5 of 11 bull elephants at Hlane
MBABANE - Five of the 11 bull elephants that roamed into the country are currently at Hlane Royal National Park.
This was confirmed by Hlane Royal National Park Head Ranger George Mbatha. The head ranger said three of the elephants had roamed out of a secure area in the game park. He said they were closely monitoring the bulls since they roamed out of the secure area. He mentioned that it would be difficult to track the elephants because of the recent rains, as they would not be able to see their footprints to iden tify places they had been to.
“They are here in the country and Hlane rangers have been monitoring them. These bulls were part of the 11 herd of elephants that came into the country and later roamed out.
“We have not picked up any weird behaviour from them, aside from the three that moved out of the secure area, but we are highly monitoring them,” he said.
In the past seven months, about 38 elephants have roamed in and out of
Eswatini.
The elephants were officially re ported to be from Mozambique and South Africa.
A herd of six elephants was recently spotted at Tshaneni and Ngomane. In itially, the elephants were suspected to be part of the 11 bulls that had roamed into the country and were foraging fields at Mananga.
During the Easter weekend, there were two elephants that were spotted at Mbikwakhe in the Manzini Region.
Before that, 11 elephants roamed into the country. The bulls entered Eswatini via the Usutu Gorge from Mozambique. A month or two ago, Big Game Parks (GBP) authorities and Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS) were on high alert when the 11 elephants roamed into the country.
The elephants were first spotted by soldiers stationed at Tikhuba in the Lubombo Region.
In November and December last year, the country ran a series of arti cles on two elephants ‘Gatuno’ and ‘Swazi’ who roamed into the country after escaping from Mozambique. ‘Gatuno’, one of the elephants that had roamed into the country, left after some months.
The elephants were first seen at Mambane on November 27, 2021 and later moved to Big Bend near Gam ula, along Lubhuku area where they were spotted moving around; from there they moved to Sikhuphe. From Sikhuphe they made their way to Lubhuku and turned towards Mpaka.