Mammals: Interesting or Unusual Behaviour

[Richprins]

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[Lisbeth]

[Mel]

How sad

[Richprins]

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[Lisbeth]

Clever lions

[Richprins]

https://www.latestsightings.com/single- ... mana-pools

[Lisbeth]

Wow! What an incredible sighting; close and on foot

[Richprins]

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[Lisbeth]

A new combination

[Lisbeth]

Rare footage of elephant twins (just over 24 hours old) in Samburu National Reserve, Kenya

When they saw them for the first time, the guides of the local association "Save the elephants" could not believe his eyes. The mobile phone was turned on as always in video mode to document what is happening, day after day, in the Samburu nature reserve, in northern Kenya. And, in particular, to document the pachyderm specimens that roam free in this nature reserve. And then, the surprise. And what a surprise ... double, even! In fact, two newborn twins scuttled happily around their mother, Bora (aged 16), and under the watchful eye of a male, Daud. Maybe just the dad. The two cubs, one male and one female as yet unnamed, are a rarity in the kingdom of these large animals. It is very difficult, in fact, to be faced with a twin birth (see the video attached to this article).

https://youtu.be/VYqEgxYhRog

SAVE THE ELEPHANTS

The videos (made on Monday but released a few hours ago) show the two beautiful newborns, just a few days old, getting used to the environment of the savannah with their loving mother. Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of "Save the Elephants" - this is the name of the local association that fights for elephants and has been studying their behaviour and habits for 28 years -, stressed that we need to go back in time to 2006, before encountering such an event, documented for the first time in the park. At the time, however, both babies died a few days after birth. “Such a phenomenon is extremely rare in elephant populations. It occurs only in one percent of births ". It is also true that, as a rule, mothers do not have enough milk to support the weaning of two birds in one go. "Yes, the next few days are going to be really tough for the newcomers, but we all have our fingers crossed to survive."

The African elephant has the longest gestation period of any living mammal: 22 months. And she gives birth every four years or so. These animals, in Kenya and other sub-Saharan African countries, are easy prey for poachers, who kill them to feed the demand for ivory to be used in traditional medicines in Asia. Authorities, however, said the number of elephants in the country more than doubled in 2020, thanks to increased anti-poaching efforts. And it went from 16,000 in 1989 to 34,000 in 2018. The first national wildlife census conducted last year then further revised upward the estimate on the number of specimens, bringing the figure to 36,280. The figure represents a 12% increase over the population numbers recorded in 2014, when the killing for ivory was much more incisive.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature, however, last year issued a warning, showing the big picture. Poaching and habitat destruction, particularly due to land conversion for agriculture, have had a devastating effect on the number of elephants in Africa as a whole. The elephant population of the African savannah has plummeted by at least 60 percent in the last half century, prompting their reclassification as "endangered" in the latest update of the "Red List" of threatened species.