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Knysna Elephant Park

Newsletters

Life at the Knysna Elephant Park is an eventful one .... Here we share our monthly newsletters as well as a few of the more unusual, sometimes sad, sometimes downright alarming experiences of our herd and their keepers.

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Newsletter - February 2011

Knysnaelephantparkbannergardenroute

"Elephants once roamed over the whole of Africa, from the shores of the Mediterranean in the north to the slopes of Table Mountain in the south. They thrived even in the vast expanses of the Sahara, as ancient rock paintings there testify. But in the third millennium BC, as climate changed and the great rivers dried up, elephant and man alike retreated before the encroaching desert, some moving northwards towards the Mediterranean , others withdrawing to the sahel, the 'shore' of the Sahara, lying hundreds of miles to the south"

An extract from AFRICA'S ELEPHANT a biography written by Martin Meredith

Meredith goes on to describe how as early as 3000BC the Egyptians had developed different hieroglyphs to distinguish between wild elephants and trained ones. The pharaohs enjoyed hunting them and coveted them for their ivory.

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 As the climate became increasingly arid, the local elephant population dwindled and disappeared, along with the rhinoceros and the giraffe.

The pharaohs then turned their attention to other areas, eastwards to Syria where herds of Asian elephants could still be found, and southward along the Nile Valley to Nubia and beyond. Large expeditions were despatched up the Nile to acquire 'the marvels of the land of Punt', and it was during the periods between the 25 century BC and 15th century BC that among these 'marvels' 700 elephant tusks were brought back as the voyagers returned.

And so it was that Ivory was in constant demand, both in Egypt and other lands around the eastern Mediterranean.

.....'Since the 5th millennium BC it (Ivory) had been treasured as a symbol of wealth and status. Its subtle glowing colour and sensual surface appealed to the carvers and the rich elite alike'

The use of Ivory became even more extravagant. The Old Testament records how in 1000BC Kind Solomon ordered the construction of a 'great ivory throne' overlain with gold. Solomon's temple in Jerusalem also used huge quantities of ivory. A palace (ordered by Kind Ahab) was built using so much Ivory that it became known as the ivory house, and as ivory became synonymous with luxury and decadence , an old testament prophet, Amos, warned, "The houses of Ivory shall perish."

 AFRICADEMY will become home to the International Anti-Poaching Foundation :

Man's appetite for this white gold has not been satisfied. The carnage on our wildlife continues to decimate our biodiversities as poaching, no matter whether it be for subsistence, animal trafficking or medicinal reasons, continues to flourish and is now pegged as the 3rd largest criminal activity in the world (after drugs and illegal arms).

The Anti-Poaching Unit is now officially a part of the Africademy and the training of anti-poaching units could begin as soon as July 2011. It is through the Africademy and the Anti-Poaching Unit that we will be deepening our direct involvement in conservation.

Visit the Africademy for a tour.

Elephants of Eden (EOE) is our rehabilitation centre. It is here where we take in elephants from around the country that do not fit in with their environments, for whatever reason, and it here where we give them  space to find themselves. No tourists visit EOE - a decision we made years ago and one that has massive financial implications on Knysna Elephant Park (KEP) -  for it is  KEP that has funded all the rescues and transfers we have done thus far to and from EOE.

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 The Africademy is an academic environment designed to serve conservation as a whole. Academics from all over the world will now have the opportunity to visit the academy and participate in our quest to CONSERVE through EDUCATION. Please visit the site and explore the courses available.

African Elephant Research Unit (AERU):

"Research guiding elephant care" is the motto and driving force behind AERU. Having recently celebrated its first birthday, our elephants have certainly had their quality of life improved by the work done by the AERU team.

One of the biggest breakthroughs we achieved in 2010 was the development of the Animal Education Psychology Course in conjunction with Dr Marthe Kiley-Worthington, founder of the Eco-Etho Research and Education Centre in France.

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 It is our opinion that 80% of sound animal welfare is derived from the human element dealing with the animals on a daily basis. So it is of paramount importance that we never stop applying ourselves to understanding more about how the animals we work with think, feel and see the world.

Dr Debbie Young and her team are constantly gathering and intepreting data, then putting it in basic language for all of us to understand and if necessary, adjust management of the elephants. Guests staying in our Elephant Lodge are invited to observe our cognitive sessions with the elephants. It is staggering to watch their (our guests') reactions to the work AERU does with the team. It is also very interesting to see how guests relate the lessons we have learned from the elephants to their daily lives.

Elephant Messages:

Our uniqueness lies deeply within our herd of elephants!

This does take some time to sink in with most people visiting our facility. Visitors in search of an elephant experience invariably miss the fact that they are walking amongst a herd of elephants. Our herd has slowly been developing (since 1994), bonding and growing under their leader, Sally. The controlled free range management system we practice at Knysna Elephant Park gives the herd freedom to perform these natural behaviours. This expression of self allows our elephant guides to walk with guests, amongst the herd, and interpret these natural behaviours as they unfold, as they would in the wild.

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During our Elephant Messages experiences (they take place between 06h45 and 08h00) we take the time to share how we work with the herd. We delve into their sentience, how they see the world and how they develop strategies to overcome problems they experience in the wild. We also conduct specialist Drug Rehabilitation sessions, where elephant strategy is used to assist addicts in coping with their own unique challenges.

The elephant herd has so much to teach us. They are bound by a moral fibre integral to their co-existence, something our society as a whole could learn from.

Elephant Messages is limited to eight people (unless one group books, in which case we will accommodate that group and not take other visitors).

Thank you for 2010.

To all of you who supported us in 2010, we are all most grateful and appreciative. We would also like to extend our gratitude to those of you who supported us via the social networks but  were unable to get to the Park and walk amongst the herd. Thanks to Facebook we have been able to share so much with you.

 

 

 

The Death of our Dear Bibi

The Death of our Dear Bibi

Those of you who are Facebook fans of Knysna Elephant Park would have been kept up to date with the details of Bibi’s illness. For those of you who are not, we bring you the sad news that Bibi passed away on 6 August. Bibi had contracted a rotavirus towards the end of July which she was fighting for about a week. The vet came out numerous times to give her the right medication and put her on a drip when her weakened body needed it. Amazingly the symptoms were improving, which is no small feat as infant elephants hardly ever recover from stomach bugs. Sadly though, no-one detected that Bibi had contracted pneumonia as well during this time. She showed no outward symptoms of pneumonia at all. Her condition rapidly deteriorated on Tuesday the 4th of August, and despite a slow drip and 24 hour vigil over the next day, she passed away in the early hours of Thursday morning. She was a special little being that brought much light and love into the Park, and she will be sadly missed by all who met and knew her.

Shortly after her death, we posted a video tribute to Bibi on Facebook – you can view this at http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=250404535385&ref=mf. By becoming a fan of Knysna Elephant Park on Facebook, we can keep you regulary posted with short updates as well as interesting photos or video clips.

The Knysna Forest Elephants Debate
The female elephant sighted in previous years
The Knysna Forest Elephants Debate
A different elephant sporting two healthy tusks
The Knysna Forest Elephants Debate
Evidence of elephant interaction with trees!

The Knysna Forest Elephants Debate ... continued ...

Gareth Patterson has recently had his say on the work he is doing on the elephants in the Knysna Forest, and the National Park scientists are having theirs as well. So let’s unpack the debate thus far ...

Gareth Patterson has collected dung samples from the forest and he has had these samples tested at a university in the United States. The testing process was a carried out by a DNA specialist at this university and the testing process confirmed the DNA fingerprint of five female elephants.

Until recently, there has only been one elephant witnessed and photographed in the forest. This elephant was identified as a female between the ages of 25 and 50 years old, so reports say.

Recently (in the last three weeks) KEP has had access to footage taken by another individual. At the same time as this footage being taken, a documentary was released on the elephants of the Knysna Forest. This documentary features Gareth Patterson doing his research as well as the SA National Parks wardens who track the elephants. There are some dramatic scenes of the scouts discovering that the film-maker’s camera traps were trashed, and right at the end of the documentary they feature a short clip of the elephant they had been tracking.

Having seen the documentary and then the footage taken by the other individual, it is interesting to compare this with archive material (written and photographic) and to study the claims that have been made about these elephants over the past few years. The recent documentary involving Patterson makes a claim that the lone elephant is a male. Yet archive material and previous comments from National Park staff clearly state that the lone animal witnessed is a female. They were previously convinced of their observations and were convincing in their claim that previous photographic evidence pointed to the elephant photographed being a female. So if both their claims are correct, is there more than one elephant in the forest?

So what do we think?

Judging by the dung samples and photographic evidence we saw recently, the animal is a young bull. His dung boli are small and consistently so. We age him at around 16 years old. This is however based on unclear video evidence and samples of his dung boli.

What do we think about the claims of a female and now a male?

If one reads all archive material, including the written works of the late Mr Nick Carter and specific extracts from Elephantoms et al, one can piece together the puzzle that ultimately leads to the recent claims and findings. The question that is currently unanswered is, “…..where are the five females?”

Again, we know that males do not hang around the female herds that much, so could it be that there is a female herd around, otherwise where did Patterson get the dung samples from? If the DNA sampling method is accurate, then said samples are evidence of a herd that we have not yet seen? If there is no such herd, then it means that the DNA testing process could have mirrored or shadowed individual DNA fingerprints to show an individual as representing more than one elephant. The good news however, is that there is at least one elephant that we know of in the Knysna Forest, and he is very much alive and well … and young.

 

 

Interspecies Communication with Anna Breytenbach

Interspecies Communication with Anna Breytenbach

Anna Breytenbach held an Interspecies Communication Workshop at KEP this past weekend (4 – 6 September). Her presence highlighted an area of communication that is not fully understood by most animal owners. In fact, Anna's visit posed the question of how many people who work with animals on a professional basis, actually practise this telepathic level of interspecies communication? A quick study of what the animal communicators are saying reveals that everyone has the ability to communicate, but we have simply not developed the inherent ability within us to do this, or rather we have neglected to maintain the ability we already have. So, is that intuition or sixth sense more than just a hunch?  "Work on it," they propose.

Anna spoke to Tosha and Sally, and the Park was able to fulfil some meaningful communication to the elephants. Thank you Anna and the team who attended the workshop from across our country and neighbouring countries.

If you are interested in finding out more, you can visit Anna’s website http://www.animalspirit.co.za/. As she says, you need no special skills, only a love of animals and a heart willing to learn. Anna has the knowledge and the passion for teaching, so if you are interested, let her share the magic with you!

The History of Elephants in the Cape
An illustration depicting the hunting of elephants in the early 1800's
The History of Elephants in the Cape
A suspicious elephant eyeing out the photographer!
The History of Elephants in the Cape
The last legal elephant hunt in the Knysna Forests - 1920.
The History of Elephants in the Cape
A beautiful elephant photographed in the 1900s in the Knysna Forests. Note the size of those tusks!

The History of Elephants in the Cape

Since the inception of our monthly newsletter we have been exploring the history of elephants within South Africa, including where they were to be found and of course the reasons for their not being found in certain places any longer.

The question was asked a short while ago as to where the Knysna elephants had come from originally, as it has long been proven that they are not a different sub-species of elephant but also belong to the class Loxodonta Africana – the African Elephant. What led them to choose the forest as their home? Where did they come from? We shall be exploring their occurrence in the Cape in the next few newsletters and follow their occurrence throughout the Western and Southern Cape.

The earliest recorded evidence of elephants in the Cape was on 1 December 1497 at Mossel Bay by Vasco de Gama as it appears in his log: “…it appears that elephants are plentiful in this country. We actually found some of their droppings near the watering place where they had gone to drink”. It has been thought that Bartolomeu Dias might have found evidence prior to De Gama, but the luxury of this bit of information is not available to us.

Van Riebeek’s journal covering ten years makes no mention of elephants on the Cape Peninsula even though the conditions there were favourable to them. That elephants existed in the Cape during Van Riebeek’s time was first proved when his men started exploring beyond the immediate settlement – one must realize that Van Riebeek, like all who settled new colonies, was very keen on finding ways to make a lot of money and the trade in ivory was lucrative even at that time. The first record of ivory being used in barter comes six months after his arrival, on 29 October 1652 and his journal reads: “…bartered from the people of Saldania (i.e. the Hottentots, or Cape men, who lived near the Peninsula, or Saldanha Bay as Table Bay was still called) one sheep and two small elephants’ tusks for a little tobacco and thin copper wire.” The elephants themselves weren’t seen.

The next elephant entry appears on 20 April 1653, “Meanwhile a tusk of an elephant or hippopotamus is also bartered now and then for small pieces of tobacco and copper wire.” It appears that elephant tusks came to have a value for the Hottentots and they would acquire these by picking them up in the veld wherever an elephant had died of natural causes. They wouldn’t have hunted them as they did not have the necessary equipment. This fact is noted on 21 September 1658, “the Hottentots…did not know how to manage in regard to antelope and elephant tusks. These we had been urging them, from the beginning, to bring to us, but they said that the antelopes were too fast and the elephants too formidable to attack.” We can only speculate that elephant tusks had lain around in the veld entirely valueless to the Hottentots, except for their ornamental value, until the Europeans came and started asking for them.

In October 1653 (18 months after Van Riebeek’s arrival) Corporal Verburgh en route to Saldanha Bay ran into some elephants. As the log says: “Had met many elephants… once a herd of seven and another time a herd of eight elephants of which our men were rather afraid as they, like the rhinoceros, remained standing firm so that our men had to get out of their way.” It is also suggested that elephants entered cornfields in the colonies and did a lot of damage, although the exact locations are not given.

Elephants were definitely within a short distance of Saldanha Bay as a man was killed by an elephant near there in 1708. La Caille also records the sighting of an elephant near the Berg River in 1750, but no further details are given and by the 1780’s Mentzel remarked that, “The lion and the elephant are not seen in close vicinity to the Cape, but they are to be found deeper inland.”

It would seem from historical evidence that elephants did not frequent the Peninsula but there are places that bear the name Olifantsbosch, Olifantsbaai and Olifantspunt that seem to suggest that they did traverse the region – albeit inconclusive. Judging by the records – it seems that elephants did visit the Cape Flats as Roland Trimen of the South African Museum in Cape Town wrote in 1893: “The early settlers met with troops of elephants in the southwest extremity of the Cape Colony, and the teeth of the animal are often exhumed from superficial deposits in that quarter. The latest of these, a small molar, was found the other day (July 1892) quite close to Cape Town under an accumulation of blown sand on the flats.”

A very likely reason why elephants were not to be seen in the Cape in the late 1700’s may be that they were simply driven out by those fattening cattle in the Colony, as those at the Groene Kloof fattening farm in the Malmesbury District did. They attempted to drive a herd of about 40 young elephant who frequented the pasture out little by little as the elephants ate up much of the fodder to the detriment of the pasture. As more labourers and cattle herds were brought into the area, the elephants withdrew to the further side of the Berg River.

As the human-elephant conflict for land and pasture grew, so the elephants retreated further away from the early settlers’ influence and frequented the Cape Peninsula and its immediate surrounds far less.

Acknowledgements: Skead, C.J. 1980. Historical Mammal Incidence in the Cape Province, Volume 1 (Pages195-204). The Department of Nature and Environmental Conservation of the Provincial Administration of the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Town.

PS We apologise if the pictures relating to history are often repeated! Historical photos are very hard to come by, and when they are found, permission is not always granted to use them. Repetions of photographs will still at least enhance and add value to the story told. If you know of anyone who has any historical photographs of elephants anywhere in the country, please let us know!

Join us in celebrating Elephant Appreciation Day!

Join us in celebrating Elephant Appreciation Day!

Tuesday 22 September is Elephant Appreciation Day. We will be encompassing this into a long weekend of celebrating these wonderful gentle giants, as well as our new revamped playground facility at the Elephant Park Restaurant. Come celebrate with us at the Park where we will be offering a free tour and meal (weekend only)* to children under the age of 10 from Saturday 19 September to Tuesday 22 September. We will also be celebrating elephants by hosting Gary Albyn reciting Manzovo. This will take place on Saturday 19 September at around 18h00 - RSVP essential. *Terms and conditions apply.