Elephant Tuskers Tembe NR Natal – South Africa
(Classification: Loxodonta Africana)
Image Name: Tusk&Dust
Tembe Elephant Reserve in Northern Natal, South Africa is a bastion for Big tuskers, an emblem of community based conservation and a transcendent link to humanity’s reverence for these gentle giants.
It’s a unique habitat of coastal sand forest, where ancestral land meets evolutionary legacy and one can encounter living breathing embodiments of eons of existence.
Deep sandy tracks wind their way through intermittent clearings of canopied forests for miles on end. Eventually I find a divergence off a main track which leads me into … well the rump of a rather large elephant bull unhurriedly making his way to a nearby waterhole with friend in tow.
It is here after much patience through long noisy slurps of gallons of water that I found myself spectator to this dust bathing ritual.
Great care was taken by my new found friends to ensure sandy dust was sprayed at pressure to all accessible body parts dislodging any unwanted parasites. What a spectacle it was from my front row seat.
Equally mesmerising was how these giants then padded silently, effortlessly off into the shady forest vanishing deeper with each flap of their mighty ears.





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