In parts of Southern Africa, elephants engage in “hedging” by breaking off the branches of hardwood mopane trees, snapping their trunks in two or pushing them over.
At the study site in the north of Gonarezhou, near to where the Runde River flows beneath ancient sandstone cliffs, O’Connor and colleagues found that elephants had snapped more than half of all the trees measuring some 10 meters in height.
The bull elephants who do most of the damage to woodlands would far rather graze on the lush short grass of floodplains, or in thick reedbeds alongside rivers, experts say. While there’s been a major influx of wildlife, including elephants, from Kruger into Limpopo National Park, it hasn’t widened the horizon for Gonarezhou’s elephants.
There are an estimated 11,000 elephants in Gonarezhou National Park; without corridors allowing these herds to migrate, they are transforming the landscape of the park — to the detriment of other species. Image by Andrew Ashton via The ecologist has tracked other elephants, both bulls and cows, just across the border onto privately owned safari concessions. The elephants seem to have worked out which of these properties — probably ones whose owners engage in conservation measures such as anti-poaching patrols — are safer than others.