Narrow escape from elephants for motorists

A Ladysmith resident came face-to-face with two male elephants at the Nambiti Game Reserve on Sunday morning.

After spending the long weekend at Nambiti, she was heading back into Ladysmith for a big Easter lunch with the family. On the drive out, her and her fiance, who works on the reserve, had to stop at a ‘roadblock’ in the form of a large male elephant standing in the middle of the road, eating from a nearby tree.

Another elephant was standing at the side of the road. The couple waited for roughly 20 minutes before the large bull moved off the road to get to the other side of the tree he was munching on.

The two nature lovers in the car looked on in awe and noticed that the large bull looked like he was going to push the tree over. Trees store all of their carbohydrates in their roots and in the bark, just like a carrot or potato, and an elephant knows this. What they do is push over a tree to partially uproot it. This enables them to get their tusks and trunk around the bottom roots. They can actually flip a tree upside down in order to feed on the softer roots and strip the bark from the bottom of the tree.

Elephants do push trees over to get to the top leaves, but more often it is to get to the soft roots which store the energy-giving carbohydrates.

Since the residents were already running late, they decided to drive past the elephants. It should be noted that this was done under the supervision of a trained game worker and should not be attempted by just any member of the public!

Elephants are not always dangerous, but they have been known to attack cars and people.