Elephant feeding behaviour in Ruaha National Park, Tanzania.

Abstract

Elephants were observed in an area of woodland and bushland during two dry seasons and the intervening wet season. In the wet season elephants ate mainly grass while in the dry season they ate mainly woody browse. The quality of food eaten was higher in the wet season than in the dry. Most vegetation damage was caused in the dry season. Browsing bulls tended to move from plant to plant less frequently than did cows. There were within-season differences in the diversity of browse eaten, within-season and between-season variations in the use of individual tree and shrub species, and between-season differences in defaecation rates.