Elephant Encounters

Last month when we went to Madikwe, we came across a Bull elephant in "musth": suffering from severe testosterone poisoning--up to 60 times greater than normal levels!  This bull was watering itself at a pond.  Our guide mentioned that he was quite excited and you can see that in the video when he is peeing.  I guess he didn't like us filming him as he gave us a charge to let us know who was boss!  This was probably a "fake" charge as an elephant will pull back its ears to protect them in a real charge.  Fake or not, you don't want to stick around when a 5 ton behemoth is moving your way.

Later in the video you will see two young male elephants showing who is stronger and tougher by banging into trees, trying to topple trees and whacking each other with their trunks.  This is standard behavior among young male elephants, but they are not likely to cause each other injury because they have nothing to really fight over.  They still can do a number on the trees!