Report information
Over the past five days Mac has continued moving consistently southward, reaching the southern portion of the private nature reserves and then following the Timbavati River into Kruger NP before returning once more to the private reserves. His momentum carried him further than he travelled in previous years on is trek down from northern Kruger NP.
Now that he has moved across the full length of his musth range, in all likelihood familiarising himself the social landscape as he went, we expect him to start actively seeking out family groups that have potential mates and ensuring that the other bulls are aware that he is once a contender. This should be reflected as a change in his movement patterns.
We spent much of the past five days catching up with the other elephants within Mac's musth range, including three tagged bulls and two tagged family groups, as well as three other musth bulls.
There are a relatively large number of bulls in musth at the moment. These include some quite young individuals which has surprised us. Being a good time of year for elephants to breed, we normally observe large, competitive individuals, such as Mac, in musth at the end of the wet season. The presence of these large musth bulls is normally all the incentive the smaller bulls need to avoid musth at this time.
Best wishes,
Steve
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