Frin Elephant Trust.org (Cynthis Moss):
The Return of Echo's Son
Mon, 2010-01-18 11:16 by cmoss
Soila, Norah and I went out together this morning. We knew there were big groups out west and in Longinye but we chose to go west. There in the tall elephant grass to the south of Lake Conch we found an aggregation of over 100 elephants consisting of several families and 10+ bulls. Trying to do censuses of the families was a nightmare, so at one point when it was totally impossible I said let's see if we can identify the bulls. We drove over to a group of four bulls who were sparring in the river. Norah knew three of them, but the fourth one appeared to be a stranger. He had a large bump high up on his back above the hip. Norah, who is the expert on the bulls, hadn't remembered seeing a bull like that. We looked closely at him and noted that he had curtain or drape ears with prominent folds at the top. He started sparring with Bjorn who was born in 1989. The mystery male seemed slightly smaller so maybe he was a '90 or a '91. Then Norah said maybe it's Ely (Soila and I laughed) and she got out his card. We looked at the veins, the drape in his ear, and his almost hairless tail and started to get more and more excited. The age was right; he was born February 28, 1990. What added to our excitement was knowing that in 1997 Ely had been speared in exactly the spot where the bump now was. A good view of the veins in his right ear confirmed it was definitely Ely. We were so excited, clapping and shouting, that we scared a poor bull who was coming to join the others.
Ely was Echo's son who was born crippled. Martyn Colbeck and I were there to film him from the time he was only a couple of hours old. Ely couldn't stand because his front carpal joints (like our wrists) were completely bent under and rigid. However, Echo and her older daughter Enid would not give up on him, even when the rest of the family had to leave to find food and water. Ely turned out to be a survivor. He kept trying to stretch and bend his legs and eventually they became more flexible. On the third day he was able to stand. His story was the main part of the first Echo film and book: "Echo of the Elephants". Martyn and I also wrote a children's book about Ely called "Little Big Ears: the story of Ely".
Over the next ten years Ely had many adventures and problems including a bout of what we call "twisting disease" and in 1997 he was speared. He was treated by a vet and recovered.
Some time in 2000 Ely went independent which was early for a young male. The average age of departure is around 12. Some are real mama's boys and stay till 18, but not Ely. He was ready to go out and join the other males and learn how to be a bull. He was seen a few times after he left, the last time in April 2001. After that he was never seen again until today. That is nearly nine years.
Where was he? What was he doing? One of the bulls near him was Neill who we also hadn't seen in several years. Norah and Soila had last recorded Neill on one of their trips to Tanzania, so we think Ely may have been with him. Wherever he's been, he's been doing well. He is a big, handsome, healthy 20 year old getting ready to compete with other males to mate with females. We hope he'll pass on those good survivor genes.
I am attaching four photos of Ely: 1) right ear showing the veins and drape ear and part of his body showing the bump; 2) 1997 photo of Ely with spear; 3) Ely in 1997 from the back with spear; and 4) Ely today moving away showing the bump and his sparse tail hairs.
Article and photos at: http://www.elephanttrust.org/node/615#comment-1740
trophy hunting is not well regulated and poaching there is also soaring.