A Day of Working with Elephants
Today is a WOW day!! We’ll be working side by side with the professional wildlife veterinarians and the team from Elephants Alive collaring an elephant (or another endangered animal). Today you’ll want to bring your inner Jane Goodall or Dian Fossey. This is an experience you’ll never ever forget.
Why collar?
There are several critical reasons why we need to raise funds to collar elephants in this area:
->Scientific research: As in everything in life, the best decisions are knowledge-based. Similarly, safeguarding and preserving Africa’s elephant population is heavily dependent on quality data. Experts must be able to monitor the animals’ movements and migration routes. The elephants we’ll be working with are known to travel great distances over a short period of time, across man-made borders to other protected areas within the Great Limpopo Trans Frontier Conservation Area. How does this impact on water and food access? How do the elephants’ journeys affect communities living in and around these protected areas? And how best do we protect the animals and humans under these circumstances? The answers are based on scientific research i.e. crucial data that the collars will provide.
->Collars help save elephant lives:
Human-wildlife conflict is an age-old dilemma. The collars provide experts with critical data and helps them make life-saving decisions so that people and elephants can co-exist in harmony. Fully understanding jumbo behavior and movement will fuel significant, impactful decision-making and intervention measures. The collars provide real-time data so rangers, for example, can move in if necessary, with rapid response teams and herd the animals away if they wander too close to communities, or they can close in on poachers decimating Africa’s elephant populations. If an animal is poached the transmitter will show researchers that the animal has not moved, and they can immediately send in the response team to go see what’s happening.
There is much riding on our elephant-collaring missions. You are invited to help us save lives (elephants and people) within this precious area of exquisite natural beauty.
The Specialist Team from Elephants Alive:
Elephants Alive represents a South African based NGO consisting of a small but impactful team who have consistently developed research-based information to help managers best protect elephants throughout Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park and beyond. They have extensive experience collaring elephants and networking with other NGOs to achieve what is best for elephants. They’re an experienced team, having deployed close to 200 collars throughout Southern Africa since 1998. Elephants Alive have collared many elephants with Blue Sky Society Trust. The elephants that we have collared are functioning as trailblazers, showing us how, where and when we should be connecting Protected Areas across the landscape. This is an exceptional experience and something many people will never get to experience.
**SAFETY: The animals’ and vets’ safety is ALWAYS their #1 priority so we’ll work under their guidance. The vets’ and pilot’s urgency is to get the animals down in a safe area, collared, checked for any ailments, and then up and back into the bush as safely and fast as possible. They will do everything in their power to include us as much as possible, where and when possible. PLEASE NOTE: We run all our conservation expeditions under strict ethical rules.
After our once-in-a-lifetime adventure with the wild elephants or other animals, we’ll head back to our lodge for rest and relaxation before drinks and dinner when we’ll re-tell our exciting stories from today’s exploits.
Accommodation
Safari Moon
