The average African savanna elephant bull weighs up to 6 000 kg so you might think them oafish, large and strong - certainly not agile. But in an episode of National Geographic’s Secrets Of The Elephants I watched at Pilanesberg National Park, a herd of elephants ascended a cliff face with a jaw-dropping 180-metre drop. The behemoths cautiously rolled their trunks into a ball to test the strength of the ground in front of them, using them as you or I would a walking stick, and then placed their feet in the same spot.
The elephants safely traversed that cliff face together using generational knowledge essential to their success as a population.
Researchers agree that the species' survival also depends on elephants and people getting along. According to WWF, ‘around 90% of African elephants have been wiped out in the past century, largely due to the ivory trade - leaving an estimated 415 000 wild elephants alive today'.
And as elephant habitats become fragmented due to expanding cities and infrastructure, they're more likely to
