Dear All
Many greetings and thanks for the kind comments. I just wanted to share this interesting encounter that I witnessed in Laikipia about a week ago when I was there collecting ants. I have also been chasing after dragonflies and took a break to visit a small dam at Suyian… As it was really dry, there were not many dragonflies around. Found a female Banded Groundling sunning herself..
As we were watching the dragonflies, a magnificent herd of elephants appeared – they were also seeking respite from the heat and looking to quench their thirst at the dam… Just after they arrived, we herd mooing and voices and a large herd of cattle began to make their way to dam. At first, we were worried that the two herds, elephant and cattle, would be in conflict. However to our amazement the elephants and cattle settled down and happily shared the dam… Here are a couple of them…
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/oV4iTSpTmss" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/9afLFlGTWMs" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
The herder who was watching over the cattle soon appeared. He told us that the cattle and elephants have been sharing water now for several weeks. It was fun and moving to see these beasts getting along and shows that sometimes people and wildlife can share natural resources peacefully…
More from the world of bugs and creatures both great and small soon!
Great photos – hopefully rains will soon ease the situation:)
Hey Dino, this story is amazing. Recently in our discussion with my field assistants in Laikipia Mpala Plot, they informed me that elephants don’t go along with cattle. My first thought was that this could be the fact that most of the time the cattle are accompanied by herders (Human beings) and worse enemy to elephants. i google to find out whether any one has done any research on this then i stumbled on your website. Now i am confused. I was thinking as part i could squeeze in something for my phd research about this relationship just a thought!