The mystery of the missing shoe

Foolishly I left my shoes outside my tent in the Eselenkei Lion Guardians camp overnight. The next morning I woke up to find only the left one remaining. Perplexed, I investigated the scene to discover what had happened. It became quickly evident that an elephant had come through in the night.

 

But why would an elephant want to take my shoe? Could there be another explanation? I summoned the help of some of the camp staff to locate the runaway shoe, but after much searching in the bush, we concluded it had gone completely.  

The next day, I decided to go in search again, but this time I pretended to think like an elephant, hoping it might reveal some clues. Obviously the smell of the shoes would have been the first attraction, and to a herbivore like an elephant they probably smelt like rotting fruit! But could the elephant have actually eaten the shoe?

I trundled on through the bush thinking that if he had first been drawn to the smell, surely after a few minutes of investigation he would have realised it was not edible and thrown it aside. I searched along the track that the elephant had taken that night and finally – deep inside thick vegetation – I found it! It was extremely dirty and had clearly been well and truly examined, but luckily for me, rejected!