Re: Do Elephants Scream?

13 December 2004, 12:51

MARK H. YOUNG

SBT,

You have an elephant let out a blast nearby when you don't know they are there and you'll more than drop your pellet gun.

They make lots of sounds but the one that jump me a couple of times kind of started as a growl and then ended with a screech. Most disconcerting for the unitiated.

If your asking if they make noise when they are shot all I can say is that the 2 I shot made no discernable vocal type noise.

Regards,

Mark

13 December 2004, 12:23

SBT

I remember the first rabbit I shot. I was 10 years old and at the shot, it screamed! Scared me so much, I dropped my pellet gun and ran home. Nobody told me they screamed.

I read an article recently where someone said their elephant screamed. Anybody have this happen?

13 December 2004, 13:21

Atkinson

ONLY when a mouse is present and when they have no chair to get on...That why in the videos you always see me packing a chair for Saeed, we give it to the elephant and run from the mouse....

13 December 2004, 16:08

mbogo375

Quote:

I remember the first rabbit I shot. I was 10 years old and at the shot, it screamed! Scared me so much, I dropped my pellet gun and ran home. Nobody told me they screamed.

I read an article recently where someone said their elephant screamed. Anybody have this happen?

SBT,

I don't know if you were referring to my post concerning the young askari, but I did use that term. More properly I could have said that he was trumpeting, but it all boils down to a high pitched and VERY LOUD exhalation of air. Call it whatever you will, but if you are on foot within a matter of feet from the elephant when it happens you will never forget it!!!!!

To clarify what I said, the elephant that I shot did NOT do this, only his companion did. I have seen and heard this behavior many times when coming too close to a herd of elephant (cows and calves, plus younger bulls), and also from solitary elephant, even when not hunting. It is the elephant equivalent of a warning or alarm, sort of like a lion growl or a snort from some other animals.

One very funny incident(at least after the fact

) with ele occurred when I was doing the tourist thing on the Chobe river in Botswana. I was in the very front of a small pontoon boat with a half dozen or so other people aboard. We were taking photos of a group of ele coming down to the river for a drink, and the fellow running the boat nosed it onto the bank to stabilize it a bit better for photos. All was going well for a while, and I was getting some good still photos and video from the front of the boat. Suddenly the largest of the ele decided that we didn't need to be there, and started coming toward us from about 40 yards away. I continued taking video, and in the background of the video you can hear a commotion from the back of the boat as people were scrambling toward the rear, and the motor revving up because we were stuck on shore

. As the ele continued to make a tremendous noise and come straight for us, I switched to my still camera. I was using a 28-200 telephoto lens, and had to go toward the wide angle end of the range to get most of the ele's head into the shot. By now the ele was about 20 feet or so away and still coming.

Just as I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and started to shift in my seat so that I could move, the boat came free from the bank. As we started moving backward into the river, the elephant was reaching the waters edge. It's first step into the river was close enough to the front of the boat to splash water onto me (about 10 feet

). The chase continued until the ele was stomach deep in the water.

Would anyone like to see a photo of an elephant's eye that was taken without benefit of a long telephoto lens

?

Jim

13 December 2004, 16:29

SBT

Mbogo375, I don't know if it was your post or not, but I would love to see any of those photos! What a thrill that must have been.