African elephants are the largest land animals and to celebrate the existence of these magnificent animals, a World Elephant Day was held on 12 August.
This was in the form of a site visit to Askari Game Lodge where information about elephants was provided, and people had a chance to meet Damara and Nzewe – two young male elephants.
Game Ranger Yolande Prinsloo explained that the two have been at the lodge for the last 10 years.
“After they got transported to their new home all the way from the Kruger National Park they developed a dislike to vehicles and the noise they make,” said Prinsloo.
According to her, this makes it difficult for visitors to spot them on a game drive but they are not shy of humans at all.
“We have an elephant experience tour where people can see the amazing tricks that these two can do when commanded by their handlers.”
She said Damara is now 18 years old and Nzewe is 17 and “It may sound strange, but these two are really still in their teenage phase, as male elephants [bulls] tend to get as old as 55 years and most of the time they [die] due to ill nutrition when their teeth fall out and they are unable to feed themselves.
“What further makes these animals so special is that a mother elephant [cow] carries her baby for 22 months, and this is also how we know that Damara and Nzewe are not brothers – but they are related and can be described as cousins.”
Prinsloo said like humans, elephants also have personalities.
“Nzewe is the grumpy one and we know when to give him space, while Damara is always in a ‘happy’ mood and very easy to work with as he doesn’t mind to do tricks on a daily basis. But having said this, they both are still wild animals and should be handled as such.”
She estimated that there are just over 300 000 elephants left – and this is a scary figure – as she explained that about 10 years ago, there used to be over a million elephants in Africa.
“These animals are killed for their tusks which are sold in the illegal ivory trade that is happening worldwide.”
She concluded and said the World Elephant Day helped to create awareness but added that people should still take time to go and see these majestic land animals.
