Dzanga Forest Elephants

Category: Elephants, Forest | Date: Jul 28 2008 | By: dzangaforestelephants

This week there was the death of a newborn whose story started to unfold five days ago when we observed the newborn while it was still alive and observed in the clearing. We realized that the mother wasn’t present and the newborn, a female, was being watched over by two sub adult females, neither of which who were lactating. They paid close attention to the baby but despite its attempts to suckle from both of them there was no milk to be had. Several times the baby would cry in distress and the two young females would try and comfort her. This went on all afternoon and I knew that it was a matter of a day or two before the calf would die. Later in the afternoon the three of them left the clearing, the newborn walking between the two young females. I tried to imagine what had happened to the calf’s mother, probably poached in the area nearby.

Two days ago at the clearing we were starting the afternoon observations when Bounga, one of the assistants, asked me if an infant he could see at the end of the bai, barely visible without binoculars, was sleeping. I looked through the spotting scope and saw this tiny infant lying down at the southern end of the bai. I watched closely and it didn’t move, often when elephants are sleeping their ears will periodically flap but this wasn’t happening. I also looked in the infant’s vicinity and there were no adult females so I concluded that the calf was dead and in all likelihood this was the same calf we had seen without its mother. The calf looked like it had died only a few hours before. Occasionally other elephants would approach it to smell it but the most dramatic reaction was that of two young females, not the same ones we saw with the calf while it was alive, who smelled the corpse and then act very alarmed. They were not at all comfortable with the situation. They would back off from the calf’s body and then approached it, this happening several times during the course of a half hour.

Giant Forest Hogs on Elephant Carcass

Today the corpse was succumbing to scavengers, the first being the palm nut vultures who were waiting for the arrival of giant forest hogs who are often observed feeding on carcasses in the forest environment. Their role is to open up the carcass making it accessible to other scavengers. A few other elephants approached the site and again smelled the body and showed alarm. No sign of the two young females we last saw with the calf before she died.

With the death of the calf there were two new calves recorded to known females. One was a male, a first born to a female belonging to a group called the Fourth Tuskless The matriarch, 4th Tuskless, was a regular visitor to the bai until June of 2002. She and her group stopped showing up in the clearing and I then started to notice the younger members of the group, some of them the offspring of 4th Tuskless. This group has reorganized itself and now consists of Fabula and her first calf, a young male as well as several sub adult females and one of the offspring of 4th Tuskless, a large juvenile female. The newest addition, a male I estimated to be only a couple of days old having seen his mother without him seven days ago. He was very healthy and keeping up with its mother who walked at a brisk pace during much of the afternoon. They met up with another member of the group, Maureen, whom I have know since the beginning of the study and a regular visitor to the bai. Maureen’s latest offspring, who is about a year old, became very interested in the newborn and left the bai with it and its mother. Maureen then realized that her calf was missing and left the bai in the direction of the trio. She later returned to the clearing with her calf as well as the new mother and her newborn.

June I & II

The June group which is made up of nine individuals also has a new calf. We hadn’t seen the mother of the calf, June III for four years and the last time we saw her was when she had her first calf, also a female. The only way we were able to identify the mother today was because she was associating with June I whom I think is her mother. June I is very familiar to us and is very easy to recognize. She is the matriarch of this group and has very long tusks and huge ears. We usually see her with June II, another of her daughters who has two calves. June II is tuskless and has a very distinct physique, long legged and a very angular head. The back of her trunk is devoid of pigment and very pink.

Although we are always observing this population of forest elephants from a fixed point, there is always another piece of their large social network being presented to us on a daily basis. To date we have identified over 4000 elephants who use the clearing and we are still finding out about their social connections and family relationships.

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Category: Elephants, Forest | Date: Jul 08 2008 | By: dzangaforestelephants

Moses

Malcolm and Moses are still in musth and were observed in the clearing yesterday. Both of them have been observed several time during the past month. Moses was there when we arrived in the afternoon and then left with Malcolm arriving shortly thereafter. Both made the rounds of the bai looking in vain for a possible mate but neither of them were successful. Also in the clearing was Maddy and her two offspring, she left the bai during the mid afternoon leaving in the direction of our return route to camp. We encountered her in the small river below our camp and she blocked our normal route and refused to leave after we tried to discourage her by slapping the surface of the water with a machete. She would look startled and back up a little huddling with her two daughters wondering who were and what we were doing. We gave up the hope of her moving our of our way and we continued home by way of a wet detour by wading home in the river, not the preferable route. Maddy finally made it to camp after dark where she thrashed in the nearby forest before coming into camp. She is familiar with the camp and is now a regular visitor. So far she has been well behaved and hasn’t destroyed anything. I find it reassuring that elephants come into camp at night even if they disrupt our sleep, their sense of safeness in this area shows us the effectiveness of our work in trying to protect them.

Maddy and Her Daughters

There were some comments on observations made in the clearing concerning the two calves, one with the retracted legs and the other who had a broken leg. One question was whether to intervene or not. My feelings about this have been made in the context in which I live, that is in a country which doesn’t have decent health care for the overwhelming majority of its citizens. So to think about mobilizing the resources to treat an elephant here for me is out of the question, since the resources and expense could be used for a greater purpose, that is to protect the area to insure the future of the species.

More importantly I see these instances as an opportunity in developing a sense of empathy for these animals, by discussing what we have observed and how it might have happened and what will eventually happen to these individuals. I think this discussion will help people think about the situation of wild animals and help them realize that animals also have problems and like people face difficult times.

This is something I have noticed with the people I work with. Over time they have observed elephants and other species in the clearing and they have observed them in a way they never have seen before. At the clearing unlike in the forest we have a clear view of the elephants and easily observe how family units interact with each other and with other unrelated individuals. One day this really hit home while observing a mother and calf in the clearing, one of the trackers watched in amazement, he turned to me and said, they are not animals, they are people. He was so impressed by elephant behavior and how a mother and calf interacted much in the same way as a human mother and her infant.

This is not to say that people here are converted to conservation by these daily insights into animal behavior. Here in a very poor country where most people are subsistence farmers, conservation is an almost impossible task. The main obstacle is economics because until the standard of living is improved people will exploit all natural resources to make it through the day. For me it is still a miracle that a place such as Dzanga still exists since it represents one of the few places in the region where one can still observe a wildness like no other.

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Category: Elephants, Forest | Date: Jul 05 2008 | By: dzangaforestelephants

Yesterday brought a surprise visitor to the bai. About six months ago we observed a newborn calf whose front legs were retracted. Because of this she is walking on her knees. She looked so tired and thin but was persistent and kept up with her group which consisted of her mother and an older sister as well as another adult female and her juvenile daughter.

Yesterday in the late afternoon I noticed a group of elephants entering the clearing from the south and realized that the adult female in the rear of the group was Gutki I, the mother of the disabled calf and immediately I thought the calf was dead. However I backed up with the spotting scope and their was the calf bumbling along. She is sadly enough in the same position and still keeping up with the group despite the handicap. The calf’s older sister is often observed draping her trunk across the calf’s back and I am not sure if that is reassurance or prodding. We wonder if the calf will survive in this condition or die when she can’t keep up with the group.

Today I remained in camp to attend to accounting and report writing but the trackers went to the clearing to count and do observations. Upon their return they said they had seen a newborn who had a broken leg and was limping badly. No news on who it might have been. We did however discuss how this might have happened and they agreed that the calf had probably stepped into a hole while running. They appeared very empathetic and concerned and felt badly there was nothing that we could do to help. Perhaps tomorrow I will find the same calf in the clearing and identify the group.

In camp another sleepless night with night visitors, a group of three elephants, a mother and her two daughters. We know the group from the clearing and had seen them in the afternoon. They have come to camp in the late afternoon to check out the garbage pit and later in the night come to eat the lawn. This time I was awoken at midnight by the sound of them eating in the area next to my house. It was the distinct sound of them ripping the grass out of the ground and then chewing it. I tried to discourage them to leave by exiting the house and illuminating them with a flashlight but it didn’t work and they returned immediately. Finally after three tries they finally gave up and left. Elephants unlike people do not sleep for extended periods of time and are basically active all the time.

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