The Imire Elephant: Matriarch of the African Buffalos

Some of the elephants at the Imire Rhino and Wildlife Conservation in Zimbabwe.

One of the elephants eating.  It's amazing how powerful they are, taking down trees.

Hi, elephant tush!

A baby elephant.  Still my favorite of all the animals, how can you not just love a baby elephant?

Imire has an elephant who is rather famous for her 'identity crisis.'

Nzou is the matriarch of this herd of African Buffalo.  That's right, she's the head of a herd of African Buffalo.

When Nzou first arrived at Imire, she was placed with a bull elephant within the only large herd Imire a had at the time---a buffalo herd.  By the time the bull elephant died, Nzou had immersed herself so completely within the buffalo herd that she became distressed when Imire tried to move her to the elephant herd they had obtained.  The buffalo also became visibly unsettled by her absence.

When I visited, fourteen male African Buffalo had challenged Nzou for head of the herd over the past 30 years---she won every time.

Tweet

Snapshots from the road around Zimbabwe

A Zimbabwean woman carries bags along the road between Bulawayo and Victoria Falls.

One of the hazards of driving in Africa?  Trucks precariously loaded and driving way too fast or way too slow.

A woman tends to some cooking in a village.

Laundry hanging in a village.

The Flying Pot Restaurant near Gweru.

The Teecherz shopping mall.  For some reason the name really amuses me.

One of the many car washes outside Harare.

Because the Flying Pot Restaurant was just too creepy not to include another photograph.

Tweet