Lions kill elephant calf

Over the last couple of years I have been lucky enough to spend time filming for various projects in Amboseli, Kenya. During a shoot for Animal Planet last year I was out with the women of the Amboseli Trust For Elephants (ATE) early one morning when a call came in from Lion Researchers working in the area. They had witnessed two young male lions chasing an elephant calf which had somehow become separated from it's mother.

We raced to the scene whilst discussing what exactly we would do once we got there. Would we try and intervene or let nature take it's course? By the time we arrived the decision was taken from us. The lions had already managed to bring the calf down.

As there was nothing we could do to help the calf, Soila, Noraha and Katito began to search he area for signs of the calf's family in order to try and identify the calf. The ATE is a charity established scientist Cynthia Moss in Amboseli in 1972 and has undertaken the longest study of elephant populations in the world. The women of the trust undertake daily census's of the elephants within the park and know by name almost all the 1,500 or so elephants in the Amboseli ecosystem.

Despite years of experience in the field this was the first time lions killing an elephant calf had been witnessed by the women and they were very keen to establish the reasons behind this unusual occurrence.

As we searched for signs of a distressed mother, I noticed a large bull elephant approaching the lions. Clearly agitated the bull advanced towards the lions, temples streaming and sniffing the air. When he was almost upon the carcass he let out a huge trumpet and the lions scattered.

From a distance the elephant could see the calf was lifeless and bloody and he slowly moved off and the lions returned to the kill. At this point there was no sign of other families in the area and the lions took the opportunity to drag the calf towards cover.

Soila then notice a family in the distance sniffing the air and looking very disturbed. They approached the area very carefully, crowding together with the young calf's being ushered into the middle of the herd. As they neared the area where the calf was killed they became increasingly agitated. Eventually they gathered around the area where the calf had lain and was now covered in blood. The elephants slowly combed the area with their trunks trying to pick up the scent of the calf

After some time the elephants moved on very cautiously scanning the bush for signs of Lions.

Although the family was known to the Soila, Norah and Katito they couldn't say with any certainty that the calf belonged to this family. The calf was around 18 months old and as such was very hard to identify outwith the family group and with so many families in the ecosystem it would take some time to work out who exactly the unfortunate calf belonged to.

Occurrences of Lions killing elephant calf's' appear to be quite rare in Amboseli and in conjunction with the lion researchers the women established that possibly due to the drought (the worst in living memory) the young male lions had been pushed out of the pride to fend for themselves the previous week. Mounting hunger must have lead to the lions looking for an easy target and presumably a mother and calf separated from the herd would have made a reasonable target.

Last year the ATE estimate that 80-90% of the Wildebeest population was lost along with 70% of the Zebra and around 200 elephants The good news is after 3 years the drought in Amboseli broke in January and the ecosystem is slowly returning to normal and large aggregations of elephants are returning to the park along with the big bulls in musth.

Recycle those batteries

Non-rechargeable batteries should not go in the rubbish, but how many of us have been guilty of throwing them in the bin. At last, it is compulsory in the UK for retailers who sell batteries to offer a recycling facility in shop. So now there is no excuse for people to throw them way.

Environment Minister Huw Irranca-Davies said, "This new legislation will make it easier for consumers to do the right thing whilst ensuring retailers fulfil their part of the bargain. Old batteries can cause harm to the environment when they are not recycled. The new approach to disposal of batteries will help to reduce the number of batteries that now end up in landfill."

Currently, the UK recycles a miserly 3% of old batteries, but the government hopes that the new legislation will mean that within 6 years the recycling rate is more like 45%.

This is a really good move by the EU as the batteries contain heavy metals that should be recycled. Once in a landfill the battery case corrodes, allowing the heavy metals to contaminate both soil and water. Many batteries contain cadmium which is toxic to aquatic vertebrates.Low levels that exist in water get magnified along the food chain, in a process called bio-accumulation. Unfortunately, the sight of a discarded battery lying on the sea bed is becoming more common, as shown in the photo below by Mark Caney.  Mercury used to be a major problem, but most non-rechargeable batteries are now mercury-free, with the exception of button cell batteries.

There are many types of dry cell battery which contain different metals so they are recycled in different ways. NiCd batteries contain cadmium and iron-nickel which is recovered by heat treatment in the furnace. NiMH  batteries are separated mechanically in a vacuum-chamber and the nickel re-used in the steel industry. Li-Ion batteries are treated by pyrolysis (very high temps) which separates out the metals. Mercury-containing button cells are processed by vacuum-thermal treatment which vaporises the mercury and then it is condenses back to a solid. The zinc-carbon and alkaline-manganese batteries are usually smelted and the metal recovered.