New collar for favourite elephant

Soshangane with new satellite tracking collar visible

There are two elephant bulls that we regularly see together in our section of Balule Nature Reserve:  they are very relaxed close to habitation and vehicles. One, known as “Ezulwini”, has targeted the marula trees close to our house this winter.  The other, “Soshangane”, is the oldest bull in the area and the only one so far to have completed his musth cycle here since the fences came down between Balule and Kruger Park.  Soshangane has a satellite tracking collar but for the last couple of years the device has not been working.  On the 30^th August, all the necessary logistics and admin requirements came together and he was darted and a new collar fitted.  The hope is that his data will now be available along with data from other collared elephants in Greater Kruger Park. 

Ezulwini - destroyer of trees!

 These two bulls often team up with other younger ones, the older two acting as mentors.  The groups come together and then go their separate ways as time goes by.  This winter some seven or eight other bulls have accompanied Ezulwini and Soshangane and have been seen often, most recently as a group of nine coming past our house on the morning of 6^th September.  This was the first time we had seen Soshangane since the re-collaring exercise and he seemed none the worse for his experience.  His buddy Ezulwini insisted on taking a branch off a now almost denuded marula tree and would not be coaxed into moving on until he had the branch and could walk off with it, eating it some 30 m away:  just a like a naughty dog with some tit-bit from the table!

One of the younger bulls in Soshangane's group, 6.9.2011