Original subtitles

NARRATOR: In the heart of Africa,

a giant moves through the mist.

These are not the great icons of the Savannah,

but elusive creatures few have ever seen.

For millions of years, they have hidden away in

the second largest rainforest on the planet.

Everything about African forest elephants,

their bodies, their families,

how they live, is shaped

by their rainforest home.

(theme music playing).

NARRATOR: The Congo basin.

An impenetrable wilderness.

Larger than Alaska,

it stretches across six central African countries.

Crisscrossed by tens of thousands of miles of waterways

It is home to one of the least understood animals on earth.

PAULA: It's always been my dream to see African forest elephants.

NARRATOR: Doctor Paula Kahumbu

has come to Odzala-Kokoua National Park with one aim.

To track down the elusive African forest elephant.

She's a renowned expert on the Savannah elephant.

Having spent 30 years immersed in their world.

PAULA: I know a lot about their behavior,

their social lives, their communication.

But forest elephants are a completely different species.

They separated from Savanna elephants at least

three and a half million years ago.

I wonder how different they are, how living here has shaped them

and their behavior.

But first, I've got to find them.

The vegetation is so dark, it's just a wall of green.

Where are they?

(chittering)

I imagine that these elephants have already seen me.

They're probably peering back at me from in there.

(squawking)

(gasps)

Oh my God.

(gasps)

Wow. My first forest elephant!

It's over there!

(singing in native language)

They don't seem to know that I'm here,

so I'm keeping my distance.

Seeing them in the flesh,

it's so clear to me they are a different species.

These ellies are the same color as Savannah elephants

but they are much smaller.

And their ears are round like Mickey Mouse.

They're very cute!

Some of them have these pale yellow eyes,

and their tusks are totally different.

They're darker and much straighter.

Probably an adaptation to allow them

to push through the undergrowth.

Oh, another one is coming.

Oh, two!

Two more are coming out of the forest.

You know, if these were Savanna elephants,

I'd be able to hear rumbling and trumpeting.

But these guys, they're just so quiet.

They'd be so easy to miss.

If I hadn't come up here, I wouldn't have seen anything.

NARRATOR: And then, like ghosts

they are gone.

PAULA: I'm so used to Savannah elephants.

They are impossible to ignore.

But these elephants are almost silent.

I didn't even hear the babies crying to their mothers.

Most times, the moment they see people,

they run away.

You don't see these behaviors in Savannah elephants,

except in populations that have been heavily,

heavily poached.

Oh, it just left so suddenly.

They're clearly terrified of humans.

It feels really quite tragic.

NARRATOR: These elephants' fear of humans is justified.

Their tusks, which can grow up to five feet long,

are denser than those of Savannah elephants,

making their ivory highly prized.

For this, forest elephants have paid a heavy price.

In just three decades, their population has plummeted

by 85%.

Yet, there are places, like Odzala-Kokoua National Park,

where elephant numbers are holding steady,

or even beginning to rise.

Thanks, in part, to how well these animals have

adapted to their home.

(chirping)

Like other tropical rainforests the Congo straddles the equator

This means intense sunlight and high rainfall.

And an abundance of plant life.

Which should be a good thing for this female forest elephant

As she has hungry mouths to feed.

Unlike her Savannah cousins,

who live in large families to share childcare,

she raises her two teenage daughters and

her young son on her own.

The plants around them look like tasty elephant food,

but the leaves contain something dangerous.

That's meant to keep them away.

Poison.

Eat too much and they could die

This clever mom, however,

has a solution.

Their Congo home is unlike any other rainforest.

Broken up by islands of marsh and grassland.

It's a patchwork landscape, wit thousands of plants on offer.

So mom takes her family on a tour of the rainforest buffet.

Showing them that they must only eat a little of this

and a little of that.

So that they never eat a dangerous amount of anything.

She teaches her children exactl

as her mother taught her.

Preparing them for life in this remarkable ecosystem,

is her job, and hers alone.

(squawking)

Life is very different for bulls.

Having left his mother's care in his early teens,

this male now leads a bachelor's life,

spending most of his time searching for his favorite food

Something seasonal that can be hard to find.

(huffs)

Fortunately for him, he has twice as many smell receptors

as a dog, so he can sniff out calorie-rich,

ripe fruit from miles away.

♪ ♪

Only needing two hours of sleep each day,

he follows his nose into the night.

While we can only follow him with infrared.

The fruit of these riverside palm trees hang

50 feet above ground, well out of his 20 foot reach.

So, he employs another tactic.

Making use of his three tons of body weight.

(thudding)

No joy at this trees, but he knows the odds,

so he perseveres.

(thudding)

(rustling)

Jackpot!

(exhales)

His trunk is covered in small sensory hairs that

help him find his reward.

Forest elephants eat at least 100 varieties of fruit.

All ripening at different times of year.

So they keep a mental list, to know when and where to find

fruit that's ready to eat.

(chirping)

Still, there is one ingredient missing from

the diets of forest elephants.

Something that fruit and vegetation can't provide.

Calves receive all they need from their mother's milk.

But for adults, it is something that must be found.

(bellowing)

Living in the far west of the Congo basin,

this special group of forest elephants makes

an extraordinary journey

across land,

and water.

Some make this pilgrimage alone

Others, prefer company.

All have the same destination.

Where the Congo basin

meets the Atlantic Ocean.

(bellowing)

The missing ingredient,

vital for brain, nerve and muscle function,

can be found here in abundance.

Salt.

Plants, coated by sea spray, provide all that mother needs

for herself and her baby.

(bellowing)

But it turns out, these elephants might be getting

something that's not strictly essential.

This is iboga.

Long valued by local people

for its hallucinogenic effects.

What these elephants experience

we can only guess.

But what we know is that for generation after generation,

salt encrusted iboga will keep drawing this

group of forest elephants back to this beach.

Most of the Congo's elephants live too far inland to travel t

the beach for their salt.

Swampy forest clearings,

like this one, are found throughout the Congo basin.

In the local language, they are known as bais.

Free from the shade of the canopy,

smaller plants flourish,

creating vital pitstops for grazing animals.

But bais are more than just forest clearings.

They are places where salt and other minerals are

hidden in the ground.

Many elephants are nervous bein out in the open due to poaching

Only under the cover of darkness,

does this bull step out of the shadows,

and into the bai.

Filmed here for the first time using only moonlight,

he knows exactly where to go.

The salt and minerals he needs are buried in the riverbed.

And he has the perfect multi-tool to mine for them.

(rumbles)

(rumbles)

Blowing jets of air, he breaks up the sediments,

creating a rich, salty soup.

His trunk acts as a jackhammer,

cup and straw.

He barely spills a drop.

(rumbles)

The sound of the bull mining is a beacon,

signaling to the more cautious forest residents,

that tonight this bai is safe.

♪ ♪

There is a strict hierarchy...

(bellowing)

Who gets the best spots,

and for how long.

(bellowing)

Not everyone follows the rules.

(trumpeting)

(trumpets)

Mining provides these landlocked elephants with

all the salt and minerals they need.

It's a vital life skill; one that's not inherited,

but learned.

All around the bai, trunks move in synchrony.

A dance performed under the stars.

It's by mirroring their mothers and siblings,

that youngsters learn to coordinate

the 40,000 muscles in their trunks.

Only by perfecting their technique,

will they be able to get salt they need on their own.

And finally, leave their mother's care.

(squawks)

As dawn breaks, the lessons end

PAULA: It's remarkable, how these elephants disappear

so quickly and so quietly into the forest.

NARRATOR: Paula wants to understand how such

large animals move through the dense forest with such ease

But for her getting lost is a real possibility,

so she is guided by eco guard, Prosper Balo.

PAULA: Wow.

From the outside the rainforest looks impenetrable,

and mostly it is.

Yet here you can walk straight through it.

This path hasn't been cleared by humans.

It's made by elephants.

One elephant pushes through the forest.

(rustling)

The next follows the same route as it's easier,

like walking through snow.

With each elephant that passes through,

the path gets wider and wider and wider.

All these elephant footsteps,

trample new growth, keeping the pathways open.

The Savanna elephants that I study follow in

each other's footsteps, too.

But here, in this dense forest,

the effect is striking.

For the canopy to have opened up like this,

elephants have probably have been using this pathway for

hundreds of years.

You can see, they've cleared it, all the way out.

This seems to be the major highway through the forest.

There are all these other junctions coming from

other parts of the forest, you can see one here.

There is another trail going through there.

Huge footprints.

Once you start looking, you see these pathways everywhere.

It's like a forest transit system,

that takes the elephants directly to

everything they need.

So instead of having to find new sources of food and salt,

all they need is to know where each path leads.

Knowledge that helps them to survive in this forest.

(chirping)

NARRATOR: To humans, the true extent of this maze of pathways

may never be known.

But what we do know is that all roads

ultimately lead here.

The downtown of the Congo basin is Dzanga Bai.

(bellowing)

A place, not just for elephants

but for every resident of the forest.

It's a melting pot,

where the elephants feel safe enough to be noisy.

(trumpets)

While most come for the much-needed salt,

they stay for the other amenities.

But most importantly, after months alone in the forest,

it's a chance to reconnect with family and friends.

Over 200 forest elephants can

gather each day at Dzanga Bai.

It's the perfect place for introductions.

This baby was born deep in the forest and

is only one week old.

Her mom is the only elephant she has ever seen or heard.

(bellowing)

These calls are so loud...

(trumpets)

She can feel the vibrations through her feet.

(bellowing)

But it's just her grandma saying hello.

(trumpets)

(trumpets)

(trumpeting)

(bellowing)

(trumpets)

(trumpets)

For a 200 pounds newbie, it's overwhelming.

Being social is something you have to learn.

(trumpets)

She's taken aside by her mom for a moment of calm.

Nursing is soothing...

(trumpeting)

So when the next group of relatives turns up...

(trumpeting)

She's more confident.

She's well on her way to mastering

forest elephant social etiquette.

It's been a successful debut for the littlest elephant

in the bai.

(chittering)

For all the young elephants who are lucky enough to visit,

Dzanga Bai is both a playground and an elementary school.

(trumpeting)

It's important for young bulls as family life in

the forest is female-led.

But at the bai,

there are plenty of older males to learn from.

(bellowing)

(bellowing)

(trumpets)

Like a human arm wrestling,

sparring matches are how bulls test each other's strength.

And most importantly, establish their status.

(bellowing)

It is such a critical skill to master.

Copycat matches break out all around the bai.

The size of 20 football fields,

Dzanga Bai has space and opponents for everyone.

(squawking)

And you're never too young to start practicing.

Especially when you've got such a long way to go.

(trumpeting)

But if there's one thing that's sure to dampen an outdoor party

(thunder rumbling)

This is the rainforest, after all.

In the Congo basin,

three inches of rain can fall in one day.

A challenge for the elephants.

As the one thing they hate to be is clean.

As each storm passes,

the elephants' top priority

is to get dirty again.

Thanks to the weather,

reapplying their mud coat can be a daily chore.

Despite their skin being an inch thick,

it's sensitive.

A well-applied mud coat protects from biting insects,

which is especially important for newborn skin.

And at Dzanga Bai, the mineral rich mud means

catwalk looks for everyone!

(bellowing)

The importance of Dzanga Bai for elephants is clear to see.

But, as Paula knows, understanding their relationshi

to their forest home can take a little more detective work.

PAULA: Within the forest,

it's hard to observe the elephants directly.

They smell and hear you coming before you can even get close.

This is why the clues they leave behind are so important.

This is an amazing fig tree.

It's clearly very popular with the elephants.

You can see that they've been picking at it with their tusks

and digging and gorging at it and chewing in the bark.

I don't think that they are eating it because the sap of

these fig trees is actually not very nice and

you can see it when you damage the tree a little bit.

It's full of nasty tasting chemicals that

the elephants don't like.

So maybe they're just doing it to avoid getting into

fights with each other.

I've seen elephants attacking trees to avoid confrontations.

But in doing so, they've created an amazing network of holes and

little nooks and crannies where other animals live and

other plants can also get purchase.

But it's not just with their tusks that elephants

create habitats for other species.

All along their pathways,

we find dung.

And growing from it, are baby fruit trees.

Elephants eat so much fruit and walk so many miles each day

that they are more effective at dispersing seeds

than any other animal.

Elephants don't just live in this forest,

they plant it.

And that is why they are known

as the gardeners of the rainforest.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: The impact forest elephants have on

the Congo basin is bigger than we could have ever imagined.

In their endless quest for the fruit,

vegetation and salt that they need,

generations of elephants with stomping feet,

tusks and trunks,

have engineered an ecosystem unlike any other.

Hundreds of bais.

Oases of light and life.

Connected by countless miles of elephant pathways.

This isn't just a rainforest, it's an elephant metropolis

that's become a home for all.

As elephants build this world,

they thin out the undergrowth,

allowing the trees to grow taller and store

even more carbon than those of the Amazon.

Making the Congo basin one of the most important lungs

of the earth.

The survival of this planet,

sustaining rainforest,

is intimately tied to that of the elephants.

(gusting winds)

Given space and protection,

this calf could live to be 70 years old.

A mother, a grandmother and

a true guardian of this great rainforest.

Protecting it for us all.

Captioned by Cotter Media Group.

Repair and Synchronization by Easy Subtitles Synchronizer 1.0.0.0