Animals
The Surprising Role of Elephants Against Climate Change
I remember the first time I saw a group of elephants in real life. I was taking an African ecology course, and my class and I were trying to figure out what animals we wanted to study.
We had originally chosen to observe a troop of vervet monkeys, but we weren’t sure we would get any significant data because, after spending a few days watching them, they kept hiding from us.
One of the scientists at Mpala Research Center was studying the local elephants, and we decided to go with her one day. We hopped into the safari van, located the herd, and started following them around.
That was until the leader of the herd got fed up. They were moving towards a small pond when she decided to turn back and started charging at us.
The van stood still, and we all stood still. One of my classmates whispered, “Aren’t you scared?” I said, “Not at all. It’s fascinating!”
I wasn’t scared because I trusted the people who were guiding us. They had been studying this herd of elephants for some time now, and I was sure they wouldn’t put us in danger.
In the end, we decided to study baboons because the herd was not in the mood to be followed. The lead researcher told us that it might have been because there…
