April 15

Chobe National Park is a huge wildlife park of 11,000 sq. km. in Botswana.

We saw many elephants in the park. They tend to go down to river in the morning and return to the wooded area later in the day. They mostly eat 2 kinds of trees – the Acacia and the brown ivory tree.

They especially like the bark of the acacia and often kill the trees because they completely girdle the trunk. This is an example of an Acacia that was killed by the elephants and a closeup of the trunk that was girdled.

The landscape is covered by dead trees killed by the elephants.

These are elephant footprints; naturalists can determine age and direction of travel from them.

You can tell if an elephant is left or right handed by looking at the tusks. If the left tusk is shorter he is left handed, that is, he works harder on his left side. If the right tusk is shorter he is right handed. This guy is ambidextrous.

Next: The Exciting Search for Leopards