Odzala-Kokoua National Park in the Republic of Congo forms a key part of the vast Congo Basin rainforest and hosts one of the largest populations of critically-endangered forest elephants in the region. Forest elephants rely on the park’s natural forest clearings, also known as “bais”, to fuel up on minerals in the soil and vegetation, and socialise out in the open.
These timelapse videos were taken at Moba Pool bai. Since 2023, tourists can visit Moba Pool through Camp Imbalanga, an African Parks-run camp designed to attract the domestic tourism market.
Timelapse videos are a novel use of camera traps for the park – images were taken in 10-minute intervals during a 12-hour time period and stitched together – enabling park management to detect potential impacts of tourism on the elephant activity in the bai. After local poaching increased with the opening of new roads before 2016, Odzala-Kokoua’s elephants shifted to nocturnal bai visits. While elephants still visit bais at night, these timelapse videos show elephants coming out to Moba Pool in the mornings and afternoons, a reassuring sign that they feel safe enough to visit the bai in the daylight, when tourists can see them.
This novel application of camera trapping is just one of the ways the park is applying technology to understand the role of bais. Another is through their partnership with Harvard University, who just returned to the park to re-map Moba Pool and several other bais with high-resolution LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data, providing an unprecedented opportunity to quantify structural change to the bais since they were first measured in 2021.
1 July 2024
Your Support Goes a Long Way
At African Parks we are working everyday to protect Africa's last wild landscapes. By donating to us, you are making a difference and are giving hope to people and wildlife across the continent.
Donate