Zambia World Wide

Elephant encounters

Elephant behaviour

Firstly I would like to share some of the behavioral patterns of elephants that I experienced and why the Bushmen have such a great respect for the elephant.

With my first visit to Kasane I often encountered trees lying across the 400km.dirt track between Nata and Kasane. In some cases the tree had to be chopped up and removed from the track as there was no chance of making a detour around the fallen tree. The 400km stretch could take days to cover, as the track would zigzag between obstacles. Where the track became impassable you made your own detour. Punctures and being bogged down in either soft sand or wet turf formed part of the package. (On page 8 in my article “Pioneering in Botswana” is more information on this stretch). My labourers showed me the proof that the fallen trees was the work of the elephants. They were convinced that they do it to prevent humans from encroaching into their territory. I in turn, believed that they pushed the trees towards the track as there was nothing hindering the tree when it fell.

When I started with the construction of the open wire routes in Kasane, I soon realized that my labourers were correct. With the surveying I also observed a strange behaviour of the baboons which indicated that they too were not happy with our presence. They would appear from nowhere and would either swing on the survey rods until it was on the ground or they would pull it out of the ground and run a distance with it before releasing it. To overcome this I had to survey shorter distances and use additional labour as the labourers felt unsafe if they were on their own.

Once we started planting the poles the elephants came to the party. We would arrive at the site in the morning to find that most of the poles planted, were pushed over. I thought by straightening them each day they would give up but I was fighting a losing battle. With advice from the department Fauna and Flora in South Africa we dug the soil over around the pole so that the elephant had to tread on the loose soil before reaching the pole. The outer perimeter of the loosened soil had to be marked with rocks or something similar. The elephants were scared that the soil could collapse under their weight. Elephants are the only animals that can’t jump. We were informed that the elephants even dug up newly laid cables.

Little did I know there was another surprise waiting for me. When we started running the wires the elephants would push huge trees across the wires. The weight of the trees snapped the wires. Some trees were so big that it was hard to believe that elephants were capable of pushing it over. To remove some of the huge trees pushed over by the elephants, we first had to cut them up before the tractor could pull them out of the way. To overcome this intrusion it meant that any tree close to the open wires had to be cut down. Fortunately I had the loan of two chain saws from the forestry department.

The Bushman’s opinion of an elephant

They display a great respect for elephants and virtually place them on an equal footing with man. Here are some of their beliefs I experienced:-

Many are reluctant to eat the meat of an elephant as they claim it resembles that of a human being.

They pointed out that the breasts of the female are between its front legs whereas with other animals it is between the rear legs.

The shape of the front and rear feet differs like that of our hands and feet.

On one of my hunting trips I noticed that before they opened up the stomach of the elephant they would first cover the eye which was above the ground with grass and then cut a piece of its trunk off. This was done to prevent the elephant’s spirit when departing from the opened stomach identifying them. They firmly believe that the elephant’s spirit on leaving the earth goes to join their ancestors in the spiritual world. Once it enters the spiritual world and it knows who is responsible for its death it will hunt down their ancestors and kill them.