Post by Tamrin on Sept 9, 2008 7:12:45 GMT 10
Elephants need salt and lots of it. On Kenya's Mount Elgon, the only abundant source of salt is found deep underground in Kitum Cave, which generations of elephants has created. Once around a thousand participated, but the population was almost wiped out in the mid 1980's by poachers (most on one night) and there are only about a hundred left, who now cautiously continue this ageless, nightly tradition. They walk as far as 150 metres in pitch darkness to find seams of salt in the rock, which they excavate with their tusks; over time wearing them down to stumps (the poachers were after ivory).
