Mammoth

Mammoth. Collared 7 April 2003, in Wali Bai, Kabo logging concession, south of the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, northern Congo.

Mammoth is an old, old elephant. He may have grown up using the Wali bai, where he was collared, visiting it with his mother perhaps as long as 50 years ago. Then, guns, the breakdown of law enforcement, and an increase in the ivory trade took their toll, and Mammoth probably retreated to the heartland of the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, where he felt safe from man. We will never know what really happened, but as WCS and the Congolese Government brought protection to the forest for the first time in decades, wildlife, including elephants once again began visiting Wali Bai. Mammoth now feels safe returning to the bai, where he eats algae and succulent aquatic vegetation and browse.

Despite his age, since he was collared Mammoth has gone on two forays into the NNNP, travelling up to 60km from the Wali Bai. He doesn’t move fast, a few kilometres per day, browsing as he goes. Mammoth it seems likes the abandoned logging roads in the Kabo logging concession, which provide an abundance of lush shrubs and herbaceous vegetation.  In days gone by, Mammoth would have avoided roads for fear of humans but with conservation management in the Kabo concession has come protection, and gradually elephants are losing their fear of once dangerous areas.

Mammoth is well known to researchers and villagers alike around the NNNP. His huge size, dignity, age, single enormous tusk make him easily recognisable. Due to poaching, there are fewer and fewer elephants left in Africa with the wisdom that a lifetime of experience brings. For highly social animals such as forest elephants, the loss of these “elders” from the population has unknown, but undoubtedly important consequences. If elephants like Mammoth are not able to live into old age, who will know the trails, who will know the best feeding grounds, and the safest retreat in the face of danger, and who will teach the young?

To see Mammoth's ranging behavior click on the following link: Mammoth's Map.