Tag: elephant

elephant

Male Elephant, Tarangire National Park

This is a photo of a male elephant walking away from a wetland in Tarangire National Park, Tanzania.

A male elephant walks near a wetland in Tarangire National Park, Tanzania.

Tarangire National Park is known for elephants and baobab trees.  When I was there on a photography safari last September, we saw a good number of each. The safari, which included Serengeti, was sponsored by Nature’s Best Photography and the African Wildlife Foundation and it was hosted by Thomson Safaris. They are running another with Thomson this September. If you’ve been thinking of doing a safari in Tanzania, this would be an excellent choice. Thomson is based in the Boston area. https://thomsonsafaris.com/

elephant

Elephants at Dusk, Tarangire National Park

d3A herd of elephants passes in Tarangire National Park. (Jim Coda)

A herd of elephants passes in Tarangire National Park.

When I booked a trip to Tanzania last summer I already knew something about Serengeti National Park, but there was another park on the itinerary that I had never heard of.  That park is Tarangire National Park. It is the third largest park in Tanzania.  It is known mostly for its elephants and baobab trees and it has both in abundance.  Here is a photo from my first day in the park. The photo was taken at dusk near the Tarangire River.  This is just a small group of elephants out of a herd of somewhere between fifty and one hundred animals.

For a larger version of this photo, click on my portfolio.

elephant

Elephants, Serengeti National Park

Elephants in an endless sea of grass.

Of the Big 5, the two species we had the most sightings of on my recent safari in Tanzania were elephants and lions.  I’m especially interested in predators, but my interest in elephants was heightened in the last year or so by reading “Beyond Words” by Carl Safina.  It’s a book about what animals think and feel and focuses on elephants, wolves and orcas.   So, I paid a lot of attention to elephant actions and interactions on the safari.  It’s so unfortunate that the people in some countries lust after the tusks of elephants.  One of the sponsors of the safari was the African Wildlife Foundation.  It is doing a monumental job trying to stop the ivory trade.  One thing it does is train dogs to sniff out ivory (and rhino horn and pangolin scales) at all ports of exit from countries like Tanzania.  Our safari began with a visit to its dog training school in Tanzania.