The Knysna Elephant Park Family
The Knysna Elephant Park was born of the struggle of the elephants in the Knysna Forest and serves to tell the story of the elephants across the continent.
It was previously believed that there was only one elephant remaining in the Knysna Forest but more recent DNA research suggests that there could be as many as six elephants roaming free. The elephants of the Knysna Forest are in fact the only elephants in South Africa that are not fenced in and they occupy an area of land 80 000 hectares in size.
Some have witnessed the eerie sight of our elephant herd standing absolutely still, one foot slightly raised, toes just touching the ground and the trunk in a strangely outstretched position just off the ground – as if listening for something. Researcher, Joyce Poole, states the following: “One answer is that elephants have a very complex social system - one of the few fluid fission-fusion societies - and, therefore, they have needed to develop a complex suite of vocalizations to interact in an appropriate way with the many different individuals they meet on a daily basis and to mediate the many complex relationships that they maintain.”
She continues: “Another answer is that they are long-lived animals and much of their social and ecological knowledge is acquired through learning over many years and, as a result, they have a need to communicate rather complex thoughts!”
She concludes: “… a third answer is that elephants are large-brained; they are capable of relatively complex thought processes and have good memory storage and therefore they have the intellectual capacity for using complex acoustic communication.”
Little wonder then that our little herd would want to communicate with their mysterious sisters (and brother?) in the forest.
Meet the Elephants
The Breeding Herd
The breeding herd consists of all our female ellies and the babies, they are left very much to their own devices, enjoying a free-range, controlled environment.
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Sally
Sally is the “Big Mama” of the Knysna Elephant Park. Her name means princess and perhaps it is apt as she is the matriarch of the herd – she is gentle but stern and is always very concerned about the welfare of the herd.
Sally was born during 1989 and was saved from culling in the Kruger National Park in 1994 from where she went to a game farm in the Eastern Cape and finally came to settle down at her new home, the Knysna Elephant Park.
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Thambile
Thambile's name means soft-natured. She was generally a very calm and reserved elephant but as soon as Thandi was born she became an extremely protective aunt and an even more protective mommy since Shungu was born. You will notice that she and Shungu spend their days separated from the other ellies simply because she is too protective of Shungu to allow her to interact with our guests.
Thambile was born during 1991 and arrived at the Park on the 11th of February 2002, after being rescued from a cull in Kruger.
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Nandi
Nandi’s name, meaning “a sweet thing”, was also the name of Shaka Zulu’s mother. Nandi too was born during 1993. She is the mother of Thandi - the first calf born at the Park. Her temperament is similar to that of Shaka Zulu’s mother who was known to be a strong-willed lady. Nandi came to us on 11 February 2002 along with Thambile. She has become an exceptionally good mother considering she has not had the help and assistance of older, more experienced cows.
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Tosha
Tosha was born in 1988 and arrived at the Knysna Elephant Park with Namib in 2003.
Her name derives from the Etosha National Park in Namibia which is where she comes from. She and Namib were both translocated from a small game reserve in Namibia where a lot of food competition existed between the elephants and rhino. One of the rhino attacked Tosha and the owners were obliged to seek another home for two of their elephants.
Both Tosha and Namib have settled nicely and this serves as an amazing example of how relatively mature elephants can settle down with other ellies and adopt the routine of the Elephant Park.
Although Tosha is actually part of the breeding herd, she tends to spend a lot of time with the bachelors as she is a bonded elephant. This means that she has a very strong relationship with another elephant, in her case with Namib. She also does not fully accept Sally as the Matriarch however is beginning to integrate nicely into the female herd.
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Thandi
Thandi means love and as the first calf born at the Park is our pride and joy. She was born on 16 October 2003. In the first month or two of her life she kept close to her mother’s side but now she is a show-off and is often quite bossy, pushing and shoving the other little ones around. Thandi suckles from her mother in addition to chewing on little bits of grass and twigs.
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Keisha
This little elephant was born in December 2003. She came to the Park on the 18th of January 2004 and was very close to dying. However, with a lot of tender love and care she made a full recovery and settled into her new home very well. She is a very quiet little ellie and tends to be a loner. The holes in her ears were caused by the other elephants in her herd in the wild pushing her away as she tried to suckle from them after her mother had died. Keisha means favourite and she has a way of searching out your heart and finding a home there.
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Shungu
Shungu was born at the Knysna Elephant Park on New Year’s Day 2007. His name means Patience and was given to him because nobody knew exactly when his mother, Thambile had fallen pregnant, so this meant patiently awaiting his arrival.
He is a very naughty, playful elephant with a great sense of humour. He can’t resist greeting the guides in the morning by squeezing through the bars of his pen and making his way towards them. He is very friendly and travels between pens in the evenings to say hello to the other ellies and steal some of their food! He also loves chasing guinea fowl and he can often be heard trumpeting out in the field as flocks of these birds run for their lives!
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Thato
Thato’s name means ‘wheel’. Thato is the youngest elephant at the Knysna Elephant Park as she was born at the end of 2007. She arrived at the Elephant Park on 7 May 2008, along with Mashudu. Her parents were killed on a hunting farm in the North West Province and the authorities chose the Knysna Elephant Park to be her new home.
She is being bottle-fed at the moment and drinks about 40 litres of S26 milk every day. She has minders who take care of her around the clock and who feed her during the night.
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Mashudu
Mashudu, whose name means Congratulations, was born at the beginning of 2007 and is a few months younger than Shungu. He also comes from a hunting farm in the North West Province where his mother suffered the same fate as Thato’s, he arrived at the Elephant Park on the same day.
He is a typical little boy – full of energy and the vigour of life. He too is still being bottle-fed and has minders who take care of him. Mashudu has settled into the herd very well and you can often see him and Thato walking between the older ellies.
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The Bachelor Herd
The ‘Boys’ at the Knysna Elephant Park are treated a little differently to the girls.
At a certain age elephant bulls are kicked out of the breeding herd by the dominant female and are forced to join a bachelor herd who will spend most of their time on their own, sometimes joining the females for a while.
At the Knysna Elephant Park it is only our boys who are ridden as they have more energy to expend and it also helps to reinforce what they have learned in training.
There are three bulls in our bachelor herd, meet, |
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Harry
Harry's name means ‘Protector of the home’. He also was born in 1989 and arrived at the Park with Sally in 1994. He is the dominant bull elephant. He will stand 3.5 meters tall and weigh 6 tons when he is fully grown, although he really gives new meaning to the term “gentle giant”. He is the biggest and tallest elephant in the herd, and is very sympathetic and tender towards the baby elephants, somewhat unusual for a bull elephant.
Some handlers say that Harry is not really an elephant at all, rather a person.
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Namib
Namib's name is derived from the word, Namibia, which is where he comes from. He was born in 1988 on the same game farm as Tosha and arrived at
the Elephant Park along with her in 2003 .
Even though he is older than Harry, Harry still dominates him and keeps him in check in terms of his position in the social hierarchy of the ellies.
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Shaka
Shaka was named after the great Zulu warrior, Shaka Zulu and we estimate that he was born in June 2001, arriving at the Park on 18 January 2004 after being saved from a culling operation on a private game reserve in the Mpumalanga area. When he arrived at the Park he was appreciably unimpressed with his new family. He was very hostile towards all of us in the beginning but before long warmed to his new family and realised that we would love and care for him ..
His true nature shows as he tries to challenge some of the other ellies to find his place as a young bull in the herd. Harry and Namib keep him strictly in check though.
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