It has been an exhausting and exciting 36 hours. Yesterday after I finished writing in my journal we went for our very last habitat assessment. This wasn't going to be a normal habitat assessment though. Group 1 went out first to lay out the 50 meter rope and my group followed along soon after. We all didn't go out at once because other trucks had to bring the other uni students to the bush camp cause a church group was coming in to use the property. When we got to the site we proceeded as normal to laying out the first square. Colin (one of my groupmates) noticed that we didn't have the measuring tape, so Daniela, our field guide for the day, went back to the truck (which was about 60-70 meters away) to get it. We started to hear hhr calling our names very nervously, and we knew something was wrong. We all went back to the pick up trucks, and in front of us on the road we saw a whole herd of elephants cross! It was great to see such a large herd on our last day. We then watched them walk the the square we had started working on. I'm glad we didn't have to worry about having such a dangerous encounter.
(Just to the right of the tree was where our first square was)
We halted our vehicle immediately and watched her start to debark the tree. We were so close to her that you could hear and see the process in which they do it. They curl up their trunk and press it against the tree then press their tusk against the bark to strip it, while the trunk catches it, then feeds it into the mouth.
Soon after she started debarking, her calf came up next to her to try to debark as well. It was obvious that the calf had little experience debarking, and was constantly dropping its bark, and being unable to pick it back up. I was surprised that the mother didn't help the calf at all, and actually pushed the calf out of the way to get to the tree. It was actually quite amusing. The two of them were within 15 feet of our vehicle. It was as if they completely accepted us and didn't care we were there.
(Mother and calf debarking tree. In the bottom left corner there is a piece of the truck.. you can see how close they were!)
After about a half hour of viewing this mother and calf debark the tree, we realized that there were other members of the herd on the other side of our vehicle. It seemed that the herd had migrated from where the first group had seen them up towards us.
There was a point when one of the mothers, possibly the matriarch, trumpeted and mock charged our vehicle. We had been mock charged before, but the unnerving aspect was that I was facing the first pair of elephants we had come across, the two debarking the tree, and this other elephant was on the other side of the vehicle (ie, the opposite side of the vehicle.. that I was not facing). We're not supposed to make any sudden movement for safety reasons. If we make any sudden movements we could possibly agitate the animals and make them aggressive. This is why I was scared; I heard her trumpet and rush towards us, but I couldn't turn around to see how close she actually was without endangering everyone else. Eventually she did back off and go about browsing on the bushes.
Now that it was safe to turn around, I slowly did. It took me about 2 minutes just to make a 180 degree turn because I didn't want to attract attention to myself. That's when I realized how close all of the elephants were to our vehicle. It was as if we had folded into the natural environment and the elephants didn't seem to mind us after that last charge. It seemed like they had made us honorary members of their herd. It was an extraordinary experience that I will never forget. Thankfully I was able to get a lot pictures because I placed my phone on silent (making the shutter noise go away). No one else in my group was able to take many pictures because of the loud shutter sounds that would've been made. I guess my camera going bad the first day of the expedition was a good thing! I don't think I'll feel so small and vulnerable being so close to something that could kill me, while being perfectly okay with it. I mean that's a pretty unique way to go right? Getting charged by an elephant?
Anyway after the herd had moved on.. a whole hour later, Daniela got out of the vehicle to tell us that people visiting game reserves that are 900 hectares in size have the slim possibility of what we experienced. The crazy part is that Struwig/Balule is a 2 million hectare area, where it's almost unfathomable for anyone to experience what we did, ever. I am so incredibly grateful to Daniela for keeping us all calm int he situation, and for placing our vehicle at the right place at the right time.
That was the last time we saw elephants in Struwig. I think I learned more about the behavior and social dynamics, of a herd in those 2 hours that we were stuck in the middle of the herd than I did in all of the elephant lectures we had. It was so humbling, I'll never feel that way again. We then went back to bush camp to have dinner, roast marshmallows, and take our final group photos with the wonderful staff before we headed out bright and early the next morning.
So cool!
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