Parque Nacional da Gorongosa Moçambique

Description

The African elephant is the largest living land mammal, growing up to 3 meters tall and weighing 3,000-6,000 kilograms.  Elephants are best known for their long trunk, tusks, and intelligence.  Elephants play an important role in maintaining biodiversity in Gorongosa National Park during their 60-70 year lifespan.   They create clearings by breaking down trees and branches, therefore making food available to smaller browsers. 

The elephant’s long trunk can act as a nose, hand, or extra foot.  They use it to gather food, drink water, and dig.  The trunk is strong and muscular in order to fight or tear down trees but it is also equipped for delicate movements like picking berries with its two “fingers” at the tip.

The elephant’s tusks are very long incisors—both male and female African elephants have them.  The length of their tusks is directly proportional to the mineral content in their diet—the richer the diet, the longer the tusks.  Elephants have one large ridged molar in each half of the upper and lower jaw that are well suited to chew the fibrous food an elephant eats.  Elephants grow six consecutive sets of molars over their lifetime.  The molars can be used to determine the age of an elephant.

Elephants are generally gregarious and form small family groups that include an older matriarch, several offspring, and their young.  Different elephant family groups will often share an area.  When they meet at watering holes and other gatherings, they greet each other affectionately with their trunks.

Elephants will use loud trumpeting sounds when alarmed, causing their group to form a circle around younger members of the family for protection. Elephants also make low-frequency calls that allow them to communicate over distances of eight to ten kilometers.

Elephants spend 16 hours per day eating and the rest drinking, bathing, playing and resting. They only digest about 40 percent of what they eat and they require 25-40 liters of water per day to drink.  Elephants are herbivores that consume grass, leaves, twigs, bark, fruit, and seed pods.

How to See

Elephants need large quantities of water and plentiful grasses.  They can be found traveling to their favorite water sources in the park. If you are driving on our game network, you may see them on the Urema Road (Picada Urema) or on Road #11 along the Urema River. Look for their work in areas with tall grasses or fever thorn trees. Flattened tall grasses and broken fever thorn tree branches and trunks will tell you that elephants have been in the area.  Elephants particularly love the fever thorn trees, as they drink water from the branches.  They also break down the limbs to provide soft leaves for their young, which are then also eaten by browsing antelopes.

Status

IUCN: Vulnerable
Africa: Uncommon
Mozambique: Uncommon
Gorongosa: Uncommon

Conservation

Hunting during the years of the civil war and the time of post-war instability reduced Gorongosa National Park’s large mammal population.  In 1972, the elephant population had reached approximately 2,200, but the population was reduced to 200 by 1992.  Park staff is assessing the effects of the decrease in the elephant population on the Park’s ecosystem.  Today’s elephant population is roughly 300 and is increasing naturally.  Many family groups include baby elephants.