Elephant Encounter in 360 - Ep. 2 | The Okavango Experience

Travie giant elephants in front of you, interacting with you, connecting with you, smelling you, listening to you, looking at you, telling you to stop, telling you to go away, telling you to stay. I am fine with you. Those interactions are powerful to me. Elephants are the guardians and stewards of this wilderness. This is their home, the living room of Africa.

But SWANA is home to the world's largest elephant population, with almost 140,000 elephants interacting with tourists and local people every day. With no hunting in Botswana, there is no threat. If there is still conflict, very few elephants are killed by poachers each year in Botswana. But every year, the number of elephants poached increases. More poachers are coming for Botswana's ivory, and we need to be ready. Protect the people, and they will protect the wildlife.

We stopped to have lunch at Nellis and Crossing, not knowing that the migration was about to arrive. This elephant died of natural causes. The tire tracks you can see up to the elephant carcass are from a military vehicle there to remove the tusks for storage. The smell is close to the carcass and is unbearable. The lion spent the whole day at the carcass; all attempts to feed were half-hearted, full bellies and the unappetizing smell towering above us.

As we set up camp for the evening, there is the Symbiote Bear bed estimated to be over two thousand years old. Every evening, I take a moment to sit alone, quietly, and just listen as the Delta comes to life.