Does anybody have any idea how the marula fruit coming into season affects elephants and elephant hunting?

They should be nice and tipsy.

Elephants like marula fruit and will eat it when they come across it. Elephants travel as they feed and I don't think I'd stake out a marula tree waiting for a big bull to show up. You might check out some trees though, as you will check the pans, to pick up a big track to follow.

Kudu and Impala love marula fruit and will make repeated visits to marula trees to pick up fallen fruit. When in Bots, we made sure to hit certain fruit-laden trees to check for big kudu or impala.

It seems like the only time I saw lots of fresh marula fruit on the ground was early in the season when there was lots of folliage still on the trees. This makes for some tough hunting and generally there is still a lot of water around which also scatters the animals.

On my ele hunt last April in Zim. the elephants seemed to be spending their days around marula trees (their nights were spent in the crop fields, corn, squash, etc.). It seemed that when we'd be on a set of tracks and the ph would guestimate where they would lead he was going somewhat by memory as to where there was heavy cover with lots of marulas. Bottom line was that we followed the tracks and although the elephants did seem to be eating the fruit I don't think the location or presence of the trees changed how we hunted much.

Kyler

Did any of you know that elephants on Marula see pink people....