Elephant gracefully steps over boom barrier with ease

The African elephant is Africa’s largest land mammal and a big male can weigh over five and a half thousand kilograms. At the same time they are most likely the most intelligent and intriguing animals that roam this planet. With this in mind, most people would never think that such a massive creature could actually perform delicate stunts with incredible agility, precision and style. Adult elephants are everything but clumsy and their ability to break into places where they should not be is astounding. Breaking into camps in the Kruger National Park, South Africa is one of their specialties. Gone are the days of elephants performing tricks in circuses.

This video shows that wild elephants do not need any training from humans to be able to achieve their own stunts. The video is from a security camera located at the security gate of a private camp in the Kruger National Park. The camp was empty for 2 days and management thought it good to take all staff to town for a few hours. They left the camp unattended for four hours. On their return they did not notice anything out of the ordinary until they suddenly saw a number of trees snapped in half. Flowerbeds were destroyed and a great deal of greenery eaten. They immediately knew an elephant was in the camp and went to check the fences.

Elephants have the ability to break through electric fences with great ease. None of the fences were damaged and the crew ended up back at the security gate. There the security guards noticed the tracks of the elephant at the gate. They immediately made their way into the control room and checked the recorded footage. To their amazement this bull elephant clearly knew that no one was home. He walked up to the gate and curiously touched it with his trunk to inspect it. Then the big bull elephant proceeded to step over the security gate one foot at a time. The boom pole of this gate stands at 1, 3 meters high and the elephant stepped over it without touching it once with any of his feet. The crew was stunned with the ease this guy made his way into the camp. Besides planting new trees and flowers, they could only laugh and make sure next time they always leave some people behind in camp to check the gate!