Nairobi January 8, 2010 On the morning of January 5, 2010 the sun is shining in the sky blue of Kenya. Mrs. Sharon Brown has placed American Margaux, her daughter a year, in a pouch on his chest and, with her husband, a professor at the International School of Kenya Nairobi, has come out for a quiet stroll along the Castle Forest Lodge Nature Trail, a good hotel just outside the boundaries Mount Kenya National Park. With their guidance accompanying the hotel and several other tourists. The road is well marked and beaten every day by rangers of the hotel and traveled dozens of tourists. Suddenly and without any reason, a female elephant charged the group. All fled back to the hotel and travel, all but poor Mrs. Brown and her child in the carrier. The elephant killed them and their bodies are found in 7 or 8 feet away from each other. I am saddened and shocked by this tragic event.
Scientists speak of "habitat fragmentation" in which they live elephants and the fact that human population growth, coupled with poaching, leads i branchi alla fuga e alla costante perdita di territori. I bracconieri uccidono i grandi maschi o le femmine più mature d’età perché hanno le zanne più grandi. Il commercio d’avorio è proibito dal 1989, ma un chilo di zanne d’elefante vale 750 dollari. A causa della caccia e del selvaggio taglio delle foreste gli elefanti più giovani perdono il branco e i legami di famiglia e, rimasti soli, possono essere pericolosi. Spesso mancano, come gli umani, di controllo sociale. Gli studiosi del mondo animale spiegano che le femmine più anziane, le nonne con esperienza, sono sempre più rare. Le madri giovanissime non sanno come allevare bene i figli e gli orfani crescono senza riferimenti culturali. La società, come succede da noi, va allo sbando.
Gli elefanti sono dotati di una raffinata organizzazione sociale, di una memoria straordinaria e di grande sensibilità. Quando un elefante muore gli altri lo seppelliscono con rami e foglie e restano a vegliarne il cadavere per giorni e giorni. Negli anni seguenti tornano sul posto e vi sostano seguendo un preciso cerimoniale. Se uno di loro viene ucciso il gruppo è capace di aspettare per anni fino a quando la vendetta viene portata a termine. Gli elefanti stanno diventando, dopo gli ippopotami, una diffusa causa di morte per gli esseri umani in Africa e, all’interno del ciclo biologico, animali assai più aggressivi che in passato.
Quando siamo andati ad Aberdare National Park nella sala dell’Ark, above the welcoming open fire, we noticed the trophy head of a large white rhinoceros. The ranger told us that he had been killed by a female elephant when she saw him get too close to his small (who had started playing with the baby rhino).
There is no animal or car in the world that can withstand the charge of an elephant.
They are the kings of the forest, not the lions.
course, "any animal, as fast, has more speed of a charging lion from a distance of few meters. It 'a step quicker than thought, faster escape of the "Beryl Markham wrote in" West with the Night ", but the progression of an elephant charge is irresistible even for the big cats. The lions move dall'abbeveraggio when the elephants arrive: the boys outside, the females in the intermediate position to give orders, the young, so to speak, in the middle, as I have seen many times before every waterhole.
In thirty years of travel in Africa, I met hundreds and hundreds of elephants: I do not think that they can be aggressive without reason.
In 1988, in Malawi, I had rented a small boat to go up north to the south of the river Shire, a tributary of Lake Malawi, the national park. In the late afternoon, during the coolest hours, with a smaller boat and reach the shore excursions we did a piedi nel bush. Una sera, col sole che emanava la sua ultima luce giallo ocra, silenziosamente un grande elefante mi passò davanti a 5 o 6 metri di distanza. Per fortuna il gruppo di turisti che guidavo rimase silenzioso e fermo. Più in là vedemmo un’intera famigliola: maschio, mamma e piccolo. Camminavano placidi verso nord, rossi di polvere e abbagli porpora del sole al tramonto.
Dieci anni dopo a Marsabit, nel nord del Kenya, io e Cristina dormivamo in tenda sulle rive del lago, nell’unico luogo dove è consentito campeggiare all’interno del cratere.
Era una placida notte stellata quando fummo svegliati dai potenti barriti degli elefanti che passarono in mezzo alle tende e se ne andarono. Se avessero voluto ci were swept away, not only did not, but all the camping equipment left intact as if their passage was a dream. For fear we could not go back to sleep for a while ', and even walked out of the tent. The next day we looked good and get back to camp there: we were warned by their trumpeting. Fortunately, we had to leave for the desert of North Horr.
The tragedy of Mrs. Sharon sparked discussions on safety in Nairobi safari. If you visit a park on foot and meet animals must remain in total silence and not to move. If you're in the car and get good return in the evening on the way back to the lodge. A colleague Cristina, during a safari in Uganda, had a failure the engine of the jeep at dusk and spent the night with his family in the car. But all this has nothing to do with the case of Mrs. Sharon and her daughter had their guide, were near the hotel, were approved on a path. The Kenyan government has declared that it would extend the grant of the ranger rifle outside of national parks: the Castle of the Forest Lodge Nature Trail is just outside of Mount Kenya National Park and the ranger had no gun.
would be better to bring an environmentally sustainable tourism, limiting access to national parks, a serious suppression of poaching and a real control of the territory, but it is not easy because too many people who eat thanks to poaching and bush in the area did not clearly demarcated boundaries and there is no control.
E 'Africa.
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