Good news to report…. During the last week there has been a big military operation to rid this area of elephant poachers. As was written in several previous blogs the elephant poaching had been escalating and for the first time in 18 years elephants were shot in the Dzanga clearing.

This resulted in the central government sending a military contingent to deal with the problem and so far the results have been encouraging with a few of the worst poachers being apprehended and sent off to prison. The operation is continuing and will last for 20 days and hopefully there will be follow up in the future.

So I commend the Central African government for this support of conservation in this part of the country. I’ve spoken to a few of the people involved and they are encouraged by the results thus far achieved. Many of them have been involved in antipoaching operations in the north of the country where the situation is much different.

Meanwhile the Dzanga Clearing has been calm and we have been seeing about 60 elephants a day. A few new borns have been recorded in the last month and the number of larger males has dropped off. For the last two days we have been observing Tim, a younger male who is in musth. The last time I saw him was in 2004. For the last two days he has been in the bai looking for receptive females but has little luck, he also is spending his time discouraging any potential competition out of the bai.

One of the newest calves belongs to Tess III, who makes up part of a well know group at the bai. Her sister Tess II has two calves so with the new addition this family group totals now 5.

Tess III & her newborn son

So from a part of the world rife with bad news there is a glimmer of hope for the wildlife here. For those of us on the ground this is a bit of encouragement so we will persevere.

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