On any day, we see between forty and one hundred elephants. Elephants are present in this clearing 24 hours a day and are attracted to the area by the availability of mineral salts, which are found below the surface of the clearing.

Elephants spent most of their time in the bai digging in search of this mineral layer. The biggest males dig most of these holes and spend a lot of their time competing for the better holes. Female access the minerals by pumping down through the surface water of the clearing with their trunks to the minerals. During the dry season, the surface of the clearing is drier and the elephants dig more holes making minerals available to more animals, which also include forest buffalo, bongo, giant forest hog and red river hogs.

It is now the beginning of the dry season and animal activity is quickly picking up in the bai. With the advent of the dry season, we are seeing more individuals than throughout the rest of the year. This is also the height of mating season and the bigger males who have been absent for most of the year will now reappear in the bai looking for potential mates.

Today we observed over one hundred elephants in the clearing, which included many family groups and about seven large males. The males spent most of the afternoon waiting for the biggest male, Malek, who dominated the biggest hole in the bai, to vacate the hole therefore giving the other elephants a chance to partake of the best mineral site

The biggest surprise of the afternoon was the appearance of an adult female with two offspring who I first thought I had never seen before. Her ears were clearly marked with a sizeable hole in her left ear. Upon returning to camp, I looked through my identity cards to see if I had ever seen this female and sure enough, I found her, her name being Fenena. The first time I first identified her was in 1994, and then saw her two more times in January and February of 1998. The last time I saw her in 1998 had two offspring both males. Today she was accompanied by two offspring, a sub adult and juvenile female with no sign of any males. The males have left the group and are now on their own. This is the most interesting part of the observations at Dzanga: the appearance of individuals who have not been seen for long periods. We wonder where they have gone, what they have experienced and seen. This is also what keeps us here, teasing out the relationships and witnessing one of the most exciting wildlife sites in the Central African region.

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