Kabecoo
This is the seventh post of Botswana’s animals. Today it’s elephants.
My first question to our guide was breathtakingly foolish: “Will we see any elephants up close?” His response was a silent smile. He well knew that by the end of the trip we would have seen hundreds, many within spitting distance. For the most part, they tended to ignore us entirely, focusing on the task at hand: eating.
Elephants only sleep a few hours per day. The rest of the time is spent in search of food and water. They stay cool by getting wet in Botswana’s many rivers and pools, including a few that are maintained by pumps. When sleeping, younger elephants will lie down. Older ones often lean against something to partially support themselves, such as a tree.
Elephants begin growing tusks around their fifth to seventh years. The tusks are essentially elongated teeth, used for digging, moving objects, and defense. It was common to see one with a broken tusk, such as this older one. Our guide offered that tusks are often broken while digging in search of salt.