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Bostokkelos and I was driving one day to the Matabeni hide above Letaba. We had the radio on as we were listening to a rugby game.

Above our and the radio commentator's cheers I heard the trumpeting of a Elephant cow. As I looked up in the mirror I saw the full bulk of her charging us merely 5m behind us on full speed 40km/h. I had to shift from a type A to type B driver and maybe even up to staff speed there and then.

Afterwards we saw that she was charging us for about 200m before I realised that she was behind us. Scary stuff that trumpeting and then only seeing the owner of it.

I've seen and heard the rumbling sound from close by.
I actually got it recorded!! on video but it must be possible save the sound as a .............. sound..thingy. so that it can be uploaded to the web.

I can assure you it came out of the region of its head. The ellie opend its mouth and there the rumble came. The ellie was standing about 3m from out car, so it was quite impressive!!!!



grtz jaapvd.

During our ecotraining course we were mock-charged by a young bull elephant.
The low rumbling sound he produced was incredible and you could really see his forehead trembling while he was making the sound.

Even if it was "only" a mock-charge, that boy scared me pretty good... lol

Here are pics of the mock charge :





It was a unforgettable experience !

Feel like hearing the sound that ellie made while charging?
Click me!

Yep! An interesting titbit:


Full article.

Is this a big tusker?



Seen on H10, Dec02

H10 turns out to be a real humdinger... where is that map of mine. He is a good big tusker but not one of the top 10 I say.

Keep watching him though.

On our night drive on Sunday 19th June, we came a cross a rather large herd of ellies... they were not very curious by our arrival so we tried to carryon driving, and then suddenly a very young male started getting aggressive with us..... luckily the KNP ranger knew how to take control, but us in the truck were rather nervous that the elle was going to charge us.... what do you think the chances are?

What if the elle charged us, what would happen.. how would anyone else besides us know where we are?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!

In Letaba there is a kind of elephant museum. There is a photo on the wall on which you can see what an angry elephant will do with your car.........

I was charged twice by an ellie and hopefully I'm fine. You need a very reactive driver and intelligent people in the cars behind you ! This wasn't the case on my first time : we were going backwards with warnings on and the other cars still came forward. Thought we would get stuck between cars and an ellie ! When they understood what was happening (which seemed like ages) they reversed VERY quickly !
The second time, there was a nervous lone bull on the road, we waited for him to get into the bush and when it was out of sight, we went on but he turned back just when we arrived next to him. That was very close ! The driver behind us had kept safe distances so there was no problem with cars behind.
I hope this was the last time I was charged by an ellie !

You know those tiny little loops that get you closer to the river? The ones that you can see everything before you go in? Well we took one, stopped to look at the river. Next thing I know I'm hurtling forward at manic miles per hour with the rear window full of very angry ellie!

Another point we stopped to watch a group of three bulls. Two where having a shoving match. I got 2 pictures then we decided they were getting too close for comfort. We moved down the road a bit, stopped and turned around and they were both stood were we'd been moments before.

I have great respect for ellies and never ever switch off the car engine if they are close. Actually try and keep a bit of a distance from them at all times. I am amazed at the stupidity of some people who show very little sense around ellies. (eg driving very close to them) Bulls can be very dangerous as well as breeding herds.

I am often tempted to keep an egg or two in my car with me - in her books, Kobie Kruger, writes of a couple of incidents with elephant and she found that once when she was threatened by an elephant throwing it with a raw egg chased it off

(Refer to the Recommended Reading thread for more on her books - abosulte must reads for anyone who loves Kruger and wildlife.)

You are thinking the worst, it is more than likely not to happen to you on a guided game drive, these guys know how to handle these situations. The night drive truck is also big and i find it hard to believe that an elephant would really want to fight with it. The rangers also carry a rifle with them, so you are safe at all times.

I am not sure whether even a large full grown male ellie could overturn the vehicles that are used for the night drives in Kruger - they are very big and presumably are designed, much like a London double decker bus, to withstand being tipped at quite severe angles.

If the vehicle is pretty safe from being tipped over, the chances of damage are great if the charge is a full-on one but as long as you have a good Ranger in control I would think that you should be relatively safe from serious injury as the vehicles are wide and you can get out of the way of the tusks.

I have been charged 3 times by ellies (each time they were lone males in musth) one story I think I posted here a long time ago, but basically we were chased for a few kilometres through thick low bush in Hwange. We eventually managed to outrun the ellie once we reached a long straight track - no shortcuts for the ellie!

The other 2 times they were, what is known as, false charges but as any decent Ranger will tell you, these can turn to full-on attacks in an instant! On one of these occasions we could smell the breath of the ellie as he stopped just short of the back corner of the Game Drive vehicle - of the sort that you get in the sabi-sands, with tiered seats. This was during our Field Guide training and our instructor felt quite confident that it would not be a full-blown attack and so remained static with the engine running tho...

The only other time it happened to me was in Etosha, in a car, and we managed to back off successfully while other tourists were too busy taking pics of the ellie charging us to think about their own safety!

Someone wrote here - forgive me for forgetting who - that you should always keep your engine running and keep a distance when viewing ellies (same applies to black rhino!) and they are perfectly correct in that. I would only add that you should remain in neutral gear so that you can put your vehicle into first or reverse, whichever is required, very quickly.

Serious injuries or, worse, deaths are normally caused through ignorance of the nature of elephants especially the Golden Rule - NEVER, EVER, drive too close or, worse still, into the middle of a breeding herd! If you manage to seperate any calves from the herd with your vehicle you are asking for trouble. The females will immediately see you as a threat and will act accordingly - end of story and possibly end of tourist!