ELEPHANT SIGHTINGS - 2000

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December 2000

Elephant viewing was very quiet this month after the great numbers experienced up until the middle of November. On some days there were sightings of only one or two bulls and few herds of females and youngsters were encountered. With all of the elephants seen, the pattern of movement appeared to be to keep walking, feeding as they went and not staying to continue eating in any particular area. This may well be due to the area having been overutilised several months ago when literally hundreds of elephants were around, but it is also probably a result of both the abundance of food and water as well as the type of food sought by the elephants. Even though relatively little rain has fallen, there are still many waterholes around from last season. Food too is not only abundant, but the elephants are in the enviable position of being able to choose what they want. At present many of the grasses are producing seeds and it is not uncommon to see the elephants reach for mouthfuls of grass and eat only the seedheads, letting the stalks fall to the ground. The Panicum species of grass appear particularly preferred. Some bark stripping is still occurring, but on a scale much reduced from what was seen last month. In fact, the targeting of trees, which happened for much of the dry season, has definitely calmed down and grasses are being concentrated upon. It could be expected that the Marula season will be in full swing during January and this should keep the elephants busy as they go from tree to tree in search of these berries. However, although this time of year is often associated with greater numbers of elephants as a result of the fruit ripening, it may not be as noticeable this year since it is highly likely that areas all over the Kruger National Park will have good yields, allowing the elephants to scatter far and wide and still get enough to eat. One strange sight this month was a young male elephant with three tusks. The additional piece of ivory was not his own and extended vertically a good 30 centimetres from his right-hand-side lip. It appeared as if he had had a tussle with another elephant and by some fluke, the other elephant had jammed his one tusk into the lip of the other and this had then broken off. The 'three-tusked' elephant was showing obvious signs of discomfort, blowing sand onto the tusk to keep insects away from the wound where it projected from the skin. The elephant was seen in this state for approximately one week before it managed to get rid of the offending tooth.

November 2000

As with rhinos, elephant viewing was superb up until the middle of the month when everything went quiet. Although these large pachyderms were seen on a daily basis, conditions went from seeing in excess of a hundered elephants a day to sometimes encountering perhaps only one or two bulls. The abundance of food has probably been the main reason for this dispersal and the vegetation on Mala Mala can certainly do with a well-earned recovery phase. A great deal of baark-stripping was evident in the elephant behaviour this month, particularly from the knobthorn acacia trees.

October 2000

Elephants were again plentiful this month with some fine sightings of bulls as well as breeding herds. One large group in particular which stayed for some weeks, wandering around, numbered in excess of perhaps 100 animals. Such gatherings are no doubt temporary and the individual kinship groups will split up as circumstances dictate. As has been the case for the last few months now, most breeding herds have some tiny calves in attendance. Although no births have been witnessed, it is highly probable that some of these babies were born on Mala Mala itself.

September 2000

Elephant numbers continued to swell during September, particularly the breeding herds of females and their young. As has been seen for several years now on Mala Mala, this is a good time to view such breeding herds on the reserve and several very young, almost day-old calves, have been seen. This too has been seen over the last few years on the reserve. Although elephants perhaps do not really have a dedicated time when calves are born, under conditions which have prevailed over the last few years, it has become common for births to occur here at this time. Some of these youngsters have provided remarkable sightings, particularly when the mothers have been quite relaxed in the presence of vehicles.

August 2000

For some time towards the beginning of this game-report period, elephants were reasonably scarce on the reserve, with some days producing only a half-dozen or so bulls for viewing. However, all of this changed by months end with some large herds moving in, numbers in some groups perhaps approaching 100 animals. It is quite certain that such large groups would not move permanently together, but would be gatherings around some water or food resource. Most such sightings took place in close proximity to the Sand River where not only the water proved an attraction, but also the food. Areas of green grass in some active seeplines well away from the Sand River where water can still be seen oozing to the soil surface have still proved attractive to elephants, particularly lone bulls.

July 2000

Elephants were encountered in great numbers during July, many of the herds of females and young being accompanied by bulls with impressive tusks. Much of the movement of these elephant groups appears to be well orchestrated with communications between apparently discrete kinship groups. As has been the case over the last month or so, sightings of many herds of females and young one day may be followed by relatively few encounters over the next few days as they, as a group, move away. The end of the Torchwood fruiting season occurred at the beginning of the month and with grass showing a marked drying off, this perhaps a consequence of both the cold weather and general drying of the land, elephants have started to concentrate more and more upon trees as their main source of food. This is likely to increase over the next few months as the drying continues and trees such as the Acacias start flowering and produce the first leaves of spring.

June 2000

Elephant viewing during June was good, but not always consistent, with vast numbers of elephants suddenly vanishing for a week or so before reappearing. On some of the days there were perhaps in excess of 8 or 9 individual breeding herds encountered some of these in excess of 40 or 50 animals. Towards the end of the month several particularly impressively tusked male elephants arrived on the reserve. The two items of food which this month seemed to draw much attention from the elephants appeared to be the very green sedges and grasses still to be found in some of the seeplines, as well as the fruits from the Torchwood trees. This year the yield from these trees has been particularly good, perhaps a consequence of all the rains. Elephants have been seen spending many minutes beneath a single tree, shaking it to get some of the fruit to fall and then painstakingly picking the berries up to throw them into their mouths.

May 2000

Good elephant sightings have continued to be the order of the day with both male elephants and breeding herds of females and youngsters being seen. This has been somewhat surprising given the vast supply of water and food which has been around for the last few months which may have caused the elephants to spread far and wide, saving the area close to the Sand River for leaner times when it would become their mainstay. As conditions change, so too does the vegetation and the elephants eating preferences. At the moment the vegetation on the upper reaches of many of the seeplines is dominated by soft green sedges and grasses and these areas have enjoyed the elephants attention. At the same time as they have been eating this most palatable looking material, the elephants have been sinking ankle-deep into these marshy areas. When these patches eventually do dry up, the soil will probably set like concrete, making for interesting driving conditions. Another most popular food at this time of year are the berries of the Torchwood Trees (Balanites maughamii). The high oil content of the berries is well known and this is what attracts the elephants to them. The method of feeding is almost always the same; the elephant approaches the tree, gathers what berries are already on the ground with its trunk and eats them, invariably by throwing one berry at a time into its mouth. The elephant then gives the tree a hard yet brisk shake to dislodge other berries which it proceeds to pick up. This years crop of Torchwood berries appears to have been particularly prolific and entertaining viewing has been had.

February/ March/ April 2000

Quite surprisingly, elephants have been plentiful over the preceding few months. It could be expected that the heavy rains would have caused the elephants to disperse widely and sightings would decline. However, events have been quite the opposite with good sightings of elephants, particularly breeding herds. Behaviour has been such that it appears that many of the herds have been congregating, probably around some or other food source, and at times during April there were gatherings of in excess of fifty elephants. As winter approaches and the quality of the herbaceous material declines and trees start translocating aboveground food products into their roots for winter storage, so the elephants have attacked the trees, expertly stripping their bark in search of the succulent, nutrient-rich under-layers.

January 2000

The start of the ripening of the Marula berries has had a definite influence on elephant behaviour with the bulls in particular spending much time moving from one fruiting tree to the next. However, elephant concentrations have perhaps not been as great as could be expected and this may have to do with the abundant rains providing a plentiful and widespread supply of food. One indication of this is the fact that so far there has not been a single incident of elephants entering the grounds of the Mala Mala Main Camp to eat the Marula berries from the trees there. Typically the fruit from the trees in the camps is bigger and more plentiful. Perhaps this is due to the elephants finding a good quantity and quality of food in the bush. Alternatively, the tremendous rains may have produced fruit that is not as tasty as usual and the incentive to find Marula berries is not as great as is usually the case. January also saw the elephants concentrating on the ripe seed-heads of many of the grasses, particularly of the Panicum species. These probably highly nutritious seeds are gathered by the elephants using the trunk as a grasping scythe-like tool to feed gathered bundles of grass into their mouths, biting off only the seedheads and letting the fibrous stems fall to the ground.

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