There’s many a tale of wildlife lovers underestimating the power and speed of Africa’s grey giants. Especially in the Kruger National Park, where ellie roadblocks are a regular occurrence. One Wild traveller found out what happens when close is too close.
One of the highlights of a visit to the Kruger National Park is the chance to view these magnificent and intelligent creatures in the wild. But keeping your distance and respecting their territory is of the utmost importance in elephant encounters.
During a recent trip, Alan Watt and his wife, Florence, had a brush with one of the park’s enormous elephant bulls that was far too close for comfort. As Alan describes the experience: “Certainly more excitement than we bargained for.”
Alan writes:
On 21 April we entered the park straight after breakfast. We had hired a slightly bigger vehicle that would provide a better overall view than the usual sedan. After travelling for about three and a half hours and encountering wild dog, cheetah, crocodile, warthog and many more, we suddenly came across a large herd of elephant.
We soon realised that the herd was resting and in no hurry to move on. We made our way to Skukuza Rest Camp for some coffee and were back in safari mode before long. We decided to leave the main tarred road and head down a narrower gravel road in the hope of better sightings. At first it seemed our strategy had paid off, but we quickly grasped that we’d placed ourselves in a precarious position.
From some 60 metres away, a massive lone elephant bull was slowly meandering in our direction. Since the bull seemed quite relaxed, scooping up dust with his trunk and covering his body, I thought it safe to move closer.
But it soon dawned on us that the large beast had no intention of moving into the bush and giving us space to drive past. Our only way out was to retreat slowly, but after reversing only 10 metres, the car’s movement caught our wild friend’s attention. I immediately came to a halt, leaving the engine to idle. Fact was: the gravel road was not wide enough to turn around. We were sitting ducks…
This should be a lesson to all elephant enthusiasts. – Alan Watt
Too close for comfort
The elephant was now in close proximity, his attention firmly focused on our car. But I had a plan. Once he was almost adjacent to our left side, a suitably wide gap to our right might allow us to make a break past him. I still had the engine ticking over.
Within seconds he was just metres from the bonnet – time for our great escape. A glance to my right indicated a sufficient gap. I quickly engaged gear and pressed hard on the accelerator. This was the moment our plan went horribly wrong. The elephant swung its head towards the car and we felt a forceful blow as it side-swiped the passenger door with its large tusks.
Almost toppling over
The impact was so powerful that it catapulted Florence across the inside of the vehicle, and the car started to tip sideways to the right. We were now balancing on only two wheels and close to toppling over. I was convinced that the car was going to end up on its side – worst case scenario.
But Lady Luck was on our side. The car dropped back onto four wheels and was still facing straight ahead. The tyres soon found sufficient purchase on the gravel to move us forward, kicking up dust. As we rapidly pulled away, the elephant trumpeted behind us. We never even looked out the rear window to see how the elephant reacted as we escaped the drama.
Arriving at the exit gate, we stopped to inspect the damage. Aside from large dents, we noticed the six-inch hole inflicted on the front passenger door. The tusk had almost penetrated the depth of the car’s inside panel. I have newfound respect for elephants.
What NOT to do when viewing elephants
- Never speed past a herd.
- Keep a safe distance: don’t drive closer than 50 metres.
- Switching off your engine is not a good idea. It’s better if they can hear, see and smell you.
- Revving your vehicle will not deter elephants, it will only upset them.
- Never approach elephant bulls.
- Close encounters should be avoided at all costs.
This was an interesting read,and another prime example of the power wild animals can have.
My next question is not a judgement on the actions the writer took, but rather a desire to know what options are available if ever anyone else should find themselves in a similar situation.
The writer mentioned that the Elephant bull strolled down the path way, and did not show much signs of aggression. I agree with his decision to keep the vehicle in gear and be ready in case he needed a fast get away. But perhaps instead of trying to make a sudden dash for the opening, he should have waited for the Elephant to pass on it’s own. The sudden movement of the vehicle was interpreted by the animal as an attack, where as standing still could have made the Elephant feel more at ease.
I know that in hind sight everyone has perfect vision and knowledge, and unless we were there it is difficult to say what other options were better.
Totally agree with you, Corney. There is no mention that the elephant was in musth and therefore possibly more aggressive than usual. In my personal experience, when an elephant decides to move into your space, like in this scenario, they don’t get aggressive. Just sit quietly and they will pass by.
I agree with Corney and Chris that when all signs are that the elephant is calm, it is best to act likewise. Of course one must know the signs! And on a wide tarred road one obviously has more options than on a narrow gravel road — if not boxed in by other vehicles>
Our good friends M & C — frequent visitors to the Kruger Park — have showed us pictures of a calm female elephant coming really close up to the open passenger side window. She then slowly extended her trunk. The last pictures show the front of the trunk INSIDE the car on the passenger side — only a foot from C’s face!
After these tense moments, the Elephant slowly withdrew.
I agree to the above. Was sitting at the Transport Dam near Pret Kop one afternoon with a lot of ellies. Suddenly one came out of the water and was taking the road in our direction. The bakkie was switched of as we were watching the herd. He came past our bakkie and for a moment I heartbeat was not there any more. We sit very still and keeping our breaths not knowing what to do.
He was so near we could see the dust on his eyebrows. He just went into the bush behind us without even looking at us. PHEW!
Graham Paget and Petra
I agree to the above. And you will see mostly its the little cars that push their luck with the Ellies. We watch some tourist now when we were the Kruger. All the cars were way back because one young elephant was little bit active, the next moment this little car very noisy with flashing cameras went right up to the elephants. When we got back to Lower Sabie, I gave them a piece of my mind. We invade the wild Animals space, RESPECT them and stay out of their way. Petra
We were in a different scenario at unfolozi. A young male elephant quietly feeding at the side if the road more than 50meters ahead of us and with at least 5 cars ahead of us and as many behind including a big truck.there were 2 or 3 cars coming the other way one being a tourist combi . They decided They weren’t close enough so manouvered themselves right up to the elephant, which he really didn’t like and started flapping his ears and trumpeting.So all the cars in front of us managed to get out of the way and with all going on the truck came past us and the elephant who got even more upset. It all happened do fast. We couldn’t go backwards or forward so just sat quietly while he stomped towards us ears flapping. He lifted his trunk and sniffed around our front tyres, came round to the passenger side and sniffed the bonnet of the car and banged his trunk down on it a couple of times then scraped his body down the side of the car and with another annoyed trumpet went off into the Bush. That’s when put foot and got as far away as we could. Was really frightening but feel in the situation we were in could only sit tight and hope for the best.
I have seen similar situations in Addo Elephant national park, where a lot of the visitors will keep a respectful distance, and then one vehicle would come in and push their luck, sometimes out of a lack of knowledge (especially foreign visitors) but them I have also seen guides from neighboring guest houses pushing their luck in the hopes of getting better tips from their passengers.
In the case of foreign visitors, I have had to explain to them in the past why their behavior is not correct, and in most cases I have found that they appreciated it, and they would actually change what they were doing because they had a better understanding.
Unfortunately in the case of the guides, a lot of them have an attitude of you can’t tell me what to do.
A critical mistake was initially to reverse 10 m. Once you start moving away, you have to keep going until you get out of view of the elephant. If you decide to stand your ground, stick to your decision and do not do anything that could startle the animal. You should be OK with the elephant deciding to move into your space.
Why do you have to blame the foriegn visitors? I am from the UK, and currently in the Kruger Park. All of the stupid and aggressive driving and behaviour that I have witnessed has been by vehicles bearing ZA plates .
True, it’s not all the foreigners, but I have to agree that ZA plates does not mean they are South Africans… I too have found that too often then not it is the ignorance of our friends abroad who do not understand the danger of such, just look at the stats
We have had many encounters with elephants moving right past and standing right next to our car, some being mothers with babies.We have always stayed perfectly still and not had any problems.One recent encounter was at Hapoor Dam in Addo at the height of the drought. Each day at lunch time almost all the ellies in the park would gather there as there was very little water elsewhere.What a sight.Hundreds of elephants in a not very large area. As the small amount of water was always crowded they would take it in turns to drink and bathe, the young ones always being pushy and never keen to leave the water. Two huge bulls were testing their strength with one backing towards us, getting closer and closer.This time we slowly pulled to one side so that he could reverse past us.We have found that the ellies in Addo are calmer than in the other parks.As a fairly frequent visitor to parks I agree with all of the advise and unfortunately also with the comment about noisy foreign visitors; of course there are the exceptions
I had witnessed an incident where a lot of vehicles were parked at a lookout point in Mabalingwe private game reserve. It was not possible to move away, as the lookout point was in a cul de sac and there were too many vehicles. We were fortunately right at the back and only arrived as a herd of elephant came from the waterhole and wanted to cross over the parking area where most of the vehicles were. Their path was blocked. However, they seemed calm and proceeded through the vehicles without incident until one elephant, apparently curiously, stuck his tusk right through the passenger window of vehicle with a young couple inside. It was a loud crash of glass and then the elephant left. It was indeed a scary incident and the poor lady who sat in the passenger seat of the vehicle was very shaken. The incident just made me realise once again how unpredictable wild animals can be. Without any warning and no visible signs of aggression the entire encounter played out in seconds and thankfully, no one was injured. Thank you for sharing your scary encounter, this certainly gives others a bit more wisdom for when they may be in a similar situation.
In my experience incidents occur mainly through ignorance of foreigners and/or bravado and stupidity of South Africans.