The African elephant, the largest land animal on the planet.
We're about 25 yards away.
Once, millions of elephants roamed across Africa.
Now, there are less than 450,000.
If we're not careful, we will push them to the brink of extinction
I just find it incomprehensible that any one would want to kill them.
My name's Levison Wood.
It's pretty deep here...
I've walked the Nile...
Crocodile, there.
..and explored over 100 countries.
This is proper wilderness.
..and I've been a champion of elephant conservation
for nearly a decade.
How can we save
the last of the giants?
Now, I'm on a new journey across Botswana,
home to the world's largest elephant population.
This is where we're going to see some serious wildlife.
I'm joining them on their annual migration,
so I can experience their world on their terms...
Africa's nature at its finest,
but also this dark
and shocking brutality.
..as close up as possible.
You've just been shat on by a monkey!
At times, it will be downright dangerous...
Coming straight at us. Where?
I'll meet the people who live and work here...
..to discover how difficult life is alongside these giants.
I want to see for myself if there's a way that elephants
and people can co-exist.
On the second leg of my journey...
..I'm following male elephants on an uncharted migration...
An elephant has actually crossed this. It looks like a desert.
I'll help fit a GPS tracking collar...
Dart it.
..to a full-grown bull elephant...
..and find out the hard way....
He's massive.
..why elephants and people don't always mix.
Go, go, go!
BUZZING CICADAS AND BIRD CALLS
I'm in Botswana, following elephants along their ancient migration
routes with bushman guide, Kane Motswana.
That's it. Phew...
Just in time.
This next leg of our journey is shrouded in mystery.
We're following bull elephants as they migrate
across the Makgadikgadi pans, one of the largest salt flats on Earth.
That is magnificent.
It's just seemingly endless,
it just goes on and on and on as far as the eye can see.
Right, into the wilderness...
RHYTHMIC CLAPPING AND DRUMS
After nine days following female breeding herds
250 miles down the Chobe River towards the Okavango,
I'm heading east to find the male elephants
who roam deep into a seemingly inhospitable wilderness,
before migrating to the delta.
I'll follow their 260 mile migration west
across the saltpans,
on through Gweta
where human-elephant conflict is all too real,
take a detour via the town of Maun,
before reaching the Okavango,
the elephants' final destination.
Walking on this, I know it looks baked dry, but it's actually not.
It kind of feels a little bit squelchy underfoot.
It's like clay, isn't it?
You should be an artist.
There you go.
Yeah?!
While Kane's ancestors made pots,
my attempt isn't quite as sophisticated.
THEY LAUGH
We don't have this small!
Masterpiece...
No-one knows for sure why elephants cross these pans,
but one thing is certain,
Surviving the trek depends on water.
They wouldn't take the risk of coming out here?
Two million years ago, this whole area was underwater.
Fed by the Okavango River, it was a super lake the size of Switzerland.
Now, it only floods during the rainy season,
and it's hard to imagine anything surviving here...
..Let alone elephants.
Look at that, literally in the middle of nowhere.
Remarkable.
You think there's two?
Two elephants.
Crossing our path are the footprints of elephants,
walking in single file.
They're big, eh?
Amazing, isn't it, to think that an elephant
has actually crossed this? I mean, it looks like a desert.
So, which way are they going?
Just like winkle pickers.
What are they doing out here, these bulls?
There's not much food out here, though, is there?
Do they come here for the salt?
A bit of seasoning.
After the summer rains,
nutrient-rich vegetation flourishes around the pans,
but as the seasons change and it dries up here,
the winter floods arrive in the delta
and the elephants head west towards the new feeding grounds.
Let's follow the elephants, shall we? Yeah.
How they navigate is unclear...
They may use memory or their powerful sense of smell.
There's even a theory it's imprinted in their genes.
The elephants' footprints are less visible on this hard ground
so we're looking for other signs.
It's still wet, fresh.
Thanks, very fresh!
LOW RUMBLE
You can just hear that low, deep grumble.
That's the elephants signalling.
How far away do you think they are?
LOW, LONG GRUMBLE
BRANCHES SNAPPING
You'd think the world's largest land animal would be easy to spot...
There they are.
..but elephants are incredibly well camouflaged.
LOW INTENSE ROAR
Wow!
There are about four bull elephants just right there,
maybe 20 yards away. We've finally found them.
When adolescent bulls leave their mothers,
they come together in bachelor herds like these,
where the younger ones learn bush skills from the older bulls.
This is our first chance to watch the dynamics of male herds
in their natural habitat.
A 40-year-old bull like this can weigh up to seven tonnes
and get through over 200kg of food a day.
There's one more. There's that one behind, as well.
LOW RUMBLE
Outside of mating season,
males are rarely aggressive,
but this cocky young bull uses our presence
as a chance to show his strength and prove himself to the others.
OK, we've just been seen by the bull there and, er,
we thought we'd give him a bit of space
because when they start flapping their ears like that
and moving their feet,
then it means that they want you out of the way.
The elephant's onto us, and now he's determined to track us.
AGGRESSIVE TRUMPET
If he charges, we've got no chance of outrunning him.
We're surrounded...
and we're surrounded by five bull elephants.
WHISPERS: Yeah, this one's coming closer.
ELEPHANT ROARS
One of the younger bulls thinks we're too close
and is making sure we know it.
WHISPERS: The elephant's just here.
It's like ten yards away. So, we've got to be really, really careful.
ELEPHANT ROARS Let's go.
OK, let's not mess around.
WHISPERS: That was pretty close.
ELEPHANT ROARS IN DISTANCE
With enough distance between us and the bull, we're out of danger.
OK. Well, I think that's as close as we want to get today.
That bull just gave us a blunt reminder of how dangerous
elephants can be, if we overstep the mark.
HE GRUNTS
HE SIGHS Morning.
I didn't hear any, um, I didn't hear any wildlife.
Did you, Kane? Any animals?
There was no elephants.
Yeah.
Well...there wasn't.
HE LAUGHS
Nonsense. Huh?
Really?
No, I think you're having me on.
Hello, what's that?
Meerkats. Yes.
Very cute, aren't they?
Scorpions?
There's a lot of scorpions here.
I'll be careful not to lie down in the dirt too much, then.
He's right there, right there, right there. Look at that.
We should leave them to it and carry on, yeah?
It's our second day walking across the Makgadikgadi Pans.
We're over 60 miles from the nearest town,
but, even in this remote place,
there are signs that we're not the only humans here.
COWS MOO
There's a whole herd of cows just following on behind.
What do these cows want? They're getting pretty close. Yeah.
It's like Doctor Doolittle.
This is a cattle post up ahead, is it? Yes.
We stumble on a farm
right in the middle of the elephants' migration route.
Morning. How are you doing?
Hey! Hey!
THEY GREET EACH OTHER
THEY LAUGH
I wasn't expecting to find people out here,
let alone an old mate of Kane's.
What's your name?
Komutsao. Hey. Hey.
Nice place.
Well, I mean, it's dusty, isn't it?
Yeah, you're right on the edge of the Pans.
So, what are you doing today? What are you doing with the cows?
Is there a lot of cattle here?
When the elephants come through,
do they cause damage to your homes or your gardens or...?
Eesh.
Elephants drink up to 200 litres of water every day.
It's thought they can smell it over seven miles away,
and will often damage wells and water storage tanks to get to it.
MEN SHOUT
Yeah.
Most of Botswana's 1.7 million cows range freely...
..grazing on land often shared with wildlife.
What would you say to the conservationists,
who say there's too many cattle?
HE STUTTERS
Is that true?
Yeah.
It's a pretty tough existence, eh?
Of course, yeah.
Do you want us helping? We may as well help, since we're here.
Yes, no problem.
What do we need to do?
Get them into that one, yeah? Yep.
I need a stick. Yeah.
Hey, hey, hey, hey.
Hey.
WHISTLING AND SHOUTING
Hey.
THEY LAUGH
Come on, come on.
Hey.
He does not want to go in.
This is what I mean, hey? It'd be embarrassing, wouldn't it?
Coming out here to find elephants and getting trampled by a cow.
HE LAUGHS
Aye!
HE LAUGHS
Hey.
Cheers, guys, thank you. Take care.
Come on, Kane, otherwise I'm going to leave you here.
SHOUTING AND WHISTLING
No, don't stay there, it will hit you.
HE LAUGHS MANICALLY
I was trying to stop him from leaving.
THEY LAUGH
I've just been charged by a bull.
KANE LAUGHS
That little calf just nutted me.
I'm covered in cattle shit.
Ooh, it's hard work, all this cattle herding, isn't it?
Ah, it's really hard work.
And I do feel for them, but, at the end of the day,
this is where the elephants and all the other wildlife live, so...
Right. There's that conflict, isn't there?
We're back on the trail of our five bull elephants...
..and Kane thinks he knows where they're heading.
The Sun is just setting behind me,
and, after hours and hours of tracking these bull elephants,
we've finally found them.
WHISPERS: There's one at the back. What's that?
Oh, shit, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
OK, there's more coming.
They're right there.
What an incredible, incredible experience,
to be right here with the same elephants that were...
..quite aggressive, but they just want a drink.
They've let us into their space.
Here in the open,
they're more relaxed than they were in the thick bush.
So, they're comfortable for us to get closer.
Wow.
Which was the one flapping his ears?
With a lifespan of around 60 years, elephants are very social.
As bulls become sexually active, they head off alone to mate,
but may rejoin the same herd later.
Those boys over there, they like going down to the pub at 6:00.
They come down for opening hours, have a drink.
Then, they'll be off causing trouble, no doubt, later.
Tomorrow, we're leaving the Pans behind
for a unique opportunity to get even closer to a bull elephant.
The sun's beating down...
We've still got a long walk ahead, but
somewhere in the distance is the village of Gweta.
We're halfway through our journey following elephants
in the wilderness
and we're seemingly miles away from civilisation.
But, right on the edge of the salt pans,
there's a large village of 4,000 people.
Morning, hello.
This is the hub of action, is it? Yeah.
THEY CHUCKLE
I've got absolutely nothing to mail back to the UK.
It feels like a Wild West town.
I expect to see, sort of, cowboys.
WIND WHIPS
A tornado's just torn straight through the middle of Gweta.
Oh, no. LOUD CRASH
Uh-oh, look at that.
Whew.
Oh! Oh!
Oh!
Oh, wow, eh? THEY CHUCKLE
Exciting!
We should go and help the old lady. Yeah, we should, eh?
TRANSLATION:
OK.
Where's it go now?
Thank you. Thank you. No problem. No problem. Thank you.
There we go. We've done our good deed for the day.
THEY CHUCKLE
Yeah.
We're here to help a local conservation group,
Elephants Without Borders,
fit a GPS tracking collar to a full-grown bull elephant.
Hi. Lev? Hello. Mike. Mike? Yeah, yeah. Good to meet you.
Elephant expert Dr Mike Chase studies their migration routes
to understand how elephants and humans can coexist.
What's amazing about the area we're in now
is that this is the southernmost edge of their range.
So, elephant movements here are a complete mystery to us.
So, the satellite collars will provide us with all that
long-distance detective work and information.
This is, uh, Dr Larry Patterson, our wildlife vet.
So, Larry, you'll be on the dart gun, is that right?
Yeah. This is the dart.
It's got a little, uh, explosive charge at the back,
behind a spring, and instantly squirts the drug into the elephant.
This is a highly skilled operation...
..co-ordinated on the ground...
CAR ENGINE REVS
..and in the air.
Kane and Mike and will be leading the ground crew...
Elephant safety is the top priority
and making sure we're in position is crucial to the whole operation.
..while I take to the air with Larry the vet.
Mike has selected the biggest bull of a pair
that's been spotted near Gweta.
All right. I think I've got them there.
Yeah, that's them.
Whereabouts? On the nose, there.
Right. Oh, yeah, I see, OK. Yeah, two of them there.
Which one are we going for?
It's the one on the right, is the one we've earmarked.
The bigger, paler one is our one, yeah?
RADIO: Kane, Kane, come in.
Yeah, go ahead? Basically, when you get to the fork in the road,
in about 100 metres, you're going to get out onto the...
..the pan, and you'll see them on your left-hand side.
RADIO CLICKS
To date, Mike has darted and collared more than 170 elephants,
at a cost of around £8,000 each.
Are you locked and loaded, then? Yeah.
Going straight in? Yeah, straight in, I'm ready.
You just tell me what you want.
OK. Hang on, I can go slower if you want, OK.
OK, dart's in.
Dart in. Dart in.
Nice job.
RADIO CLICKS
Once the sedative kicks in,
we have less than 30 minutes to get the job done.
The drug's taking effect.
We'll get up closer, Kane, so we can watch him, if he goes down.
OK, a bit of dust coming.
Right, now, we're on foot. We're going to go and...
..hopefully see this elephant go down, cos he's still standing up.
Yeah, the other bull's just on the edge of the tree line.
ELEPHANT HUFFS
Wow, what a handsome fellow.
He's a tough one as well, hey? He's very stubborn, isn't he?
ELEPHANT HUFFS
There he goes, hopefully.
HUFFING CONTINUES
Oh, my! Easy, boy.
Is that a good position for him to land?
It's the best position he could possibly land. Perfect. Yeah.
So, how long have we got now before it wears off?
Oh, 20 minutes, or so...
20 minutes. ..would be ideal.
The collar won't cause any discomfort
and is loose enough to allow for growth.
I'm going to ask you to throw it over to me... OK. ..on that side.
It has a life span of three to four years,
after which Mike's team will remove it.
There we go.
And how.. How much does this thing weigh?
Uh, just the satellite unit on its own weighs 5kgs
and then the counterweight another 15.
The elephant's comfortable with that? Absolutely.
Yeah? Yeah, it's light, for a five-tonne animal.
I guess, compared to this five-tonne animal. It's very light.
I do not want to be hanging around when he wakes up
cos he's going to be very groggy and probably not all that happy.
OK, now, pull.
It's kind of stuck on something.
OK, hang on.
There we go. Ey! Well done. Excellent.
OK. Excellent.
OK, this is the tricky part.
OK. Kane, hold that just level with the bottom of his foot, OK. Great.
While we get the collar on... Just hold it there. ..Larry and Kane
are collecting DNA samples and valuable data to build a profile
of this 40-year-old bull.
3.5 metres.
He's a big guy. HE CHUCKLES
Just like a human under sedation,
the bull's vital signs are closely monitored.
These mucus membranes inside the eye...
..they must stay pink
and then you know he's getting good oxygen.
And his breathing is regular.
This is their survival tool.
He has nearly 100,000 muscles in his trunk.
Yeah. Yeah, he can pick up something the size of a pea.
They're very dextrous, aren't they? Absolutely.
RAPID SAWING
Excellent. Well done.
The collar will transmit a live GPS signal 24/7.
ELEPHANT HUFFS
Unfortunately, the main threat to elephants now is ivory poaching.
And so, this is also a surveillance tool to look after and protect
this magnificent animal.
And, you know, how much would something like this sell for?
I mean, it's, it's horrible to think that anyone would want to
kill an elephant just to take its tusks away, but... Right.
One tusk here, if it's about 50lbs, 25kg...
You know, $50,000. It's a lot of money.
$50,000.
I mean, that is massive.
Every year, 20,000 African elephants are killed for their tusks.
But elephants with collars aren't usually targeted
as they can reveal the poachers' location.
I'm going to give him an antidote now.
That should get through his system quite quickly.
Now we leave him alone. Good luck, old boy.
What an absolute privilege to be a part of that.
Such a beautiful animal and to be up so close and personal
with an elephant like that is an absolute dream come true.
ELEPHANT HUFFS
He's getting up. There we go.
ELEPHANT TRUMPETS
Absolutely incredible.
ELEPHANT RUMBLES
Mike believes that understanding more about
elephant migration in the region is key to securing their future.
This elephant could be here today, tomorrow in the Okavango delta,
in a week's time in Namibia, we don't know.
That's the mystery this collar will be able to answer for us.
You're doing other things as well? Well, absolutely.
What impact do they have on people, how are fences,
roads impacting the elephants?
So, it provides us with a treasure trove of secrets.
Where does the safety and security of elephants lie?
It is the value that elephants give the people of Botswana,
that tourism is our second largest foreign exchange earner
and we need to realise how important elephants are
to our national economy.
There must be more to it than money as well? Well, absolutely.
There's an intrinsic value and if we can't save the African elephant,
what is the future for the rest of our wildlife heritage?
Before we continue on our journey following in the footsteps
of elephants...
Hi.
..Kane wants us to visit a village elder and fortune teller.
All right?
Nice to meet you. What's your name?
Nice to meet you, Chipson.
Many villages in Botswana have soothsayers like Chipson.
Their prophecies are taken seriously.
We'd like to know if our journey's going to be successful.
You have to give some money.
OK. Put it here.
What do I do with that?
So, you, you get that and you can tell all your wishes on that.
"I want to have seven wives, or so."
You can say whatever you want to say with those sticks.
I'm going to make a wish that, you know, the elephants in Botswana
will be safe and that this year,
none will get poached.
How about that? What do I do now?
Throw them on the floor? Yeah, throw them.
Have you been charged by an elephant?
No, we don't.
The idea is, I think, that if you've got lots of elephants,
you'll attract a lot more tourists and the money that tourism will
bring in will hopefully benefit normal people.
Thank you for being so honest with me.
That's a relief. Thank you.
He definitely raised some valid points about the community
not seeing any benefit from elephants.
It's easy for us to say in the West you should care
because it's another living creature,
but you can understand why the vast majority of the people living out in
these villages, from my experience, consider elephants as the enemy.
It sounds to me like the people who benefit the most
out of wildlife conservation are those who have a
stake in the tourism at the higher end, not the local people.
So, how far is it to Maun from here?
Two days? Yep.
Maybe we'll hitchhike for this bit.
THEY LAUGH
Ahead of us is a 130-mile journey along northern Botswana's
main highway.
That is what you call a zebra crossing.
We're heading for the Okavango Delta...
Keep walking.
..where we hope to catch up with our bull elephants.
Is there a special etiquette here? Use your thumb or what?
How do you do it? Yeah.
CAR HONKS
In England, we do this.
We put our thumb up like that.
THEY LAUGH
They'll just keep going?
There's a car coming. Let's try these guys.
No.
There's another one coming.
CAR RAPIDLY HONKS
Is he? Oh, OK.
OK, let's get him.
I'll tell you what, it's too bloody hot to be running.
Thank you for picking us up.
So, are you going to work or are you going home?
What is your work?
A land surveyor, oh, OK.
And did you enjoy it?
Where did you live? Which place?
In Dagenham. I'm glad you enjoyed it there.
This is Maun, on the outskirts of town.
Let's go and see what's going on.
Great, let's go.
An influx of tourist dollars has seen this town expand
and swallow up the surrounding bush.
We're stopping off to meet a man who's dealing with
the consequences of some of Africa's most deadly animals living
right in the heart of town.
Hey, how's it going? Hey, good, man, how's it?
Yeah, good to see you. Lev. You too. Jethro.
Nice to meet you. Pleasure to meet you. I'm Kane.
So, we've heard there's, err, there's a few local visitors.
Is that right? Yeah. I suppose they're more the hosts.
Oh, wow, look at that.
HIPPO ROARS
Bloody hell, he's massive.
This year, the river running through Maun dried up,
stranding many animals in this one tiny pool.
Five hippos just, sort of, wallowing like that.
How many crocs are in here?
We counted 26 by sight, yeah. 26, in this pool?
In this pool - maybe six or seven or eight.
And they're big ones?
Yeah, there's two that are around about four metres.
I mean, you've got horses going to drink, there's cows going to drink.
Do they not get munched by the crocs?
It's winter at the moment.
So, the crocs are not eating yet, but it's starting to warm up now.
I reckon the big ones will get hungry soon.
There doesn't seem to be a great deal of grass out
there for the hippos to feed on.
There's no grass, and all the new shoots that start popping up
get cleaned out pretty quickly by this herd of cattle here.
Yeah.
An estimated 500 people a year are killed by hippos in Africa,
and with these ones living so close to town...
Let's get it as close to the water as we feel comfortable.
..Jethro decided to feed them, not just to keep them alive, but to
limit their danger to people by making sure they stay by the pool.
You don't want to get them used to being fed. Sure.
But at the same time, there's nothing else we can do right now.
And do they go wandering through the streets of the town sometimes?
One of the younger males, right up that road and about five,
ten minutes before that, all the kids had just come past,
walking to school, and if it had been ten minutes earlier,
then we would have had a real problem on our hands.
Across Africa, as people encroach on nature more and more,
and as the effects of climate change bite,
conflict with wildlife is increasing.
A battle the animals are likely to lose.
It's a tough one.
Who are we in the West to criticise people's
aspirations for a better way of life?
This is the eastern edge of the Okavango Delta,
and this is proper wilderness.
It's taken nine days and 260 miles of parched saltpans
and dry scrub to complete this stretch of my journey.
Wow, that is quite something.
Here, at this watering hole on the edge of the delta, we run into the
largest gathering of bull elephants we'll see outside of the delta.
It's not?
There are at least two bachelor herds
and several solitary bulls here, including one very senior veteran.
Yeah, he gets the best bathing spot.
LAUGHTER
Yeah.
OK, like a depression in their head. Yes.
Some of the older bulls will have made this journey many times,
and it's their job to pass their knowledge onto the younger ones.
For the elephants, the promise of limitless food
and water are within grasp, and we'll be right behind them.
On the final 140 miles of my adventure...
It's pretty deep here.
..I cross the Okavango Delta, one of Africa's greatest Edens...
What a remarkable place this is.
..and meet the people trying to live in harmony...
They're having a riot.
..alongside elephants.
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