SOUNDS OF KENYA: Accidental Elephants

Elephants are one of the most amazing animals we get to see in the Mara.  Unfortunately, they are also one of the most dangerous animals that we risk running in to.  If we get too close in the car, elephants are likely to charge.  If you came across an elephant on foot, you would be lucky to survive.  Given the terrible history of slaughter via hunting and culling, I don't blame elephants for getting angry when we get in their space.  We do our best to give them as wide a berth as possible, but sometimes, elephants end up in our space without us realizing.  If you haven't read Chase's story of one such instance, you should check it out.  Other times, elephants will decide our camp has the most tasty foliage and we can't go out to see hyenas because they are right outside our tent or between us and the car.

Here are a couple recordings of some times when elephants ended up much closer to us than we would like:





Someday, I really want to record the sound of their stomach when they're munching away on branches above my tent in the middle of the night.