As I’ve mentioned, we had game drives during our time in Manyeleti each morning and each evening when we were there for a total of six drives. And the morning of our first full day there, we had a foot safari after breakfast (which was after the morning game drive).
Unlike the game drives which meant loading into a Land Rover or a Toyota Land Cruiser, the foot safari simply meant walking out of camp accompanied by our driver and spotter.
Going from being in a vehicle to being on the ground makes for a significant difference in experience. We learn more about the trees.
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| Elephant Damage to Trees |
Our guide is here showing us the significant damage elephants can do to trees. Sometimes the elephant is searching for food and sometimes it is simply making a display of bravado. Of course if the elephant removes enough of the bark, it prevents any nutrients moving from the roots up the cambium layer just below the bark and the tree dies.
Elephants are also noted for toppling trees, often to provide easy access for their young to the foliage at the upper part of the tree. This has led to a very difficult conservation problem. If elephants are protected sufficiently that they grow in population in a particular area, the can do substantial environmental damage to the trees in the area and eventually will forage elsewhere, including invading farming areas. But, as someone has pointed out, the slogan “kill an elephant, save a tree” is not really attractive, nor necessary. But some means of management is necessary.
In one part, this is an example of the success of the anti-poaching efforts to prevent taking of elephants for their ivory. I don’t want to paint too rosy a picture here because the success of the program varies tremendously from area to area, and it’s important to have healthy, sustainable populations of elephants thought their traditional range. Because they are the largest land animals and have such thick hide, the major predator for elephants is the human.
In some places, the “solution” has been the selective official killing of some elephants. This is, obviously, a tremendously controversial subject. And while I acknowledge that this might be necessary, it should be a method of last resort and there are many other possible solutions. (A good book on the subject, on the anti-killing side, is Silent Thunder, In the Presence of Elephants by Katy Payne.) The big issue is, of course, money. Relocating large numbers of elephants or sterilizing some elephants is much more expensive than shooting the extra elephants. The budgets of many of the game parks in sub-Saharan Africa are often limited. It seems that a transfer of funds from the first to the third world is clearly in order here.
(I want to make clear that the issue here is significantly different from the issue involving the recent killing of Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe does permit a limited number of private killings of game animals, usually at a hefty price. Whether this should exist is another interesting first-world/third-world economic debate, especially when we’re dealing with a species that is not overpopulating an area. And, of course, it seems that there is no justification for a killing that takes place outside the permitted process, although we can have a debate – and probably will – as to who is responsible for this outrage.)
The other item of note in the picture above is what our guide is holding in his right hand. We are out of camp here and in an open game preserve extending for thousands of acres. At any time we can come across a dangerous, potentially lethal animal. The risk is actually quite small but the potential damage is quite high. Thus it’s important to carry protection.
And that protection can also come in handy as a stick or a means of pointing something out.
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| Alternative Use of Gun |
On our foot safari, our guide pointed out some of the uses of trees.
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| "Toothbrush" Tree |
He pulled a stick off the above tree and showed how the wood was soft with a lot of fibers.
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| "Toothbrush" |
This type of wood is used (or was used) in the bush for brushing teeth.
Another tree produces a seed pod, the seeds of which I believe are used in some form of drink.
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| Seed Pod |
If you want proof that animals were present right where you were and some had died there, there’s nothing like coming upon a old, dried up piece of vertebra of some animal.
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| Animal Vertabra |
And what we know of most animal tracking, the feces can be quite indicative of what animal was here and, based on the dryness, how long ago that might have been. I believe the photo below shows some form of antelope feces with plenty of undigested vegetable matter still part of it. And the feces are somewhat old since they are basically dry although there was some part that was still moist.
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| Tracking by Feces |
By contrast, the feces below come from some animal who has a lot of calcium in its diet, as can be seen by the very white color of the feces. We were probably told what this animal was but I’ve not retained it.
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| Feces with Lots of Calcium |
After we got back to camp from our foot safari, we learned that a group of elephants had come in a part of the camp and were still nearby. This photo was taken from camp.
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| Elephants in Camp |
Up next: The countryside of the animal preserve.
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