I am not at the San Diego Zoo or at the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park. However, I am on my way to see elephants that are tracked by our partners at Elephants Without Borders.
That’s right, after spending over 21 hours in the air, on three different airplanes, making for 27 hours of travel from beginning to end, I am in Africa. More specifically, I am in Gaborone, Botswana, waiting for my connecting flight to Kasane, Botswana. Once the Zoo’s videographer, Shea Johnson, and I are in Kasane, we will join Dr. Michael Chase and his team to head out in the field for a few days and nights of tracking and research.
Thus far the most enjoyable flight was the flight from Johannesburg, South Africa, to Gaborone, Botswana. It was so enjoyable because of the sights we could see due to great flying conditions. In an hour’s time the smaller twin propeller plane took us from the big city over small villages and untouched lands, then on to the smaller (than Johannesburg) city of Gaborone.
It was beautiful as we started our descent toward the runway: the clouds were at a very high elevation, and the sun was low due to the day becoming evening. From my vantage point in the plane I could see a few kopjes just outside of town. These rock hills are old lava tubes that will usually have natural spring water coming up from the depths of the earth. The rock and water usually offer plant life a place to take hold, and usually the kopje will become a populated ecosystem with plants and animals. We even passed over two watering holes, marked by many narrow paths all coming together at the watering hole like the spokes of a wheel meeting at the hub.
I had hoped to be able to send daily blogs, but I am having trouble with the global broadband card for my computer. I am currently relying on whatever Internet connection I can find. Thankfully in the city that doesn’t seem to be too much of a problem. However, once we are out in the field, I am pretty sure that Wi-Fi Internet is one thing that the kopjes don’t have!
Rick Schwartz is the San Diego Zoo’s Elephant Odyssey Ambassador.
To support our elephant conservation work in Africa and learn more, visit the San Diego Zoo Global Wildlife Conservancy.
Read Rick’s previous post, Packing and Unpacking Pachyderms.
Hi, Rick! Just read your article about your trip to Botswana, Africa, to monitor and track elephants in that country. I just watched a program on Animal Planet called “Wild Kingdom”, and it was about Botswana’s elephants and their ancestral migration routes that have been compromised by fences and other barriers. The migration routes go right into Angola, and there have been problems in getting the wildlife authorities to understand that these elephants need their migration routes opened so that they can get to other areas that only the elephants know about thru their memories of these paths. It was very interesting to watch! Wish that you could have watched that program before you left for Botswana because that would have given you some good ideas of what these elephants are going thru there.
Have a great time over there, and we will all be waiting for your next update about what you and your buddies have been doing in Botswana.
Got some news about Asali, the pregnant African elephant at Memphis Zoo. They have put up a new video dated April 28, 2009, on the blog page about the vets giving Asali another ultrasound to monitor the baby elephant she’s carrying. They have seen the heart beating, looked at the spinal area and bone structure, and watched the movements of the baby elephant thru the ultrasound. They report that everything is going well and on schedule for Asali’s birth date in July. Just two more months before the big day for Asali!
Well, gonna go and get to bed! Wrote this in the wee hours of Tuesday morning!
Chari Mercier
St. Pete, FL
Hi Chari,
Pretty amazing TV show, huh? Turns out that the televison show was about “Elephants Without Borders,” and we’ve established a partnership with them to work on elephant conservation [see my blog “Elephant Search: Finding a Needle in a Haystack”, Oct. 8, 2008: http://www.sandiegozoo.org/wordpress/default/elephant-search-finding-a-needle-in-a-haystack/. Dr. Michael Chase was the scientist in the Animal Kingdom show, and he is now the Henderson Endowed Conservation Postdoctoral Research Fellow of the San Diego Zoo. So, I’ll be coordinating research and conservation activities with Dr. Chase, and I can assure you that we will be posting blogs about our work.
Thank you so much for your interest in elephants and conservation,
Fred Bercovitch
Hi, Fred! Thanks for answering me so quick! I’m glad that you were able to see the Animal Kingdom program. I am really hoping that everyone connected with this project will be able to help the governments of Botswana and Angola to understand that these elephants need their migration routes in order to survive and keep their legacies alive. Wildlife sanctuaries in both African countries also need to understand this as well. Hopefully, Rick can be a great messenger about this and about other elephant conservation matters while he’s there.
Looking forward to your updates on your elephant projects from both you and Rick!
Chari Mercier
St. Pete, FL
I’ve been following all your blogs Rick and they are most interesting to say the least! you have been great about keeping us up-dated. you have been so busy and are all over the place lately. I don’t know how you do it! keep up the good work………….never a dull minute with your job! never everyone blogs, but, I assure you that everyone reads your blogs and is very interested.
Speaking of elephant migrations, has anyone else here heard of the Mfune Lodge in South Luangwa National Park, Zambia? Long story short, this hotel was accidentally built on an elephant migration route. Fortunately, the lobby includes pretty much an open-air space between buildings in the complex joined at the roof. In November, migrating elephants just go right though to reach their favorite mango grove.
You can see pictures of this in the photo gallery at the Mfune Lodge website.