Tanzania will soon fix collars the two sets of elephant twins born in the Tarangire National Park, including the one named after Elon Musk.
The two sets of elephant twins were born at two different times in the National Park between 2018 and 2022.
The first twins were male and female, the brother, called “Elon Tusk,” (After Elon Musk) and sister, “Emma” (after the actress Emma Watson) they both reportedly started off life weighing about 200 pounds. They should be seven years old now.
The other twins were born in 2022 and could be three-years old.
Senior Conservation Officer at Tarangire, Upendo Massawe explained that elephants delivering twins is a rare phenomenon in the world and the fact that the National Park has experienced two such instances make it even more unique.
“We are in talks with the Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute (TAWIRI), to see ways of tracking and collaring the two sets of Jumbo twins for constant monitoring,” Conservator Massawe stated.
She was addressing journalists in Tarangire in reflecting the achievements that the National Park has recorded in the last four years.
That is especially after President Samia Suluhu Hassan decided to take the tourism promotion efforts herself through the filming of the ‘Royal Tour,’ initiative.
“As of now Tarangire records over 400,000 tourists annually, we used to be second after Serengeti, but now the trend indicates that this National Park will soon take the lead,” said the Senior Conservator, lauding Mama Samia’s documentary for boosting the number of visitors.
One of the steps being taken by the park to boost tourism is to offer the visitors the rare sightings of the elephants that have given birth to twins, but in order to achieve that, they first must be radioed for easy tracking.
She however pointed out that most of the tourists visiting Tarangire are day trippers, who drive into the park and within less than two hours they get to see all the big four wildlife species.
Being easy to see all animals within a very short time, visitors in Tarangire, usually drive out of the park again, possibly to return home or venture into other destinations.
“In order to generate revenue like Serengeti, Tarangire needs tourists who can spend at least one night in the park, not just to come and go within a few hours,” the conservator pointed out.
In 2018 an elephant known as Eloise in Tarangire set a global record for not only giving birth to twins, but also managing to take care of the two young Jumbos without problems for over eight months.
Dr Charles Foley, who was the Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Tarangire Elephant Project is the one who discovered Eloise’s spectacular birth in the park.
“Elephants giving birth to twins is a very rare case; it happens in just 1 percent of the entire world population of elephants,” explained another wildlife expert in Arusha who preferred anonymity.
The scientist pointed out that odds were against the Jumbos.
“Not many elephant conceptions result in twins in the first place—only about one percent.” And for the particular subpopulation which Foley’s group was monitoring in 2018 were the first recorded twins in more than 20 years.
But four years later in 2022 another elephant in Tarangire again bore twin jumbos and this family was spotted in the Mibuyu Mingi section of the National Park.
Mibuyu is plural for ‘Baobabs,’ is Kiswahili, which means the herds of elephants usually like to venture or feed near the area with clusters of the giant trees.
Tarangire remains the National Park with highest concentration of jumbos in East Africa and as it happens, the only spot featuring twin jumbos.
While it is not easy to keep baby elephant twins alive, it is even harder for a single mother to handle rivalling siblings, fighting for dominance as far as milk suckling is concerned.
It is being estimated that there are over 300 giant elephants trampling along the 20,000 square kilometers of Tarangire National Park located some 120 kilometers from Arusha, along Dodoma Road.
Other than elephants, Zebras in Tarangire are among the National Park park’s most iconic and frequently sighted animals.
Tarangire National Park, mapped within Monduli, Babati and Simanjiro Districts in Arusha and Manyara regions, is the seventh largest national park in the country after Nyerere, Ruaha, Serengeti, Mikumi, Katavi and Mkomazi.
The park was named from the all-season Tarangire River which crosses through the ecosystem. The river is the only source of water for wild animals during drought spells.
The park is linked by a wide wildlife corridor to Lake Manyara and during dry seasons thousands of animals migrate to the Tarangire National Park from Lake Manyara.