Documenting the return of the elephant to Etate

The Etate forest was crisscrossed by old elephant trails that cut deep into the earth - proof that elephants once had a long and significant history at this site. However, “When I first arrived at Etate, signs of elephants were quite rare,” explains Dr. Gay Reinartz, SCI Director, who together with Dr. Inogwabini Bila Isia, SCI Board member and noted conservation scientist in DRC, explored Etate together in 2001. Commercial hunting for the ivory trade had depleted about 90% of the elephants in the Salonga National Park by the mid 1990s.  

In 2001, ICCN declared Etate a patrol post. As years went on, the Etate zone was regularly patrolled. By 2014 researchers began to see fresh footprints and dung piles along the forest trails and in the neighboring elephant bai – a large forest clearing - called Lofekiamengi. The park guards, who were resident at Etate in those years, began recording more elephant signs during their patrols. It became joyfully obvious to the Etate research team that elephants were moving back to Etate! 

Elephant footprints seen in the bai. Bais, or forest clearings, locally called botoka ndjoku, are thought to be formed and maintained by elephants who trample the vegetation and remove small trees.

These clearings are typically bisected by a stream or water source where elephants mine for minerals in the stream bed.  They are an important habitat feature of Salonga and Central Africa; as sites of elephant congregation, they play a vital role in elephant socialization and behavioral ecology. 

Researchers don’t know exactly why elephants came back to Etate. Survey data during those years showed a slight population rise but not a statistically significant increase.  One plausible explanation for seeing more elephants was that Etate’s consistent patrols created a safer zone for elephants to occupy.   

To better protect these elephants, we want to understand their congregation patterns and how they use the bai. 

Elephants are long-lived creatures. Their gestation period is 28 months. Such long lifespans require years of observations to understand their behavior. Because elephants are shy and secretive and nearly impossible to observe in the forest, we turned to cameras, special “trails cams” that are activated by motion and heat, to "see” elephants, says Patrick Guislain, SCI project manager and lead bai researcher. 

A rare photo of elephants in the bai during the day. Most elephant activity takes place at night, possibly as a protective measure against harm.

In 2015, we obtained two camera traps and decided to place them in the bai. Until this point, all we had seen of elephants were their footprints on trails. With these two cameras in the elephant bai, we set out to see if we could photograph them. About two months later, we retrieved the memory cards and held our breath as we reviewed hundreds of photos of nothing but nighttime darkness. Just as we were about to lose hope, ghostly figures with a trunk appeared. It was a moment of celebration for our team – our first time to “see” elephants.   

In order to document elephant occurrence, we expanded the use of trail cameras by placing them in strategic areas around the bai. 

The SCI team surveys the bai.

 What started as a trial became a multi-year effort to understand what data can be captured by camera traps and whether patterns of elephant behavior can inform conservation strategies. Over the course of eleven years, SCI has amassed over 600,000 images of elephants in the bai. 

We can now track: 

• Days and hours elephants congregate in the bai. 

• Relative numbers of elephants arriving and leaving. 

• Approximate age and sex of elephants passing by on forest trails. 

• General condition of elephants entering the bai.

• And even some regular visitors. 

We expect that long term monitoring will reveal a baseline of daily patterns of animal activity allowing us to see how elephants react to disturbances. Camera traps have also detected hunters, reminding us that some level of threat is ever present.

This is a typical video showing elephant activity in the bai at night. 

As a research organization with a permanent presence in Salonga's interior for nearly 30 years, SCI provides the continuity essential for long-term wildlife monitoring. SCI’s data are shared with the park authorities, ICCN and WWF, to help make Salonga National Park safer for forest elephants and other wildlife.  

Elephants found a haven at Etate. Your support ensures that they stay.