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| Kruger Park Elephant |
When we
lived in Africa we were always fascinated by the wildlife there – it was way
before the advent of regular TV contributions from the likes of David
Attenborough, and the internet was not even a twinkle in someone’s eye back
then. About all we knew about Africa and the wildlife there was gleaned from
books, and reports from travellers who had been there. The reality was much
more amazing!
Whenever
we had the opportunity we used to spend time in the Game Reserves there, and
again this was before the commercialisation now seen, especially in Kenya and
Tanzania, where minibuses ferry guests around, and keep in contact with each
other so that any animal immediately is surrounded by vehicles, and there
behaviour becomes anything but natural. Back then most reserves had dirt roads
(though some had tarred access roads), and parts of the parks were only
accessible at certain times of the year – you certainly were not allowed to
drive “off-road” so had to be satisfied with what you could see from
these roads.
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| Quiçama, Angola |
Our first
Game Reserve was Quiçama National Park, in Angola, in 1960. We borrowed a Land
Rover from a friend who used to use it for hunting, so it was open-topped, and
had a raised “shooting seat” in the back (I must hastily add that my family
were, and still are, very anti-hunting, we just borrowed the vehicle!) – these
made it completely unsuitable for driving round a park where there were
elephant, buffalo, rhino, and reputedly also some lion, but we were blissfully
naive back then, and it made a great game viewing vehicle. My Dad actually got
out and walked away to take this photo, which again is something you just do
not do!
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| On Safari |
This trip
did, however, awaken our passion for wildlife, and many happy holidays were
spent in parks and reserves in Southern Africa. Nowadays most parks “suggest”
that you go game watching early morning and late afternoon, when animals are
easily found at waterholes, and spend the rest of your day (and your money!) in
the camp. We used to be sitting in the car at daybreak when they opened the
camp gates, and then spend the whole day wandering about (in a car, of course!)
until returning just before dusk, when they locked the gates again. We would
take a picnic breakfast, usually bacon sandwiches Mum had cooked in our
rondavel (cabana), and plenty of drinks in a refrigerated coolbox, plus the
makings of our lunch – so we would find a quiet spot and make lunch somewhere
in the reserve. Most parks had one or two places where you are permitted to get
out of the car, but still be on the lookout for animals, some had toilets
(primitive!) there too.
If we found
a likely looking spot, like a waterhole, we might even spend the whole day
there, watching the comings and goings of different animals throughout the day
– at times it almost seemed as though they had allotted times to drink, to
avoid traffic jams! During one such trips (in the late 60′s) we found an
elephant watering hole and witnessed behaviour we struggled to comprehend. We
are forever being told not to anthropomorphise animal behaviour (that means to
attribute human emotions and behaviour to animals), but we could find no other
way to understand what we witnessed. This particular camp, in Rhodesia (now
Zimbabwe) had constructed brick-built drinking holes, fed by a wind-pump,
adjacent to natural watering places, maybe a stream or a small dam – it meant
that even in droughts there was fresh water, but also it meant that there was
clean water for the animals to drink as well as a wallow. What we witnessed,
though, was that all the adult males congregated round these holes, and the
females and juveniles had to make do with the other water source. If an
adolescent male approached these bulls, one of them would “growl” and he
quickly returned back to the others. It looked like an exclusive male club,
with a closely guarded membership!
The females and juveniles often struggled to get
access to the other water supply, especially if it was a stream and had high
banks, but they would line up and extend their trunks down onto the water –
again what fascinated us is that they would close ranks so that the really small
babies could not get close to the steepest places, and possibly fall in, but
had to make their way along this row of big grey bodies until they found a
space where the bank was not so high, and they could safely drink or play
in the water.
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| Evening at the waterhole |
But what
really amazed us one afternoon is that one of the big males, we guessed the
patriarch, but there was no way of knowing, suddenly looked up rapidly – he had
heard something in the distance (elephants communicate using sub-sonic rumbles
inaudible to the human ear) – and he then set off away from the group across
the bush. We could see nothing, but he had a determined stride and looked to
have real purpose. About 500 yards away he stopped, and suddenly out of the
trees in front of him another small herd of elephants appeared, and when they
met they touched trunks and then started back to the others. It looked just
like someone greeting friends at their front door! Suddenly he stopped again,
and while the others carried on and joined the first group he again walked back
and greeted a second group of visitors – and then stayed again while a third
group appeared, this time returning all the way with them. As they got back to
the watering holes the groups separated – the adult males to the “bar” and the
females and juveniles to the stream, where the young ones all started playing
together. One of the young adult males with the last group tried to join the
males, but he too was “shooed” away – he obviously was almost an adult within
his own herd, but not in this exalted group.
We sat in
amazement in the car – had we really just witnessed this “human” interaction
between elephants? We had no other explanation of what we had seen, but it was
decades later that zoologists started to acknowledge that wild animals do actually
socially interact, and have very strong hierarchical structures in the herds.
Whatever it was we saw we were privileged to have seen such a touching display
from the largest animal that walks on the earth with us!
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| Old Bull Elephant |
