Nature's masterpiece

Wednesday 17th September

Sudwala Lodge, Mpumalanga

A kiss from Caspar

Receiving a kiss from an African elephant is even less pleasant than it sounds.

It was early morning and we were in an elephant sanctuary in Hazyview.  Working with two bull elephants, Kito and Caspar, we began the morning by brushing them down.  This was not for keeping them clean - they are more than capable of that themselves - but is rather a chance to check for any tics or signs of infection.

Caspar was just a calf when his entire herd was culled as part of plans to reduce the overpopulated elephant community in the Kruger Park twenty-five years ago.  As a baby, he was spared and was instead sold to a private keeper in Namibia, who also had three other elephants.  As they all grew, though, they began destroying the trees on a local banana plantation, and the farmer shot the three other elephants.  Their owner contacted the sanctuary to re-home Caspar in a safe environment.

Brushing Kito (left) and Caspar

Kito's story is similar, beginning life in the wild, going to a private owner in Mozambique before ending up in the sanctuary.

The keepers in the sanctuary have had to work hard to win the trust of these elephants, as they still remember humans as being the ones bringing such terror to their families.  Elephants, as they say, never forget.  One keeper summed up their past rather well: "where there's man and there's money, things go bad."

After brushing them down, we had a chance to get to know each elephant, examining their trunk, ears, feet and toenails, stomach, knees, tail, tusks and mouth.  (This included feeling their tongues, a feeling not dis-similar to a Noel Edmunds gunge tank.)  Then came our reward from the elephant - the dreaded kiss.

Caspar used his trunk to firmly plant a very warm, moist, sticky smacker on my neck and face - an experience I hope never to repeat.

We then led them hand-in-trunk to be fed.  All the time spent interacting with these giants, it was striking how socially responsive they are, talking the whole time and leaving us in no doubt as to what they enjoyed or didn't enjoy.  John Donne was right when he described elephants as "nature's masterpiece".

Walking Kito

It also got me thinking back to a conversation with Jacob a few days ago in the Kruger Park. The park is big enough to provide sustainable habitat for around 9000 elephants.  At the time Caspar was orphaned, there was a cull because numbers had reached 13,000.

With no culls having taken place in recent years, there are now over 21,000 elephants in the Kruger Park, and with such competition for food, they have started pushing over trees to get to the higher branches, damaging the habitat and endangering the survival of other species.

Attempts to increase the size of land available to them by opening the border with Mozambique in the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Park have failed, as this has afforded easy passage for rhino poachers.  Translocating entire herds to other parts of Africa has proved too expensive, time inefficient and stressful to the animals.

Caspar

All of this leaves the conservationists with a conundrum: allow the elephant population to continue to rise and risk endangering other species or recommence the culling of these beautiful and socially aware animals.

It really is an impossible problem to solve, and a decision I'm glad I'm not responsible for, but after bonding with some of them so closely, it's hard to contemplate any harm being done to these fascinating animals.