A cheeky elephant sneaked into a game lodge to guzzle from a swimming pool, but he ran into a game ranger filming the encounter.
Eugene Troskie, a wildlife manager in South Africa, was relaxing on some decking at the lodge he runs when a herd of elephants showed up.
The magnificent wild beast came so near that its tusk touched against the man’s shoulder and offered a spectacular up-close look at its wrinkly grey skin.
When Mr. Troskie reached for his phone to capture the occurrence, the juvenile male elephant, who was roughly 20 years old, had taken a big sip from the pool with his trunk.
To his surprise, the elephant took a few steps towards him and began approaching to consume fresh new branches from the tree where the ranger was sitting – without appearing to notice there was a person nearby.
Mr. Troskie kept his cool and remained motionless, hoping not to scare the elephant in order to avoid spooking it.
‘I figured he must have seen me as he approached, but he clearly hadn’t, and when his trunk went up to feed on the tree, his right tusk touched my shoulder.’
‘I switched my phone around in the hopes of getting a better shot, but the elephant sensed I was a human rather than a fixture or fitting and got frightened.
‘It was the most incredible encounter for a wild elephant to rest his tusk on you, and I knew I was never in any danger from him,’ she said.
‘As a game ranger for ten years, I’ve learned that they become irritated or furious at times, but this guy was absolutely calm and I couldn’t have been happier to let him approach and say hi.
‘It’s not something I’d let a guest do since you never know how someone will react – but it was just him and me getting to know one another better, as well as relaxing.’
The herd of 25 elephants, which usually visit the waterhole just on the outskirts of the camp, occasionally enter and take a drink straight from the pool to the amusement of campers.
Lion Place Lodge is in Limpopo Province’s Phalaborwa, and it is the home of the Big 5 of elephants, lions, leopards, buffaloes, and rhinoceros. It is located on 2,800 hectares of prime savannah in an area of 2,800 square kilometers.
‘I have a great photo of three elephants lined up next to each other, popping their trunks into the pool and having a lekker [delicious] drink of water,’ Mr. Troskie stated.
‘When elephants come into the lodge, they know they’re in your domain, and it’s a very different scenario from you approaching them when they’re resting in their own territory.
‘If you approach them at their waterhole, they will see you as a danger, but if you take them to a lodge where everything smells of people, they will be unprepared for humans.
‘I thought the elephant was a deck ornament and was startled when I moved,’ he continued. Even though he learned that I was a person, no aggression showed on his part.’
African elephants can reach a height of 13 feet and weigh 12,000 pounds.
