African Elephant Facts

Latin name: Loxodonta africana

Weight:
The average large Elephant bull reaches a weight of 5.5 tons. Some males can be as heavy as 6.5 tons. The females average about 3.5 to 4 tons.

Sexuall differentiation:
Bulls are heavier in weight and generally have thicker tusks than the cows do.
A cow has a more prominent forehead when compared to the bull. With young calves it is rather difficult to see the difference in the forehead.



Gestation period:
The female is pregnant for 22 months.

Breeding and reproduction:
By 10 years of age both males and females are sexually mature. The male however, may only have his first opportunity of mating at the age of 20 to 25 years of age.
The female can give birth to her first calf at 12 years of age.

Only the stronger more dominant bulls get to mate and roughly once a year for about 1 week or as long as 2 or 3 months, the bull goes into a reproductive condition known a musth. When in musth, the male’s temporal glands start secreting excessive fluid and there is also a very visible flow of fluid from the genitals, which has a very prominent /powerful smell. This is all as a result of an increased level in testosterone.

Bulls in musth actively seek breeding herds to find potential females to mate with.
After a successful copulation the female gives birth after a gestation of 22 months. The newborn calf suckles for 18 months or as long as 2 years.
The reason for such a long weaning period is because of the many thousands of muscles that they have in their trunks, making it very difficult for the calf to control. As the calf learns how to use its trunk, it will start feeding more off vegetation and become less dependent on its mother’s milk.

The female’s on average give birth every 5 to 7 years.

Social Life:
There are two main types of herds to be found, breeding herds and bachelor herds.

The breeding herd consists of predominantly females which are related in some way or another. The oldest female normally leads the herd and is known as the matriarch. The matriarch has the most knowledge of the area in which they live. She knows where to find the best feeding areas as well as water.
Over time a breeding herd can get quite large with as many as 200 individuals or more. Large herds will often split with the second oldest female taking charge of the new herd. The two herds will go separate ways and on occasion will join up again for short periods.

Young males, at the age 13 years are chased out of the breeding herd by the adults to be on their own or to join up with other males in the bachelor herds.
Bachelor herds consist of only males. The size of a bachelor herd changes on a regular basis as the males come and go as they please.
Competition for dominance between males is fierce with a definite hierarchy.

Lifespan & Feeding:
A large Elephant bull will eat as much a 200 kg of food a day. Only 40% of that is digested as they have a very weak digestive system. They will eat on average 18 hours a day.

The age will vary from one area to the next. In South Africa they normally reach 60-65 years. In Kenya & Tanzania about 70-75 years. The world record oldest Elephant reached an age of 86 years.
The reason why there is such an age difference in the different countries is due to the type of vegetation that the Elephants are eating. The softer the vegetation is, the longer the lifespan of the animal.

Excluding the tusks, an Elephant has 8 teeth in its’ mouth, 4 molars on the top and 4 on the bottom. They eat on average 18 hours a day so eventually the teeth start cracking and fall out. A new set of teeth will then replace the old set. An Elephant goes through 6 sets of teeth in a lifetime and at the age of about 47 years the last set will push through. Once the last set of teeth have fallen out Elephant starts rubbing the vegetation between its’ gums to try break it down. The condition of the animal deteriorates as it can’t chew its’ food properly to get enough nutrition and eventually dies.

The Elephants in Kenya & Tanzania feed mainly on grass, which is their favourite food. The grass is soft on the teeth, so the Elephants last set of teeth last quite a long time.

The elephants in South Africa also prefer grass but in the winter period when there less grass to eat they then start feeding more on leaves, roots and the bark of trees. This vegetation is a lot harder on the teeth so the last set of teeth don’t last as long as the Elephants in Kenya/Tanzania.

Elephant's Trunk:
No one knows for 100% how many muscles there are. I have heard two figures, one of
40 0000 and another of 140 000 muscles. With so many muscles so close together it makes it difficult to count. What might look like 1 muscle could be a small group of muscles.
So the correct answer would be "the elephant has thousands of muscles in the trunk".

Quick Facts:
- An Elephant is capable of running at a top speed of 45km/hour.
- The African Elephant's closest relative is the Dassie (Hyrax)
- The collective name for elephant is a parade or memory of elephants.
- A Mature elephant bull produces on average 120 kg of dung every day!!

Elephant Culling

There are always huge debates as to whether the culling of elephant is ethical or not. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and in my opinion and many others, it MUST be done. If we don’t cull we will still lose many 1000’s of elephants as well as many other different species of game along with them in the future.
The Kruger National Park is a massive 20 000 square kilometres surrounded by a fence and because of this fence it is not a 100% natural environment which as a result requires grooming such as culling, stocking up of rare animal species from other reserves and controlled fires to keep it as natural as possible.


The Problem

150 years ago there were no fences dividing countries which prevent the natural movement of game forced by the change in seasons. Many animals migrating in search of food and or water died, especially old, weak and injured individuals, possibly as a result of not reaching their destinations on time. This would help control the numbers of many game species, leaving only the strong and healthy to survive.
With the development of conservation areas such as the Kruger National Park, with all its man-made dams and abundance of thick vegetation, there is very rarely a shortage of food or water for game resulting in the massive increase in the elephant population.

It’s hard to believe that the Kruger national Parks’ elephant population was almost totally wiped out just 100 years ago due to excessive hunting and poaching and today it sits on about 12 000, which is 4 500 above the natural carrying capacity with the population increasing close to 3% every year!
If populations get too high, the impact on vegetation will be devastating as elephants require huge amounts of food to sustain their large bodies along with their weak digestive systems. Large bulls will eat as much as 250 kg of vegetation and drink up to 180 litres of water every day!

Of all the African herbivores the elephant has the most varied diet in terms of different plant species, eating almost every plant if finds and who knows, with too many elephant how many plant species may be lost forever. The elephants’ favourite food is grass. If an area is over-populated, in time the ground will be totally stripped of all grass which may result in serous erosion as the root systems of the grasses would normally hold the soil together. Areas that have been severely over-grazed and eroded may take many years to recover back to a suitable state and in some cases never recover. Grazing animals such as wildebeest, zebra, white rhino and hippopotamus will eventually die off if there is no grass to eat or nowhere else to find more.
When all the grass has been eaten, the elephant then concentrate more on feeding off trees and shrubs. It’s not just the leaves they eat but also the roots and bark of certain trees. They uproot trees, strip off bark and before we know it there are 1000’s of dead trees as far as the eye can see.
So what use to be lush thick vegetation with allsorts of beautiful trees and shrubs now looks like a desert with lots of sand, heavily eroded areas, tree stumps and the bones of all the animals that have now died of starvation, all of this as a result of nothing been done to properly solve the over-population of elephant.

Solutions?

Relocation of elephants to other game reserves:

Sounds good but it only helps temporarily as eventually space in these reserves runs out and the cost of moving them becomes more expensive as they have to be moved even further away to new areas. With over 300 elephant born into the Kruger National Park every year you can imagine the cost of moving 300 every year just to keep the population constant at 12 000.
Helicopters, pilots, vets, sedative drugs, transportation trucks, fuel, legal papers, all of this costs a lot when moving elephants to other game reserves or countries.

Female Contraception:

The female elephants are given a contraceptive injection that is highly effective but needs to be administered roughly every 6 months to keep working. Not all females are given the contraceptive that still allows the births of a few calves into the herds. This exercise is extremely expensive especially with large populations where 1000’s of females are given the injection every 6 months. The population growth slows down but still doesn’t solve the over-population problem.


Cropping:

Cropping is the process where small amounts of game are shot over a long period of time. An example of this would be taking out say 5 or 10 animals per week over a period of a couple months. Cropping works but has the down side that the visibility may be poor in the summer and early winter months, making it very difficult when shooting on the ground or from helicopters.

Culling:

Culling is the process whereby a fairly large amount of animals are shot within a short period of time, for example; shooting say 200 elephants in the space of 3 weeks. This may come across a very cruel, but to date has been the only real long term effective method used. Culling operations are done in the shortest possible time to lessen the stress on the animals been shot.
Before culling was put to an end in 1997 the Kruger had a very healthy population of elephant. The tusks of culled animals were stored in safe warehouses or often burnt and much of the meat was processed for tin food which was given to poor communities and used by staff members of the park. Hyenas, jackals, vultures and many other scavenging animals made sure to clean up the rest of any carcasses left behind.


For now the game reserves that can afford it are using female contraception and relocating elephants. There are ongoing talks about bringing back culling but still no change. One day in the future ‘they’ will realise that culling is the answer but by that time it will be too late. If only ‘they’ would fully understand.