The sky was a characteristic pink-blue, the sun hanging low, accelerating toward the horizon. It was the last day of my first field season in Namibia and all I wanted to do was muster some kind of astronomical control over the ebb and flow of time — pin the sun just there above the horizon so that I could enjoy this moment forever. Reclining carefully on a ladder in a partially subterranean cement bunker, I closed my eyes briefly and took a deep breath.
I was in the company of giants. Eight bull elephants milled around the water hole, their breathing slow, punctuated by the water dripping from their mouths and trunks as they took drink after drink. The musky odor of mud and wildness hung around me accented by a chorus of leathery skin swishing. Their amber eyes, framed by long, delicate lashes appraised each other, appraised me. The sun continued to sink, throwing their long shadows across the sand, making them seem even larger. I was losing my mental battle with time.
Greg, the dominant bull, turned to the northwest, took one step, two, then produced a characteristic rumble to gather his troops for the trek back to the bush, as if to say, “Let’s go.”
The sound rushed toward me, crashed into my sternum, filled my ear canals, set my bones to vibrating. I smiled. He had, in that moment, made time stand still, and it was a moment that would be frozen into my mind forever.
Greg, a dominant male and a leader of a tightly-bonded group affectionately referred to as The Boys’ Club leads a pack into the waterhole just before sundown at Mushara. Our understanding of the ways that males interact and form long-lasting bonds is growing rapidly.
“Greg, over the shoulder, Keith. Keith, tail swing, Abe. Abe, foot toss, Keith. Kevin drinks from the trough.” The observations came in rapid fire — the stylus in my hand clicking quickly across my touchscreen tablet between short glances out at the water hole. Data successfully logged.
My research advisor Caitlin’s eyes remained glued to her binoculars, scanning the collection of ten bull elephants engaged in a complicated series of subtle interactions as they all take long draughts from a water trough fed by an artesian well.
Life-sized chess matches like this were the bread and butter of my summers learning about the complex world of male elephant social behavior.
A collection of bulls ranging from young teens to full-grown adults all share a drink at the trough — and play careful politics to get access to the best water.
Young African elephants are born into close matriarchal families where they’re protected by their attentive mothers and a cohort of aunties, cousins, and older siblings.
My time studying the elephant families of Mushara water hole in Etosha National Park, Namibia, introduced me to a variety of baby boys. The trumpets of excited females and the squeaks from tiny trunks meant endless hours of entertainment. A young bull calf in particular stole my heart during the summer research season of 2012.
A large, dramatic herd called the Actresses were regulars at the water hole during this season. Powerful adult females — with names like Queen Latifah and Angelina Jolie — ruled the roost, making sure to discipline the large cadre of adolescent bull calves that specialized in rumpus time.
Rambunctious young males race their mothers and sisters to get to the water hole first and slurp up as much of the clearest water as possible before they have to yield to their elders. Little Grouch can be seen near the middle of the herd, trunk outstretched.
A young, beautiful female elephant named Greta arrived on the scene with a tiny bull calf that we affectionately called Groucho.
The definition of intrepid — little Groucho marched about the water trough like he owned it, fully aware that his older sisters and cousins always had an eye out for him. Head held up high, he seemed to grin with boyish charm.
Elephants develop on timelines similar to humans, so they don’t remain helpless babies for long. Growing rapidly in their first few years, they pack on the pounds from fat-rich mother’s milk and fibrous plants. Males quickly outgrow female calves, and by the time they’re about 10 or 12, they’re approaching the size of their full-grown female family members.
But just because they’re getting bigger doesn’t mean they can wrest power from the females. Boys that try to throw their weight around are often reprimanded with the swat of a trunk or the poke of a tusk.
The rowdy young Actors often would try to jostle their way to the cleanest water, pushing their female relatives to react. In One Case, one young fellow pushed his younger female cousin a bit too far and with a roar and and a spin, her trunk made contact with his flank sending a puff of dust off of his hide. He sheepishly returned to murkier pools, his ego bruised and his trunk muddy.
By the time they hit puberty between 11 and 15, they’re itching to set out from the family to chart new paths. And yet the bonds between them and their families remain, and young males will often stay within the same geographic range of their family groups for several years before setting off to look for new adventures.
For many young males, the first years of independence can often be challenging. Surviving on your own after years of family life can prove difficult and thus they seek out age-mates for company and older males for mentorship. At Mushara, a large cohort of young bulls means that there’s plenty of opportunity to play and bond with their compatriots. Pushing matches are good practice for serious competition in the future and this play is a good way to size up potential rivals.
Just as young college jocks like to challenge each other to arm wrestles, young bulls engage in playful competitions and gentle sparring, each trying to keep their trunk higher than their rival’s. If you can push your friends head down, you can show that you’re stronger — adding points to your macho bank. But with all the pushing and shoving, there is always a remarkable tenderness. Trunks are draped over the opponents tusks and playful head waggles make loose ears wobble back and forth.
Often these wrestling matches are completed with close body contact while refreshing drinks are had. ‘Bromance’ seems to be a common thread among the young males of Mushara.
Male bonding doesn’t end in the teenage years, but continues as the bulls grow older. A special place, Mushara is home to a population of bulls who are extremely affectionate and we can see how these relationships play out. In the field, my advisor has coined this group of tightly-bonded bulls as the Boys’ Club. Body-to-body contact and playful wrestling are common once drinking is complete. Until then, subtle—and occasionally not-so-subtle—body language governs the ways that these boys share the precious water resource.
Glances over shoulders and flaps of ears are all that’s needed for perceptive bulls to understand when they need to wait their turn to drink. Often a tentative trunk placed in the mouth of another male serves as a greeting or a supplication, breaking the ice at the bar.
But just as these complex chess games generate tension, many bulls engage in the same affectionate displays that we see in their adolescent underlings. Bulls with established relationships in particular engage in a range of backslapping and good bouts of body-to-body scratching and cuddling. Older individuals often solicit younger mentees to drink next to them, giving them access to cleaner water.
In particular, a dominant bull we call Greg acts as a ringleader, often rallying his troops to march out of the waterhole with him, the pied piper of elephants.
It is rare to see outright combat in bulls who aren’t in the height of their super-charged hormonal state called musth—the risk of injury is simply too high. But when you add an elephantine-sized dose of testosterone, you set the stage for some explosive collisions.
On one of the last days of the 2012 Namibian field season at Mushara, a pair of bulls began their march into the water hole for a drink: Spencer, a bull who is nearly full-grown, and a young compatriot called Spock. Not soon after they arrived for their sip, we caught a whiff of musth bull (a telltale smell similar to musty onions) and scanned the horizon to see a young bull named Ozzie breaking the edge of our clearing.
Ozzie is very young to come into musth, a state normally reserved for prime bulls in their late 20s and early 30s. With all that testosterone coursing through his body, he was the equivalent of pumped-up bad boy looking for a fight. An unassuming Spencer took the brunt of this aggression as Ozzie let loose in a full-on chase aimed at asserting dominance, dust flying as Ozzie’s snapping, outstretched ears urged Spencer along.
Ozzie gloats as Spencer walks off defeated. Spock watches warily out of the corner of his eye.
Having spent time in the company of bull elephants, I can attest to the intricacy and nuance of their relationships. Games of savvy politics and strategic relationship building are readily evident if you watch for long enough. These relationships are the links in the social fabric of elephant life, and act as conduits of vital information between generations.
I can only wonder at the wisdom that is shared among the boys of Mushara, as they gather under the Namibian stars.
