Dzanga Forest Elephants

Category: Elephants | Date: Jan 04 2008 | By: admin

Sorry for the lack of blogging, there have been some technical problems of connecting to the internet from this area of the Central African Republic. This will result in a lack of photos until we can suss out the problem. Despite the technical difficulties there are record numbers of elephant being sighted in Dzanga Clearing over the past week. Over the period of several days there were more than 150 individuals observed during the daylight hours but this still doesn’t break the all time daylight record of 180 seen in the early 1990’s.

With the continuing dry season there is less and less quality food available for the elephants and this is evident everywhere with the increase destruction of the vegetations. The roads are strewn with broken saplings and an area not far from our camp which is ordinarily filled with weedy secondary vegetation was leveled in one night by a group of elephants. With a remote night camera we would have filmed an undoubtedly comic scene of elephants thoroughly enjoying themselves.

In camp we are also witnessing increased elephant activity with nightly visits from elephant family groups and lone males who come in search of anything palatable. Before retiring we check to see that anything which may interest our large friends is put away out of their reach and their keen sense of smell. In the past they have broken down the wall of our storehouse after smelling bars of soap. They even find where I have spit the remains of my toothpaste and eat the soil ! This is a dry season phenomenon since they are food stressed. Fruit, a high quality food, is scarce so the eles spend there time searching far and wide for food to quell their enormous appetites.

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