While the Peace Parks crew is filming on location in Kruger National Park, a situation develops just outside the park, which means that the crew gets a ringside seat to an elephant encounter. Lésa, Dale and Dylan are told that two young bull elephants have escaped from the Kruger National Park and are heading towards a village.
The SANParks helicopter they are travelling in is diverted to help out in what could be a very dangerous situation. The fantastic SANParks crew use helicopter sirens to signal to members of the community below which way to turn to get away from the errant animals. Notice how skilled the pilot, with help from Mark McGill, Kruger’s Technologies Manager he navigates between trees, power lines and people to guide the elephants back into the park.
This is a dangerous situation for all concerned as human-wildlife conflict can easily be sparked, sometimes with tragic consequences for both. As elephants are so large, if they roam into a town or village looking for food they might trample crops, or if they get spooked by human activity they can cause serious damage to the village or, worst of all, hurt a human.
Elephants are generally quite peaceful creatures if they are left alone. However, when an elephant perceives a threat, it can show dominance by spreading its ears, standing tall, raising its head and tusks and even, sometimes, charging and trampling the perceived threats. A human is no match for a charging elephant.
Reaching weights of several thousand kilograms, young male elephants can be highly unpredictable and particularly dangerous to anything that crosses their path. However, unprovoked attacks by elephants on humans are very rare and usually caused by male elephants in musth, a sexually active period when their testosterone levels increase.
Being in a situation where there is so much noise and activity around them is extremely risky, so not taking any chances, the SANParks helicopter is deployed to veer the two young bull elephants away from the village and the nearby road. It takes 30 minutes, together with accompanying ground vehicles to finally redirect the animals through a gate and back into the park towards safety.
Conflict between people and animals is one of the main threats to sustainable conservation efforts. SANParks, Peace Parks and many other conservation organistaions aim to enable a balance between conservation and consumption, between humans and nature. In association with various other partners, Peace Parks works closely with communities through educational programmes and other human-wildlife conflict mitigation tools that protect both communities and wildlife
