know YOUR COUNTY
I g a t h e re d , f r o m m y
interactions with game drivers
in the park, that such close
encounters with the elephant
in other parks may yield very
different results.
The elephant may, in a fit
of fury, charge at you or, out
of fear, it may scamper off to
safety. Years of poaching can
easily influence the behavior of
elephants towards human beings.
Where elephants are heavily
poached, their reaction is that
of fear, or downright hostility.
Keep in mind that these animals
are extremel y intelligent, with
intricate patterns of social
networking among themselves,
which l eads them to sh are
information about dangerous
human behavior.
Each elephant is given a
name, which allows for easy
identification.
Tour guides might therefore
refer to elephants by their names,
or by the names of their families.
Elephants live in families,
with aclear-cut pecking order
that looks similar to the extended
family that is common in some
human societies. Children of the
elephants – known as calves –
grow up in a strictly controlled
environment that has a matriarch
at the top of the command
structure, with younger female
elephants below her.
The matriarch offers direction
and discipline to the elephant
family, while engendering a sense
of community. The matriarch
will be the oldest member in an
elephant family, and she shares
her knowledge of the feeding
grounds with the rest.
She is a lso the mos t
k n owl e d g e a b l e a b ou t th a t
members of her family may face,
and so she steers the group to
safer grounds.
The death of a matriarch,
or other senior members of the
family, usually deals a crippling
blow on baby el ephants and
l e ave s th e youn g o n e s to
fend for themselves, with little
knowledge of the dangers in their
environment.
Part of the park rests on the
site of a prehistoric Pleistocene
lake, with five ma jor swamps from
which the herbivores spend their
days eating.
The elephants spend their
days feeding on the soft floating
grass and other vegetation in the
swamps, before retiring to their
hideaways in the night. Being on
the bed of the Pleistocenelake
was partl y the reason why
the Masai tribe christened the
region “Amboseli”, which loosely
translates to “salty place”.
Th ere i s l i tt l e co n f l i c t
between humans and elephants
in the Amboseli, which has partly
ensured the survival of the
elephants.
The park had about 1600
elephants when this writer visited
in late July this year, a figure that
is considerably good for this small
park.
Amboseli is only 392 square
kilometers, a sma ll er area
compared to other ma jor parks.