We were most anxious to visit the Okavango Delta and the Okavango did not disappoint us. This post will cover our first afternoon, evening, and the next morning viewing in the Okavango of one single stopping point: a dead elephant carcass. When I was growing up, one of the early television shows that I remember watching was “Marlin Perkins Wild Kingdom.” The show ran from 1963 to 1985. Marlin Perkins was an American zoologist and a big advocate for the animal conservation movement. His shows always had an exciting story to tell, including a little danger, with animals in their own habitat. This sequence reminded me of a Marlin Perkins Wild Kingdom episode.

According to our guides, they guessed that the elephant had been dead for about a week. They could not determine the cause of death. The carcass was lying in a narrow portion of a river and very near one bank. You can see the carcass at the edge of the water in late afternoon and you can also see that the crocodiles had gathered for dinner.

This second photo is to indicate that the crocodiles did not seem to want to share the elephant carcass, which is lying just to the right of this photo. Carl Holguin, one of our fellow travelers, took this photo. It’s one of the photos that Carl sent to the group to share. I got several really good photos of crocs but this one was really great.

We finished our afternoon game drive about sundown and stopped along a portion of a river for a “sundowner”, or cocktail. We had a great time as the temperature was great and there were no bugs bothering us. Then, on our way back to camp, we happened to go back the direction of the elephant carcass. To our surprise and delight, two hyenas were feasting on the carcass. But then four lions came along and chased off the hyenas. But as great as that was, it was only a small portion of the action. The two hyenas stayed right behind the lions and kept yowling about losing their dinner. Before long, we noticed that the lions were growling in long low substantial growls. We determined that they were not growling at the hyenas but at the crocodiles who were eating the elephant from below. You can see at least two crocodiles in the water right in front of the lions. Then, two more hyenas showed up, on our side of the river and they joined the other two hyenas in protesting not having anything to eat. If that wasn’t enough, several hippos began working their way down the river towards the carcass. At some point when the hippos were very near the carcass, they turned and ran for quite a distance splashing and snorting loudly as they went. Our guides guessed that these hippos were residents here and knew the river including what was supposed to be there and what wasn’t and they guessed that the hippos were surprised by the dead elephant, which was not supposed to be there. At any rate, we sat and watched for quite a while, but to get the full experience, you would really need to have a sound track of all the action. This photo was also taken by Carl Holguin and it’s another great photo.

On our early morning game drive the next morning, our first stop was the carcass to see what we could see. As you can see, the lions did quite a job of disposing of the elephant. But if you look close, you can still see two crocodiles in the water, one on the left and one on the right. Evidently, the lions hadn’t eaten the portion of the elephant below the water and it was probably too heavy to drag out of the water.

One of the hyenas had been successful in getting some portion of the dead elephant. The hyena had dragged the piece of meat some forty yards away from the river. But the hyena still didn’t have it all to himself. About a dozen vultures were following the hyena and demanding some portion for themselves. It was a real dog-eat-dog world in southern Africa and there were no free lunches. Marlin Perkins would have loved it.