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  • 1 week ago
This is the breathtaking moment hundreds of elephants and other wild animals descend on a valley in a decades-old tradition to feast on mounds of oranges discarded by a fruit-growing estate. Janice Myra Herlig, 61, from South Africa, spends a few months each year traveling backroads and national parks, in Africa and around the world. At the end of a recent trip to Botswana and Zimbabwe with her husband, the couple stopped at Nottingham Estate, Zimbabwe, before they were due to cross back into South Africa the following day. After arriving, Janice headed to Fly Camp, about an hour away from the main lodge, which offers stunning views from the top of a cliff, into a seemingly desolate valley. But at 4:30pm on August 9, with the sun setting, a rumbling of tractors appeared in the valley below, and Janice started capturing the moment. The vehicles discarded mounds of second-grade oranges the estate was discarding, bringing a beautiful array of wildlife to suddenly appear. Baboons hopped on the trailer and filled their arms and mouths with fruit, while more and more elephants then arrived, creating a breathtaking sound and visual in the valley below.

Category

🐳
Animals
Transcript
00:00We could see some elephants milling around, but it was just a few.
00:03And then we heard the tractors arriving, and the elephants started coming in closer and closer.
00:08I started counting, but lost count at over 150, so it's unbelievable.
00:16We were at the end of a three-month trip.
00:19We spent time in the bush, literally immersed in the wildlife.
00:23The last night, we needed a place to stay close to the border with South Africa.
00:27We landed up staying there at Nottingham Estate.
00:30It's a family farm going back many, many years.
00:34A third generation of the Knott family.
00:37It used to be cattle, and then they took over doing oranges exclusively.
00:42We were told that including in our camping would be a fly camp experience, which I had no idea about.
00:48I'd never heard of it, not on social media, not seen anything about it.
00:52And when we arrived there, it was spectacular.
00:54The top of a beautiful gorge, looking down into a desolate area.
01:01I only had my cell phone.
01:02And I started filming as the tractors arrived with these trailers full of fruit.
01:07The baboons are jumping on the trailer as it's arriving and stealing fruit as fast as they can tuck oranges
01:13under their arms.
01:14And hands full, running on two legs with as many oranges as they can carry.
01:19The big bulls arrived, which was quite spectacular because the big bulls are huge.
01:24They command respect just by their sheer presence.
01:29When the elephants came, I actually turned to one of the staff members and said,
01:33how many elephants do you expect?
01:35And she said, sometimes we can count over 300.
01:38I tried to count, but lost count at over 150.
01:42It was in 1984 they first started dropping the oranges there.
01:48And for over 40 years, they've been dumping it in this desolate area.
01:52And this is the fruit that's fallen to the ground, can't be sold.
01:55It's only from late May till the end of September.
01:59So it's not a dependency.
02:01The animals are not living off this food.
02:04They know it's a treat and it's seasonal and it comes every day for those few months.
02:10And then after that, they disperse and carry on with their wild lives.
02:13It does keep them out of the plantations.
02:16They do have electric fences and for an elephant, that's no problem.
02:18They would be flattening the fences to get to the fruit.
02:21This symbiotic relationship actually stops the elephants and even the baboons raiding the plantations.
02:27It's a win-win for everybody.
02:29Towards the end of the evening, some big kudu bulls arrived and antelope.
02:33As the sun was setting and you've got this golden glow, it unfolded and unfolded and unfolded.
02:39An absolute spectacle.
02:41After three months of living in the bush and really needing a haircut and needing a good shower and a
02:46good meal,
02:47just to be surrounded by this spectacle was our finale.
02:52It was actually the day before we crossed back into South Africa and back into civilization.
02:56And it truly highlighted the whole trip for me.
03:00It ended the trip on a magnificent note.

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