Dzanga Forest Elephants

Another amazing experience in the forest. Guards came to camp the other day alerting me about an elephant carcass they found at the edge of the river just below the camp. All I could think of was more poaching. I hurried to have a look and there in the middle of the path at the water’s edge was an elephant which I estimated to be less than 15 months old. Its tusks had not yet emerged and in forest elephants tusks usually are visible after they are 18 months old. It was in good condition and it puzzled me as to what could have killed it. I then heard trumpeting and looked up river and saw what was probably its mother and an older sibling coming towards us. The mother was obviously upset at the death and this also explained why we had heard so many vocalizations the previous night. From my calculation the calf had died the day before between 17:00 and 23:00 so we could exclude poaching since we had heard no gunshots. Now with the mother bearing down on us,we backed off from the carcass and the guards continued on a patrol of the area.

No we had to figure a way to get the carcass out of the way since it was right in the middle of the path where tourists walked to the clearing. I thought with the number of people we had near by. If we could move the carcass a couple of meters into the river it would most likely float. The next morning we went to the river with about 10 people which included the local guard patrol and people from my camp. Because it had rained and the water level was up it was easy to move the elephant. As we turned the body over we saw that there were wound marks and they were in pairs so this explained how it was killed. It looked like a buffalo had gored the elephant calf twice leaving considerble puncture wounds. After it was wounded the calf had walked and probably bled considerably before collapsing and dying on the path.

So we pushed and heaved and finally the elephant was in about a meter of water and floated. Rather than leave it to its own devices we guided the elephant a couple of hundred feet where it was in the midst of the current and then allowed the river to gently take it away. It was a sad farewell as we stood and watched it disappear in a bend in the river.

In the bai we frequently see small elephant calves challenging buffalo. In most instances the buffalo back off but in this case the buffalo charged and the calf paid with its life.

Patrolling