The baïs or salt licks are natural marshy clearings often crossed by a water source. Elephants regularly go to these clearings to find mineral salts, they are the main architects of these open areas by maintaining their openness and enlarging their surface area in particular by excavating holes for drinking, feeding, compacting the soil. soil and digging for minerals or clay. These clearings are also gathering areas for forest elephants where many social interactions take place.
These are ideal places for collecting demographic, ecological and behavioral data on forest elephants but also on many other wildlife species.
Well known to local populations, the baïs traditionally served as hunting grounds, but many were depopulated of wildlife with the advent of modern firearms and a booming market for bushmeat and ivory.
References.
Goldenberg, S. Z., A. K. Turkalo, P. H. Wrege, D. Hedwig, and G. Wittemyer. 2021. Entry and aggregation at a Central African bai reveal social patterns in the elusive forest elephant Loxodonta cyclotis. Animal Behaviour 171:77–85.
Turkalo, A. K., P. H. Wrege, and G. Wittemyer. 2013. Long-Term Monitoring of Dzanga Bai Forest Elephants: Forest Clearing Use Patterns. PLOS ONE 8:e85154.