Animals Stories and Facts
Elephant's Sad Farewell To
Friend
Tourists watched in tears as an
elephant bull bade farewell to
is "friend", the deceased bull
Alexander.
The bull tried to chase
vultures and hyenas away from
Alexander's carcass and even
tried to pick Alexander up.
After dying, presumably of a
hear attack.
Tourists parked near the carcass
watched as an elephant bull
arrived there and tried to lift
up its friend. The carcass
was about 20 metres away from
the road.
I don't know whether he was
saying goodbye or whether he was
trying to wake him," san a game
ranger.
The bull first chased the hyenas
and the vultures away. He
then tried to manoeuvre his big
tusks under Alexander's head.
During one of the attempts, one
of Alexander's tusks nearly
pierced one of the bull's eyes.
By then game reserve personnel
had already removed Alexander's
heart and lungs for examination,
and the scavengers had also got
stuck into the approximately six
tons of meat.
The bull sniffed and touched
Alexander all over with its
trunk. When it could not
lift Alexander, it went and sat
down on top of him. It
even urinated on him.
After trying for about half an
hour to get him up, the elephant
bull suddenly left. It
later appeared that he had just
gone to have a drink of water,
as he was back again a little
while later. Another
fifteen minutes later, he seemed
to realise that his old pal
would not be able to get up
again. He then placed his
trunk over the spine of the
carcass and stood dead still for
about a minute before
disappearing into the trees.
The evening in the camp some of
the women said they had not seen
such passionate love for a
friend in a long time,
They said that everyone, men,
women and children - cried.
Topical Issue
Zambezi
Seaway Project
Recently worrying reports have
popped up in the press that the
Zambezi Seaway Scheme, first
mooted in the 1950’s by the
Portuguese to reduce freight
costs for landlocked countries
in Southern Africa, is back on
the cards.
The proposed Seaway would be 1500kms
long stretching from Victoria
Falls in western Zimbabwe to the
Indian ocean in the eastern
Mozambique. Promoters of this
gigantic scheme - The Zambezi
Seaway Corporation, say it will
offer a cheaper, faster and more
efficient route to the ocean,
thus boosting local economies.
The current
cost of transporting the vast
quantities of goods and minerals
to the coast is prohibitive.
Therefore by floating these
goods transportation cost would
be dramatically reduced thereby
bringing them onto the world
market at greatly reduced prices
leading to an industrial
boom......
Read Full Story and add your own comments
Interesting
Facts
Tragic Bride
* The
Victoria Falls have lured many
to their deaths- either
accidentally or suicidal.
* An
eight four-year old many from
America, unable to bear the loss
of his wife, made the long
journey by sea, road and rail to
leap to his death from the
bridge.
* Another
unhappy bride ran from her
honeymoon suite in the hotel
after a tiff with her husband
and jumped over the edge.
* In
1932 another young woman,
fleeing from a rapist in the
rainforest, ran over the edge in
her panic and the assailant
attempting to escape arrest,
fell off the bridge.
Since the
turn of the century the falls
have claimed at least fifty
lives. Others have only been
save by the daring and ingenuity
of the rescue teams.
But my
favourite story is of a man
named Ted Spencer, who often
performed breathtaking
aerobatics over the falls in a
light aircraft – which he one
flew under the bridge. He
always denied this for fear of
losing his licence.
His charter
flights gave tourist a unique
view of Victoria Falls and the
Zambezi River, but on occasions
the plane ran out of fuel and
had to make a forced landing.
Spencer’s night landings were a
notable event. Flying low over
the town he would cut his
engines, lean his head out of
the cockpit and shout “Cars”.
When his friends heard this,
they drove quickly to the
airstrip and lined their cars up
on either side of the runway
with their headlights on. After
his death in an air crash at
Croydon, London, just after the
second world war, his ashes were
scattered over the Victoria
Falls.
Read More
strange Facts...
Conservation
Update on Damiano
Now that our
radio collared elephant bull,
Damiano and his 6 wild
compatriots have completed their
tour of destruction at the old
elephant camp, they have decided
to move off and look for new
pastures to thrash!
Transformer
and Damiano were seen, to our
horror, only 5 kms away from our
new Wallow and we all waited
with bated breath for the
electric fence to be knocked
down and the bulls happily
united with their old friends.
Luckily
they moved off back in the
direction of old Old Elephant
Camp where they have not been
seen for at least 3 nights. This
is a great sign as perhaps now
that they have demolished all in
sight at the camp they will
venture further afield to find
new delights to conquer.
We are waiting for the satellite
downloads to be sent to us to
find out their whereabouts.
Damiano does definitely not want
to be with us, but he sure is
making a big scene of having
been sent out to fend for
himself in the big world. He is
always with the other 6 bulls so
has not had to make it on his
own.
The lovely "kirkii"
tress have all burst out in new
leaf and many bushes have buds
appearing with the heat of
summer and the scent of the
rains in the air.
Plenty
of scrumptious greenery out
there and with the rains coming
up in a month or so there with
be fresh water available in the
Pans and what more could a
"wild" elephant or "domesticated
and gone wild" elephant ask for
?
Will keep you all updated.
Damiano, by the way, looks good
- he is big and healthy and not
looking like he is under any
duress at all.
Happy travelling, our old
elephant friend.
Wild Horizons
Wild Life Trust
Read About Damiano release....
Victoria Falls Anti Poaching
Unit (VFAPU) Update
Early in a morning late in May,
the Victoria Falls
Anti-Poaching Unit (VFAPU)
was patrolling around Victoria
Falls town, near the boundary of
Zambezi National Park. The game
scouts came across a horrendous
snare line that told a story of
terror and pain. Entangled in
one snare were the remains of a
buffalo carcass. The snare line
was a few days old, and a young
buffalo had gotten caught early
on and was strangled to death.
Shortly thereafter, two male
lions came to feed on the
buffalo carcass as it was an
easy meal. While feeding, one
of these young male lions also
then got caught with a wire
snare around his neck. Over the
next day or so he struggled to
free himself, only to force the
snare tighter and tighter around
his neck, eventually causing his
strangulation.
Due to the claw marks around and
up the tree that the snare was
tethered to, and the digging
around the lion carcass, you can
see how hard this lion tried to
get out of the snare. Meanwhile
the other male lion was nearby
(given his tracks), and helpless
to assist his mate.
Charles Brightman (director of
VFAPU) kindly contacted
the Wild Horizons
Wildlife Trust to
assist with the investigation,
and DNA samples, whisker photos,
and the skull of the lion have
been taken. The Wild Horizons
Wildlife Trust works together
with the Oxford
Carnivore Research Project in
Hwange, and all
samples, etc have been passed on
for identification of the
deceased cat, and evaluation of
how his death will affect the
overall population dynamics.
Read more about VFAPU...
Feel free to
contact us with any
questions.
