This post focuses on the elephants in Zakouma and their population recovery under the stewardship of African Parks. Once a stronghold for over 22 000 in the 1970s, the elephant population had been cut down by poachers to around 4 000 by 2002. Between 2002 and 2010 the park lost a further 90% of its elephant population to ivory poachers.

On invitation by the Government of Chad, African Parks signed a long-term agreement to manage Zakouma to protect the remaining heavily traumatised 450 elephants, conserve the park’s biodiversity and re-establish stability in the surrounding communities.

“Africa changes you forever, like nowhere on earth. Once you have been there, you will never be the same. But how do you begin to describe its magic to someone who has never felt it? How can you explain the fascination of this vast, dusty continent, whose oldest roads are elephant paths? Could it be because Africa is the place of all our beginnings, the cradle of mankind, where our species first stood upright on the savannahs of long ago?” ~ Brian Jackman

Perennial water sources in Zakouma National Park serve as a sanctuary for West and Central African wildlife, many of which are threatened within this ecoregion. Around 66 mammal species are found in the park, 16 of which are large mammals. Zakouma is home to a number of threatened or endangered species

The progressive recovery of the park’s elephant population is perhaps most clearest testament of the rehabilitation of Zakouma. Between 2002 to 2010, Zakouma lost 90% of its elephants where often multiple family units would be killed at the same time, and for one thing – their ivory tusks.

According to African Parks, in 2012, six of its rangers were gunned down execution style during their morning prayer in what is considered a reprisal attack by poachers. But because of the tenacity and persistence of the rangers between 2012 and 2014 not one single known elephant was lost to poaching inside the park.

Due to their sustained persecution until 2011, the elephant population in Zakouma is still very skittish and wary of human beings. As soon as the breeding herds sense the presence of human beings they flee in the opposite direction. On this particular morning we saw a small herd of elephants drinking and bathing in the Salamat river. Out guide, Doug MacDonald, cautioned us to be very quiet and tried to keep us downwind of the elephants so as not to alarm them.

We could just see the herd around a bend in the Salamat river so they could not see us. The wind direction, unbeknown to us, changed and from about 400 metres away the herd suddenly bolted out of the river into the gallery of trees lining it. This brought on a discussion about how sensitive elephant olfactory senses are.

According to the Tsavo Trust, an elephant’s trunk is a marvel of nature—a fusion of nose and upper lip, equipped with roughly 40 000 muscles for strength and dexterity. Yet its true superpower lies in its olfactory prowess. With approximately 2 000 olfactory receptor genes—five times more than humans and double that of dogs—elephants can detect scents at astonishing distances.

It was hard to believe that the elephants picked up on us by smell from such a distance because they could not have seen us. Elephants have poor eyesight, especially in bright light, with a range of vision of about 30 feet. However, they are adept at detecting movement, particularly in low light conditions, where they can sense movement at up to 45 meters. Due to the location of their eyes on the sides of their heads, elephants also have good peripheral vision.

Elephants can detect smells at incredibly low concentrations. One study found that savanna elephants can detect a target odour at 50 parts per million (ppm). Elephants’ sense of smell is significantly stronger than that of a bloodhound. Elephants have around 2,000 olfactory receptors compared to a bloodhound’s 800. Elephants rely on their sense of smell for various purposes, such as finding food and water, navigating their environment, and recognising individuals. Elephants can detect water sources up to 19 kilometers away using this incredible sense of smell.

Mid way into our Zakouma trip, Doug took us down to the southern section of the park where the rangers indicated we might be able to find a large herd of elephants. The first thing we saw was the dust created by the moving herd. We decided to approach the herd on foot through the trees at the edge of a large pan. The elephants quickly picked up on us and were off. We never got close to them and only managed a fleeting image of the herd moving quickly into a densely treed area. In minutes, the entire herd disappeared and we never managed to find them again. It is clearly going to take a long time for the breeding herds to become more comfortable with game vehicles and people.

Elephants communicate across long distances using infrasound, which are low-frequency sounds. These rumbles, generated by their vocal cords and feet, can travel for several kilometres, allowing them to coordinate herd movements, locate family members, and warn of danger. Infrasound is a type of sound wave that is below the audible range of human hearing, typically below 20 Hz. There is a growing realisation that herds of elephants may form network nodes which are linked by infrasound. The network may share more information about an extended area than we previously realised.

On the second day of our trip we went to the head ranger’s house to see several bull elephants sequentially drinking water from a hose held by a ranger. A BBC film crew were videoing this unusual interaction. We watched fascinated by how close the large bull elephants approached the ranger’s veranda to access the water from the hand held hose. We were so intrigued by the interaction that on our last day we went back to the ranger’s house to see if the bull elephants had returned for a drink of fresh water from the hand held hose.

It was very hot during the day so the elephants came to the man-made waterhole to cool off and get a drink of water. The bulls did not walk straight up to the house but rather cooled off first and on occasions the younger bulls pushed each other around, all the while accessing whether it was safe to approach the head ranger’s house.

A unique feature of the elephants in Zakouma is a group of large bull elephants that visit the head ranger’s house daily for a drink of fresh water. The water is pumped from a borehole. For years these bulls have been visiting the ranger’s house and this has led to the development of a man-made waterhole which attracts elephants and baboons alike.

“Trust takes years to build, seconds to break, and forever to repair.” ~ A.D. Ryan

Our guide Doug MacDonald who has been guiding in Zakouma since 2017 was the first that day to hold the hose to enable the bull elephants to drink clean water from it.

The most remarkable feature of the bull’s behaviour is the apparent trust that has been built up over the last decade. What makes it more special is the context. These elephants must have been among the many tramatised by the ruthless poaching over an extended period of over 40 years. A few of the bulls are still wary of people and remain somewhat skittish but take their cue from some of the older larger bulls.

The acceptance of water from a hand held hose was started by the head ranger and over time the level of trust by the elephants has grown to accept water from anyone holding the hose as long is they are quiet and make no sudden movements. There are times when two or three bulls can be within one to two metres of the person holding the hose. The next gallery of three images shows three members of our group – Ann, Maria and Sabrina – holding the hose enabling the elephants to drink clean water from the hose.

“I hope you have an experience that alters the course of your life because, after Africa, nothing has ever been the same” – Suzanne Evans

Not all of the bulls have learnt to turn up the tip of their trunks to accept the water. This does seem to be a learned skill.

According to a ‘Save the Elephants’ article, as recently as 1970, 300,000 elephants roamed a Texas-sized area that included southern Chad, eastern Central African Republic, southwestern Sudan, and northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Today, only small pockets of elephant populations remain, and they remain under threat but African Parks is doing a sterling job of rehabilitating Zakouma.

“The continent is too large to describe. It is a veritable ocean, a separate planet, a varied, immensely rich cosmos. Only with the greatest simplification, for the sake of convenience, can we say ‘Africa’. In reality, except as a geographical appellation, Africa does not exist.” ― Ryszard Kapuściński

For years, the constant fear of being hunted and killed had made the elephants too stressed to reproduce. But sustained protection and conservation efforts have brought the elephants back from the brink. They are breeding again – there are estimated to be over 750 elephants in Zakouma currently, and the population is predicted to reach over 1 000 in the next few years.

“The wildlife and the landscapes of Africa are iconic across the world. Those landscapes and systems have shaped every culture on the continent. If we, as African Parks, can leave anything behind it is a system of protected areas that African can always celebrate as being a gift to the world.” ~ Peter Fearnhead

African Parks currently manages 22 parks covering an area of over 20 million hectares across 12 countries in Africa. This is a non-profit conservation organisation using the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model to take on responsibility for the long-term management of protected areas.

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun, Mike