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As 11 May is Mother's Day in the US, I’d like to wish a joyful Mother’s Day to all mothers, great and small, to Mma Khama, a matriarch and soon-to-be mom again, and Letsatsi, mother of a two-year-old!

Mma Khama and her herd have been wandering around the southeast fringes of the Okavango Delta, visiting Chief’s Island for a brief period. This island is the largest land mass in the Delta, a 1,000sq km sand island, which, due to its higher elevation, never floods as the rest of the delta is submersed under water. It is part of the Moremi Game Reserve, so named as it was once the traditional hunting ground for Chief Moremi of the Batawana tribe. In 1963, it was proclaimed a reserve and has remained a protected area where no hunting is allowed. The island is known for vast herds of wildlife that come there to graze on preferred sweet grasses that grow well in its sandy soils as opposed to the less palatable floodplain grasses.

After leaving the island, Mma Khama led her herd past a few inhabited points of interest; Santawani lion research camp and Chitabe, where a safari camp conducts game viewing drives. From their guides, we received reported sightings of a large collared female elephant in the area. At the moment, the delta is completely flooded, leaving us no alternative than to fly (once again) to try and get a visual of her. Unfortunately, due to the thick vegetation and high waters, we could get close but did not see her. In addition, the guide told us that the elephant sighted looked pregnant. If this truly is Mma Khama, she may not have had her calf yet. We found this unlikely, because when we collared her in July, she seemed heavily pregnant and we believed she would calf soon. Considering the fact that the average gestation period for an African elephant is 21 months (but will vary with environmental conditions and health), and the peak conception time generally follows a month after peak rains and peak birthing months generally are those just before the oncoming rains (almost two years later), logically we expect her to have a calf in tow.

For the most part, Mma Khama has been walking approximately 20km/day, and iseems to be moving in another circle, comprising an area of 3,200sq km. They moved north up to the Khwai concession along the Khwai river and then moved east close to Sankuyo, a small village on the edge of the Mababe Depression. But they did not return into the depression, where they had remained for quite some time before. Presently, they are drinking from pans in a large mopane forest.

As for Letsatsi and her family, they remain in the same area of Luiana Partial Reserve in SE Angola, encompassing a tremendously small radius of 160sq km. The area is uninhabited by people and is still a safe haven as long as the parallel sand dunes, from which she is drinking, hold water. This perplexes us considering she completed such a tremendous trek from the Delta to get there. And why she does not continue north is a mystery, too. The answers will come with the onslaught of the dry season.

I would also like to answer to a comment submitted by ‘j’ on 5 April to my blog on 7 March. He wrote: ‘Did you mean a percentage of the wildlife including elephants in these reserves is allowed to be hunted and shot for a price?’ The answer is yes, but let me clarify a few things. The terminology on land distributed here in Botswana is as follows: ‘National Parks’ are protected areas with no hunting allowed and on state land; ‘Game/Wildlife Reserves’ are also protected areas but are on tribal land; ‘Forest Reserves’ are protected, with no hunting allowed except for some harvesting of grasses (for thatching roofs), the collection of firewood, and limited subsistence bird hunting, which require easily obtainable permits; and finally, ‘Wildlife Management Areas’ (WMAs) can be on either on tribal or state land and can fall under either or both as controlled hunting areas or photographic safari areas. Either way, WMAs are on concession leases, and are sometimes referred to as ‘concessions’. For example, the above mentioned Khwai concession happens to be tribal land that is used for both photographic and hunting safari purposes. The elephants frequent all the above areas.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) (www.cites.org) is the international agreement between governments, now comprising of 172 countries, with the goal to ensure that international trade of wild animals and plants does not threaten the species’ survival. For 2008, CITES has designated nine African countries to be allowed export quotas of Loxodonta africana (African elephants) for trophy hunting, with a total of 1,380 elephants in the whole of Africa, and approximately 58 per cent of those designated are between Botswana and Zimbabwe. This is largely based upon population estimates.

The hunting season in Botswana officially opened on 15 April. What we have concluded from some of our movement studies is that 65 per cent of our GPS elephant locations have occurred outside of protected areas. However, we have noted changes in elephant movements, especially concerning large, older bulls, during the hunting seasons. It is these particular elephants that trophy hunters are generally interested in.