One evening, after trying his luck at our lodge Lord Madikwe marched into another the camp, broke down the electric gates to the lodge and went straight into the fenced area. I was told that the elephant had done so much damage and was in camp for almost the whole night. He ended up smashing the window on their company vehicle with his tusks, then he moved on to a beautiful big Marula tree and pushed it over...Next he decided that it was a good idea to move to the water treatment plant at the bottom of the lodge and push the water tanks over and puncture them with his tusks, and then play soccer with the tanks, pumps and pipes.
Eventually the manager had enough, as the guests had left the lodge as they were too scared of the elephant, the staff were petrified to come to work and there had been so much damage that the decision was taken to destroy him. One .375 monolithic solid bullet to the brain did the trick, as you can well imagine, the rest of the evening was pretty quiet !
The next day the elephants carcass was moved to an open clearing where vultures could come down and start eating the carcass. Besides vultures the carcass made for all sorts of great sightings with numerous lions, hyenas and jackal feeding on it. In total the carcass lasted about 5 weeks, so you can imagine how it smelt...
Above is a picture of a vehicle that was involved in an incident with an elephant that attacked the car and pushed it some distance. unfortunatley the driver was also killed. He was trampled to death as he fled from the vehicle. This is just to give you an indication of how powerfull these animals can be as this vehicle was pushed some distance before she decided that it was time to move off and get back to her youngsters and the rest of the herd. It's always a good thing to remember that we are in their space and that all animals can be potentially dangerous.
It is always sad when such a majestic animal has to be destroyed. Lets hope there won't be another "Lord Madikwe" for a long time.
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