Kenya: Elephant Encounter
Posted at 10:02 am September 27, 2006 by Bill TooneBill Toone, a conservation program specialist for CRES, helped implement a teacher training program in Kenya. In blogs, he shares his experience as he works with Dan Rubenstein, a Princeton University scientist, and Louise Bradshaw, the St. Louis Zoo's education director, to inspire the next generation of Kenyans to work for wildlife conservation. Read Bill's previous blog, Kenya: Wild Dogs.
I have become the driver for one of the vehicles ferrying teachers back and forth from camp to the Mpala Research Center. No big deal, really, except that the vehicles are all right-hand drive, hard to shift, and have nonworking windows, nonworking windshield wipers, broken doors, and are basically missing anything else essential to smooth, safe driving!
Walking was made impossible this last couple of weeks because of the elephants. Instead, we have to drive a much longer, circuitous route each morning, lunch, and evening. This does not mean we do not run into the elephants, only that there is a thin layer of metal between them and us. Right now, elephant tempers are shorter than usual: there are many small calves and the mothers are quite protective. It also turns out that our camp is very temporary and was set up specifically for our visit. Sadly, it ended up being placed in one of the elephants' favorite spots to get to the river and browse.
Today, as I was driving a vehicle full of teachers back to camp, we came around a corner just as two cows and a calf elephant stepped into the road. We were all surprised"”the elephants, too! I stopped the car and waited for a moment to see what they would do. They did the same. One of the problems with the vehicles has to do with finding gears. Being responsible for a car full of people, I decided to err on the side of caution and be sure that I could find reverse (forward simply was not an option!).
At least three of us in the vehicle, including myself, had histories of run-ins with elephants on game runs and knew the warning signals and what they could do. All it took was for mama elephant to flare her ears and I started backing up. I have to look where I am going, which means not watching the elephants, so I was depending on the " ooh's" and " ahh's" to determine what was going on. I promptly backed into a tree, effectively cutting off our retreat. I looked back only to see several bored elephants wandering off into the bush. Sorry about the tree"”we really just brushed it!
Bill Toone is a conservation program specialist for Conservation Education/CRES.
Watch the Wild Animal Park's elephants on Elephant Cam.
Read a blog about one of the San Diego Zoo's elephants, Tembo.
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September 28th, 2006 at 11:49 am
Thanks, Bill, for a great blog. You keep us educated and entertained. Sounds like you are having quite an adventure. Hope your work with the teachers is fruitful and they learn a new appreciation for conservation.
October 4th, 2006 at 8:24 am
I wrote about our lion encounter at Tsavo (in comment to your brief article on the Kenyan night). This entry reminds me of our encounter with the " pink" elephants of Tsavo. (They are pink because they dust themselves with the red iron oxide colored dust of the region, to protect their sensitive skins from the sun.) On the first night of our stay, we were at dinner, and a waiter came to us as we were ordering and asked, " You want see elephant?" My mother thought he was asking whether we wanted to see elephants while we were in the park, and she said, " Yes." I (at age 19) was a bit confused, and thought he was offering me some exotic dish called " sea elephant." It turned out that he meant that we should go to the window right then! An elephant was eating the buns that were regularly left out for elephant delectation. Later that night, before we went to sleep, we noted a trio of elephants at a pond some distance away. The male was courting the female, very gently and slowly smoothing his trunk along her back, twining his trunk with hers. Meanwhile, the baby amused itself by blowing bubbles in the water with its trunk. The next day, we did come across a large bull elephant as we were leaving the park by land rover. We were not alarmed at all, not realizing the potential danger, until the driver - a seasoned safari guide - jammed the vehicle into reverse and flew backward out of the elephant's path. It all went so quickly that I don't remember whether the elephant had flared his ears - but I do recall upraised tusks, one broken off with age and use! Thank you for the memories.