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.

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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!

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