central limpopo valley elephant research project - Mashatu Game ...

Elephants are often the victims of snares and in the nine years I have been studying
these amazing creatures we had to shoot several youngsters with snares around
their feet too far gone to save them. Smaller elephants due to their inquisitive nature
sometimes get their trunks caught in these wire snares. The snare will slowly tighten
around the trunk and as it does it cuts deeper and deeper into the trunk eventually
amputating a section of the trunk. The lucky ones are those that only loose a small
portion of the trunk. They will most likely survive. The unlikely ones are those, which
a large portion of the trunk is amputated. As these animals grow up they need to fend
for themselves. It is nearly impossible for the animal to feed itself and even harder to
obtain enough water and over time the animal will die of starvation. On the reserve,
there have been amazing stories of herds taking care of these individuals feeding
them over times of food shortages but eventually the outcome is the same –
starvation!
The Wildlife Department was called as soon as the snared elephants were reported
and confirmed and a veterinarian will be coming out to the reserve early in October to
assist with the snares. Unlike the predators this is not a task we can do ourselves.
The drug used in darting an elephant is highly scheduled and only a registered
veterinarian is allowed to dart. It is also a dangerous operation especially when less
than a year old babies are involved. We will monitor the various herds as best we can
(only one herd is collared) until the arrival of the Wildlife veterinarian and hopefully
we can rescue these youngsters from a very painful and most likely fatal experience.
Ivory Drives
During this month a total
of 57 guests participated
in the Ivory Experience
and 8 volunteers partook
in the Research Shadow
Program. A total of 18
different herds were
observed during the
month but the family that
was most often seen was
that of Hestelle with
Charge’s group a close
second. Herds during the
month were mostly seen
either walking or
browsing on the thorny
Acacia trees along the Majale and Limpopo rivers.
On most of the drives we ended up sitting amongst the elephants as they hungrily fed
on the Acacia trees wondering how on earth they manage to eat those thorny twigs.
The babies are growing up fast and as they do they get more adventurous. Bored
with everyone else chomping away on the trees the babies often use the game
viewer as a big toy. An interesting behaviour this month was seen on an afternoon
visit to Cheeky’s herd. We met up with the herd on a very hot afternoon, far from any
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