Elephants by Numbing Numbers

If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to talk statistics for a moment.

The largest African elephants weigh in at around 13,000 lbs and stand 10 feet tall at the shoulder. Each of its two swiss-army-knife-like tusks can weigh in at 150 lbs with the largest recorded being 287 lbs each—which is kind of like having two decent sized NFL players attached to your face.

Your car’s tank probably takes about 50 litres of fuel. An adult elephant can drink three times that much water in a day and can eat over 300 lbs of food. To cap it all off, at full charge an elephant’s top speed is 25 miles an hour. On Usain Bolt’s fastest ever day the most he could manage was 27.44 miles an hour. I think we can all agree, the elephant is a formidable animal.

I’m telling you all of this because in the light of these cold, hard, huge facts, you’d think getting out of a 4×4 in the middle of the wilderness and walking up to one of these behemoths makes about as much sense as playing in traffic. Yet go to a place like Mana Pools National Park and that exactly what you can do. I’ll admit leaving the safety of the vehicle sounds totally insane, but once you get past this notion, you’ll be glad you did.

Dan’s full charge is about 7 miles per hour, and he maintains he’ll out-litre you at anytime. Call him up to make a wager, and to chat more elephant stats.