BY GUY ROGERS AND LOUISE LIEBENBERG - 22 July 2018
The warthog was trying to drink but the elephant calf thought it was fun to prevent it from doing so
Image: Guy Rogers
If as a youngster you’re already heftier than many adults and you have the biggest, baddest back-up ... then perhaps it’s not surprising you’re full of nonsense.
We saw a hint of this dynamic recently at the Marion Baree Waterhole in the Addo Elephant National Park between Matyholweni and Main Camp where we were watching a small group of elephants drinking.
A warthog covered in white mud appeared and trotted towards the waterhole – and then pulled up smartly when one of the elephant calves spotted it and waved its trunk as if to say, “hey you!”
While the two adult jumbos and the other calf carried on peacefully drinking the bully proceeded for the next half hour to harass and intimidate the hog. Each time it edged closer to the waterhole, the mini-jumbo lumbered into a mini-charge and the warthog had to dart away.
After half an hour, having drunk their fill, the adult elephants moved off in a stately march followed by the bully and its sibling and only then could the warthog take its place at the waterhole. It was immediately joined by half a dozen other hogs which had been waiting in the wings and who then hurried up and kneeled down for a drink.
It was a comical episode but part of the more serious underlying issue of water access and availability, as the park’s conservation manager, John Adendorff told me.
The drought had meant that the water level had dropped across the park and even collapsed in some places. What was left was being hogged by the elephants at the expense of other animals, including endangered species.
Sometimes the negative affect was indirect as territorial species were displaced resulting in conflict, pushing up stress levels and reducing resistance to disease, he explained.
To address the problem, Adendorff , 50, and his team have established a water gradient system employing different methods to reduce access to elephants at three “partial exclusion waterholes”. One method involves bees, the tiny nemesis of elephants, with a perimeter wire set up to trigger a beehive when nudged by an incoming jumbo.
Another works with electrified strands hung around a perimeter wire hung just too low for an adult elephant to move under. If the odd calf got through that was not a problem, the aim was just to prevent the herds getting through on mass, he said. It was an ongoing challenge to make the system work, however, as some of the elephants had learned how to push down the supporting posts .The elephants were not being cruelly denied water because for every partial exclusion waterhole there was an open waterhole less than 5km away, he emphasised
Addo Elephant National Park conservation manager John Adendorff flies over the park every day as part of a multi-pronged anti-poaching strategy.
Image: Guy Rogers
https://www.heraldlive.co.za/lifestyle/ ... -on-water/
