Page 34 - FWG Issue 11 December 2021

Nature

erosion – it was suggested they block
roads with uprooted trees because they
mistake them as dongas.

It was a pretty theory but that’s all it was
– like the fanciful story that elephants
get drunk from eating fermented marula
berries. Jamie Uys, the film producer,
once filmed elephants, supposedly drunk
on marula when, in fact, they’d been
deliberately drugged.

There is little doubt that the marulas
along the S3 to Pretoriuskop have all been
killed by elephants. But why would they
pick on a species whose abundant and
highly nutritious berries they so relish?
Why pick on these last few marulas?

It makes slightly more sense where
mopanes are concerned. Demolishing
these tall trees so that the next generation
of elephants can browse their leaves at
head-height makes some sort of sense.

But their demolition, their total
destruction of marulas seems so counter-
productive. It makes no sense. Maybe
they pick on marulas along the S3
because there’s not much else left? They,
and veld fires have, after all, subdued the
growth of other kinds of tall trees.

And what will be the climax vegetation?
Grassland? Or will it turn to thornveld, a
la Zululand?

Maybe they prefer grassland? Maybe
treeless grassland was the original
landscape. Nobody knows.

A crucial question is: are there too many
elephants? If so, will the thousands
of square kilometres in Mozambique,
relatively recently added to the park’s
conservation area, help absorb surplus
elephants?

I have used up my quota of question marks
and must leave it to readers to wonder
about the evolutionary implications.
Perhaps some bright young postgraduate
will devote his or her PhD to solving the
mystery.

Why would the elephants pick

on a species whose abundant
and highly nutritious berries
they so relish? Marula trees near Pretoriuskop wrecked by elephants.

Fourways Gardens • 32 • December 2021