elephant – Roumazeilles.net

A few savannah elephants

Yves Roumazeilles — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 07:24:26 +0000

Africa’s symbol, the savannah elephant, is always impressive. Meeting it gives you a personal experience of power, calm, and being out of time.

But where is their future? Will we be able to protect them? They live as long as we do, they communicate in ways that we only start to recognize (not even understand yet,) and we are still to cull, kill and eradicate them, really?

Photographing the human-animal conflict in Africa

Yves Roumazeilles — Wed, 06 Feb 2019 12:33:46 +0000

Too many people still believe that the main cause of wildlife disappearance in Africa is poaching. But, in many countries (when they are sensitive to the issue, like in Eastern or Southern Africa), poaching has receeded significantly or even nearly dispapeared. And this is the continuous human expansion which become the engine driving wildlife extinction: Humans need more and more space that it steals from Nature, with agriculture, roads, cities, etc.

Nick Brandt, famous wildlife photographer, wanted to render this fact more visible showing the conflict through a photo series (titled “This Empty World” – as it would be without wildlife) where it created superb photo compositions mixing animals and human industrial contexts.

Those are not photographs of these encounters, but pictures assembled on a computer. But these images speak louder than words. And they tell the underlying reality in a spectacular way.

Baby elephants

Yves Roumazeilles — Thu, 03 Jul 2014 18:58:34 +0000

We are only baby elephants, but we’re not even afraid of the kings of the jungle!

African Bush Elephant (Loxodonta africana, Éléphant d’Afrique)

Masai Mara National Park, Kenya
April 2014

Lion (Panthera leo, Lion)

Masai Mara National Park, Kenya
April 2014

Rock hyrax

Yves Roumazeilles — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 06:24:03 +0000

Damans des rochers – Tanzanie

Did you know that the hyrax is considered as, genetically, the nearest parent to the elephants? One big elephant being a cousin of an animal just a little bigger than a mouse…

Rock hyrax (Procavia capensis, Daman des rochers or daman du Cap)
Seronera, Serengeti National Park, Tanzania, March 2013

An elephant is going away

Yves Roumazeilles — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 06:20:59 +0000

Elephant – Tanzania

Elephants from Botswana

Yves Roumazeilles — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 14:03:56 +0000

From my personal observation in Botswana, I would say that elephants are wild animals far from being calm and placid. They tend to frighten easily, to react promptly and to be willing to use their own power to force others to back quickly. These big mammals are very active and impressive: You don’t want to mess with them.



Click on the thumbnails to enlarge them

Botswana 2010, Moremi

Drunk in the jungle

Yves Roumazeilles — Fri, 28 May 2010 19:47:10 +0000

Did you know it? Marula is a kind of fig quite common in Sub-saharian Africa that is (too) much appreciated by elephants and many other animals. But when it get old and ripe, it starts fermenting quickly. Then, this worthless fruit should receive the warning label like “Drink responsibly” or “Don’t drink and drive”.

YouTube link

I love the sound of the commentary. This is so seventies.

Jaws, on firm ground

Yves Roumazeilles — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 19:03:45 +0000

Feline teeth are their most prominent exterior feature. Since the prehistoric Smilodon (the smiling feline) and its gigantic canines, big cats use their impressive dental characteristics to hunt.

On the Laelaps web site, you will find a detaileld article on feline teeth, from yesterday to nowadays: What big teeth you have. Please, also notice the hunting videos (lions hunting elephant, lions hunting a giraffe).

Cheetahs and elephants roaming free in USA

Yves Roumazeilles — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 18:23:52 +0000

Yesterday, we were speaking here about prehistoric big cats in places where they disappeared (e.g. Europe). Today, I want to point at a surprising proposal made by Josh Donlan.

Recognizing that many big cats were roaming in North America tens of thousands of years ago, he want to re-introduce lions, cheetahs, elephants and other large animals in North America. He admits that this could be a bit difficult and that there is no way to rebuild the original population. But he offers ideas about how to bring camels and lions (from the closest relatives species) to a country were they were last seen hundreds of centuries ago.

Of course, it sounds a lot like Jurassic Park for real. Are you ready to find in the United States cheetahs hunting pronghorn bucks in the Wild West (wild again) or in Montana?

Elephants protection in Africa

Yves Roumazeilles — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 09:47:21 +0000

Elephants are -generally speaking- a species endangered in Africa. They have been vigorously hunted for the ivory of their tusks (sometimes for the mere pleasure of hunting big game) and poaching is still intense of many African countries (from de 1.5 million animals in 1970, we are now down to around 500,000 pachyderms). The largest share of this business goes to Asian countries but elephant ivory is appreciated in many other countries all over the world.

This is why 17 African countries signed a protocol to ensure their protection. The Bamako Declaration strenghten the decisions taken in June 2007 within the fourteenth conference of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species).

However, protection of a species is not a simple business once Nature is off-balance. For example, in South Africa, the elephants are no longer considered as on the brink of extinction but are becoming a source of trouble and pertubation for their own environment. They have the strong tendency to break trees where they want to reach higher branches or roots. After trying several other solutions (including oral contraception for elephants), RSA Government finally decided to approve some selective kills for culling in an attempt to limit the local populations of elephants. They doubled their inital quotas and it is a matter of reducing the risks of over-population (environmental destruction and death by lack of food or water).

Source: Futura-Sciences.