Witnessing the Great Desert Elephants | Secrets of the Elephants

Somehow these elephants are eking out a living in a landscape that anyone else would think is lifeless. Conservationist Dr. Paula Kahumbu has spent her career studying the elephants of Africa's lush savanna grasslands. But she's never laid eyes on a desert elephant. She wants to find out how these remarkable animals managed to survive in this unforgiving place.

African savanna elephants and desert elephants are the same species. But if you took a savanna elephant and brought it here, it wouldn't survive. I want to know how these desert elephants managed to live here. To find one of the constantly roaming elephant herds, Paula has turned to tracker Hendrik Moon in Bomi and his 25 years of studying the Desert Elephant.

"I think some walk through a soft, so it's possible we’ll find them today."

"Oh, this amazing, there’s two here."

"Oh, you mean there's a big family here? Yeah. These are the desert elephants we've been looking for."

"This family. I've been watching elephants my whole life, and I've never seen elephants like these."

They may be the same species as savanna elephants, but you can immediately see the differences. The legs have less fat in them, so they look taller and their skin is looser.

It's incredibly tough for an elephant here. Food and water are both scarce and it's only getting worse in the Namib desert. Climate change has brought with it a five-year drought. Everything depends on their ability to get from one waterhole to the next. There's no time to stop, to investigate, to explore how to play. It's just survive. Survive means keep going. Keep going.