Ghoulish breakfast with camera at hand
Social media and a dead elephant
Every time I go to the Addo Elephant Park (AEP), about an hour’s drive from my home town of Makhanda in the Eastern Cape, I always do a thorough check of all social media the evening before. I scan every single group and/or page to see what other people have spotted in the last day or two so that I can plan my route for the day.
There’s no advantage to go through social media at five in the morning because no one posts at that time, so I do the scan the night before. We usually leave home just before six a.m. so that we can get to the park as the gates open.
The pre-trip check is also useful because cell phone reception in the AEP is not always good. There are some places where it’s OK, but in most parts it comes and goes.
Even when we have no immediate plans to visit the AEP, I check the feeds regularly just to find out what is happening and who knows, something interesting might prompt us to pre-empt an outing.
Such an occurrence happened on January 28. A terse, five-word message grabbed my attention.
“Dead elephant at Harvey’s tree”.
A dead elephant is of great interest to someone who enjoys watching ‘live’ game – not because I have a morbid interest in seeing dead animals – but because I know that several tons of free meat usually attract all kinds of scavengers, and even lions.
Sometime in April/May last year, a bull elephant brutally gored another member of its herd many times in full view of park visitors. It was a traumatic incident obliging rangers to put the suffering animal out of its misery.
The death of an elephant is sad. They are sentient animals that feel pain, sorrow and mourn for their dead.
Although the loss is heart-breaking, the upside is that attracts an assortment of animals that would not normally visit the area. People reported spotted hyenas, jackals and lions. There was even a highly unusual sighting of a vulture that must have come from somewhere quite far off because there are no vultures In the main section of the AEP.
When I saw the January 28 message on my phone, I imagined a similar situation and started planning to re-arrange my diary and convince my wife that we needed to visit the AEP.
The message was specific – the dead elephant was at Harvey’s Tree – the biggest tree in the whole park and the only one that has its own Facebook page. It’s not a particularly big tree, as far as big trees go, but it is definitely the biggest one in the main section. It is this peculiar lack of big trees that explains the absence of vultures – they like to build their nests in tall trees.
Harvey’s Tree is an unmistakable landmark on Harvey’s Loop – a detour off the main route between the two gates to the park. We don’t always take that loop because it is 16kms long and does not have any waterholes to attract game.
One of the first public messages after the death was reported said that park rangers were busy removing the elephant’s tusks so that poachers would not be tempted to try and steal them.
I was concerned about how visible the carcass would be because the messages referencing Harvey’s Tree did not indicate how close to the tree it was. This is important because in all South Africa’s national parks, including the AEP, visitors are not permitted to drive off the roads. This means that something really interesting could be a mere ten metres away behind a bush and no one would see it.
Then came a report suggesting that the rangers cleared away a few bushes to open the view of the carcass. This was good news, because it confirmed that the carcass would be visible to normal tourists – such as we are.
The rangers then placed a line of logs on the side of the road to discourage visitors from driving off the side to get a better view.
Sources within the park administration said that a huge bull known as Terry was responsible for killing the elephant referred to as Simon. It appears that 41-year-old Terry, who is in musth at the moment, used his tusks to fatally pierce the 47-year-old Simon behind his ear.
First visitors to the site of the tragedy reported no scavenger activity even though the rangers had cut open the stomach of the carcass in order to facilitate access.
A few days later, a visitor reported a brief sighting of a brown hyena on the carcass, but said that the animal quickly slunk away when it became aware of their car. Other people caught sight of a few spotted hyenas and black-backed jackals. It seems that one of the jackals had a broken leg.
Even after the rangers had cleared away some of the bushes, visibility was not great. The carcass was about 50-60 metres from the dirt road so some people tried to find a better position on the grass, closer to the dead bull. This deeply offended regular Addo Addicts as such selfish actions ignore the park regulations and obstruct the view of those who obey the rules.
A person reported on an Addo group, “Yesterday, a GP registration was parked deep on the grass parallel to the carcass blocking the view completely. When I asked him to move he gave me the finger”.
A GP registration means the vehicle comes from Gauteng Province – where Pretoria and Johannesburg are located – about 1,000kms away.
Complainants observed that quite a few people were getting out of their cars and breaking park regulations – and they were “Mainly GP registrations”.
As you can probably guess, there is some pent up resentment against people from the wealthier Gauteng Province.
There was also a suggestion that the park should station, “a ranger or someone in authority to hang around the site of the dead ellie”. I understand the sentiment, but hardly seems like a practical idea.
Looking out for scavengers
There you have the background to why I felt it was absolutely necessary to plan a trip to the AEP last Saturday.
We were one of the first people into the park just after seven o’clock. I made straight for Harvey’s Tree – keeping of course within the 40km/h speed limit.
It was interesting that usually we didn’t see very much in the first part of our outings into the park, but this time we saw plenty. A gorgeous kudu bull was wandering around the road just a few metres after the gate. A few elephants were browsing on trees off the side of the road and a herd of zebras sprinted across the veldt (savannah) sparring with each other just for our entertainment.
It took us just over an hour to reach the tree which is only 13kms or so from the gate. It was easy to find the carcass as it was clearly visible from the dirt road that forms a circle around Harvey’s Tree. We parked, on the outer edge of the circle next to the logs, and began looking for scavengers. There were no other cars at that time.
The underside of the poor deceased elephant faced the road so the still-intact forelegs of the animal were clearly visible. It was also obvious where the rangers had cut open its belly. A straight line separated an untouched top-half while the underside was a mess of muscles, bones and entrails.
But no scavengers
We looked around in vain, but saw nothing, so we decided to have some coffee and a sandwich. This might sound ghoulish to enjoy breakfast next to a decomposing elephant – and it probably was. Fortunately the wind seemed to carry the smell away from us so it was fine.
We enjoyed our ghoulish snack, always on the lookout for a hungry hyena.
And then it happened. A tentative spotted hyena poked its head over the horizon. Surely it would be coming to the dead elephant. We waited.
Then we waited some more and moved the car to see where the hyena was going. It did not seem to be going straight to the dead elephant. It was sniffing the air. It seemed nervous, walking in odd directions about 60-80 metres from the carcass.
We moved the car several times to see if the hyena was resting up behind a bush. We caught glimpses of it a few times but it never seemed to approach the elephant directly. It was sniffing the air almost constantly.
After a while we lost sight of it completely. Another car arrived and they too sat and waited patiently. We waited for about half an hour and then left Harvey’s Loop deciding to come back later.
And return we did – at about 14:30 – but the scene had not changed at all. The carcass looked exactly the same. It seemed that the scavengers were waiting for nightfall, out of sight of the pesky visitors.
Our visit was disappointing in one aspect – we only saw a skittish hyena and I bungled the photo – on the other hand we had lots of other good sightings and photo opportunities. I will be posting some of the pics on Shutterstock and others on my Twitter feed.
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