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Photographed by Arks Smith:
Ms Smith was the winner of the 2006 Kruger National Park Emerging Tuskers Competition. By winning Ms Smith was given a chance to accompany the KNP’s elephant researcher, Dr Ian Whyte and KNP veterinary surgeon Dr Markus Hofmeyr on a research trip to capture and put a tracking collar on an elephant.

Ms Smith’s contribution identified a new tusker and provided an exact location of where the elephant was seen, plus provided photographs taken from all angles of the ears, tusks and a full frontal of the bull, as well as DVD footage. On the strength of this data and the identification of a new tusker, this contribution was a unanimous winner.

Ms Arks Smith wrote 2 tripreports about her sightings with Bidzane. (28 and 30 april 2006)

Highlight was definitely my first encounter with another potential emerging tusker. This ellie is easily identified by the notch and hole in his left ear and may be Timaka, although from the information I've found about Timaka, he has previously only been seen considerably farther north. I saw a photo that was identified as Timaka in the Kruger Times and that was definitely the same one as this ellie — the notch and hole in the ear are unmistakable. However, the photo of Timaka on Sanparks website is quite different, so I think that this ellie, who I eventually saw for extended periods on three different occasions, is in fact not Timaka. On my first two encounters with him, he had an askari, but when I encountered him for a third time, he was all on his own. On all three occasions, he is the most mellow ellie I have even encountered, and I was very lucky indeed to spend so much quality time with him!

April 30
I planned today to drive several roads around Letaba that I'd not traveled before and on one (S47) I saw my first ever (and still only) klipspringer, while another (S95) brought me my second meeting with the same potential emerging tusker I'd first seen along the H1-5 two days before. He and his askari (who faded off into the mopani, so I never had a good view of him) were enjoying a mud bath at a little puddle just off the road and I heard them well before I actually saw them. Once I'd recognised the ellie as the same one I'd seen earlier — he is easy to recognise because of the distinctive notch and hole in his left ear — I stayed observing him until he moved away from the road into the thick mopani. It's definitely a special experience when you can recognise an individual animal — and this is definitely the most mellow ellie I've ever met.

Last update: 17-07-2010
Pictures by Francois Botha

Photographed by Aat Vuik
Date : 22 february 2009, time: 07:29
Location: North of Letaba in riverbed.

A bit late but found between all my pictures from my visit to KNP in february / march 2009.

Pictures are cut out of my pictures since Bidzane was relative far away, between 100 and 200 meters, so I made some enlargements.
Typical for Bidzane , his ivory is not yet very impressive but growing. Identification also based on typical V carve and little hole just under this carve.
These are first pictures of Bidzane after Arks Smith found and photographed him in april 2006.

So good news about Bidzane, still alive and still in KNP.

Photographed by Lizz du Plssis
Date : April 2005
Location: North of Letaba along the H1-6

These are the first pictures of Bidzane. The V shaped notch clearly visible but just smaller then on the more recent pictures.
Also the hole in the left ear was not yet there.

The tusks and head do match 100% with the more recent pictures of Bidzane.

Photographed by Keith Foster Date : August 2005 Location: Letaba area

Photographed by Francois Botha

Date : July 27th 2009

Location: Near Letaba restcamp