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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