A female elephant and two calves use the buddy system to cross a Ugandan road. Photo: Global Adrenaline
The African Elephant is the largest land mammal and perhaps the continent’s most charismatic creatures. An adult elephant is 3.5m high and weighs over 6,000Kgs. They are also very aggressive animals that have a very good memory. Its trunk is remarkable for its multipurpose nature: it serves as a nose, a hand, an extra foot and a tool for gathering food or even caressing a companion. An elephant is very social and live in small family groups of up to 100 members consisting of an old matriarch as a leader and three to four off springs, along with their young ones. Elephants can live in nearly any habitat that has adequate quantities of grass and water. Their diet consists of grass, leaves, twigs, bark, fruit and seedpods.
Elephants have a gestation period of 22 months and usually give birth to one offspring and their life span is 70years. Uganda has mainly the Forest elephants and the African elephants that are very common in Queen Elizabeth, Murchison Falls, Kidepo, Bwindi, Semliki and Kibale National Parks. Uganda has a stable population of about 4,393 elephants.
Queen Elizabeth National Park is a home of over 65% of the elephants population in Uganda.