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 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.  

As years went on, the Etate zone was regularly patrolled. By 2014 researchers began to see fresh footprints and dung piles along the trails and in the neighboring elephant bai called Lofekiamengi.  The ecoguards, who were resident at Etate in those years, began recording more elephant signs during their patrols.  It became joyfully clear to the Etate research team that elephants were moving back to Etate.   

Elephant footprints seen in the bai. A bai is 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 forage for minerals in the stream bed.

 We 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 anti-poaching initiatives and consistent patrols created a safer zone for elephants to occupy.   

To better protect these elephants, we want to understand their congregation patterns. 

Elephants are long-lived creatures. Their gestation period alone is 28 months. Such long lifespans require years of data specific to the forest conditions in Salonga. Because elephants are shy, 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.  

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

In 2015, in order to document elephant occurrence, we began testing the use of trail cameras by placing them around a habitat feature called a bai.  Bais, forest clearings locally known as botoka ndjoku, are an important habitat feature of Salonga and Central Africa; they play a vital role in elephant socialization and behavioral ecology.    

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 seven years, SCI has amassed over 500,000 images of elephants in the bai. 

We can now track  

• Days and hours elephants congregate in the bai 

• Which elephants are regular visitors to the bai 

• Relative numbers of elephants arriving and leaving  

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

• Average tusk size, height, and condition of elephants entering the bai   

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

We expect that intensive monitoring will establish a baseline of daily patterns whereby changes in elephant habits would signal park managers when disturbances occur. Camera traps have also detected poachers, reminding us that some level of threat is ever present. 

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.