The male elephants of the Makgadikgadi

Greetings friends,

Conserving wildlife is more than about being in the field, it’s about using technologies to increase your impact! In Botswana’s Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, one of Africa’s most dynamic landscapes, shifting rainfall patterns, rising temperatures, and fluctuating food availability are transforming how elephants move, feed, and interact with their environment.

To better understand these changes, Elephants for Africa uses camera traps - small, motion-activated cameras that silently monitor key elephant pathways. These devices provide a window into the daily rhythms of wildlife while remaining non-invasive, allowing animals to move freely and behave naturally.

Each camera in our study was carefully positioned between 7 and 9 meters from elephant trails and calibrated to capture the full body of each elephant that passes. Over several months, these cameras have recorded thousands of images. Each frame contributes to a growing dataset that reveals patterns often invisible to the human eye.

The early findings are fascinating. Breeding herds appear to travel more frequently at night, possibly to reduce exposure to human activity or heat stress during the day. Bull elephants often move alone or in small bachelor groups, sometimes lingering longer in areas with greener vegetation. In addition to elephants, our cameras have captured rare and elusive species such as wildcats, bat-eared foxes, aardwolves, and honey badgers. These sightings highlight the importance of elephant corridors as shared lifelines for many forms of wildlife.

The project is now in the data analysis phase, where we are identifying movement patterns, herd compositions, and seasonal shifts. This information helps us track population demographics, monitor ecosystem health, and understand how elephants and other species respond to environmental and human pressures.

Compared to traditional field observation, camera traps provide continuous, unbiased, and low-impact monitoring. They allow us to collect data from remote areas and across long time periods without disturbing the animals, which is particularly important for long-lived, wide-ranging species such as elephants.

The insights gained from this research will help strengthen conservation planning, improve human-elephant coexistence strategies, and inform the work of local communities who share their landscapes with these remarkable animals.

This project and every image it captures are made possible through your support. Your donations fund camera maintenance, camera supplies, data analysis, field training for local assistants, and long-term monitoring essential for safeguarding elephants and their habitats.

Thank you for standing with us. Together, we are not only documenting wildlife but also shaping the future of conservation for the elephants of Makgadikgadi and the wild spaces that sustain them.

Dear friends,

Thanks to your generous support, we’re excited to share that Elephants for Africa has successfully completed the first stage of our elephant uncollaring mission.

This effort marks the next chapter in a project that began in 2022, when we fitted GPS collars on mature bull elephants in the Makgadikgadi region of Botswana. Enough time has now passed that we can begin removing the collars and turning our focus to analysing the wealth of data collected. This data is invaluable—it will help us better understand the movement, habitat use, and social dynamics of this unique, predominantly bull elephant population, found nowhere else in the world.

The recent uncollaring operation was no small feat. Working within a narrow window of time, we had to move quickly to coordinate a complex operation - securing permits, testing telemetry equipment, briefing ground crews, preparing camp for support staff, and notifying nearby stakeholders. Perhaps most challenging of all was synchronising with a highly sought-after wildlife vet, two in-demand pilots, and both a plane and a helicopter!

Thanks to this tremendous effort, we safely removed GPS tracking collars from six of the seven targeted bull elephants. Five were located within Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, and the sixth was found on community land west of the main highway. We’re incredibly grateful to have lead this operation and for the opportunity to deepen our understanding of elephants in this remarkable ecosystem.

We also attempted to remove the final collar from a bull elephant in a private concession roughly 90 miles from camp. While we successfully located him, the dense mopane woodland made a safe darting and landing impossible. Despite our best efforts to guide him into more accessible terrain, we had to make the difficult but responsible decision to postpone—always prioritising the safety of both people and elephants.

We continue to monitor his movements and hope he’ll eventually move into a more logistically feasible area. That said, he seems quite content where he is - surrounded by breeding herds, food, and water!

None of this would have been possible without your support. Thank you for being a part of this journey and for helping us push the boundaries of our understanding of these incredible animals.

With gratitude,
The Elephants for Africa Team