International partners / contacts
| Estate Tours - THE BIG 5 - Elephant The BIG Five are the kings of Africa. They are supreme. Come face to face with lions, leopards, rhino, elephants and buffalo and experience why they are called 'The Big Five!' Lion / Leopard / Elephant / Rhino / Buffalo |
| The Elephant |
 The elephant are truly magnificent
creatures. They have been hunted near to extinsion, but fortunately have been saved from ruthless poaching by the
efforts of game reserves such as the Kruger National Park. |
|
| Their social life is matriarchal, herding together in groups with a dominant female,
her offspring of both sexes and other closely related cows and their offspring. When there are little ones in the
herd, the adult females become very protective and this can make them quite aggressive. Though flapping of the
ears is usually done to regulate body temperatures, it can also be a sign of annoyance. They are unpredictable
and it is always advisable to keep a fair distance between your vehicle and an elephant. There are between 7 500 and 8 200 African elephants in the Kruger National Park. The elephants are the largest terrestrial animals in the world. They weigh about 6 000 - 7 000 kgs. They consume vast quantities of grasses, roots, bark and leaves, and can be quite devastating to an environment, pushing over trees to get to the more succulent leaves or roots. They love mopane trees and are mostly found in the area north of the Olifants River.  The males join the herd when one
or more females are on heat, soon returning to their bachelor herd or wandering alone. Old bulls are not evicted,
but leave the herd voluntarily, though they may return later. The elephants in Kruger are renowned for their large
tusks. In the 1970s the Kruger had its own 'Magnificent Seven': elephants with both tusks weighing over 45 kgs.
They had names: Shingwedzi, Shawu (whose tusks of 317 cm and 303,5 cm were the longest ever recorded in South Africa),
Mafuyane and Ndlulamithi, who all died of natural causes. Kambaku had to be shot after being injured outside a
camp. Dzombo was killed by poachers, but his tusks were recovered, and now form pad of the main exhibition in the
Elephant Hall in the Goldfields Environmental Education Centre at Letaba. Jo5o, the last of the Seven, lost both
his tusks in a fight and they were never recovered. Also on display are the tusks of Phelwane, who had the heaviest
pair of tusks ever recorded in the Kruger National Park: 75 kg and 55 kg. |
|
