Steuart Wright in East London
FORESTRY officials are racing against the clock to find a mate for the sole surviving elephant of the world- famous herd which roamed the Knysna forest at the turn of the century.
Trouble is, they’re not sure of the sex of the
Three young Kruger National Park cows were relocated to the forest last year in a bid to save the world’s southern-most herd of wild elephants, which numbered about 100 in the 1920s.
However, hopes of saving the forest animals, for some time believed to be a separate sub-species, were dashed when one of the new arrivals died from disease and it was discovered two of the three remaining Knysna animals, possibly the two bulls, had “disappeared”.
“The herd is under threat of extinction. Anything can happen to this one animal,” district forest officer Theo Stehle said.
He said a firm of pathologists and the Stellenbosch University department of genetics had been called in to try to sex the remaining Knysna elephant from urine samples collected from the ground to determine whether a bull needed to be introduced to save the forest
“There seems to be more hope with hormone analysis. So far they haven’t been able to get tissue from the two samples sent to the university but we have compared the hormone levels of tame South African elephants which will enable us to compare the differences with the pathologist’s samples,” he explained.
Stehle said the experimental relocation of the Kruger animals, about 10 years in the planning, appeared to have been a success although the two adolescent cows had split from the Knysna elephant after roaming the forest as a single herd for some time.
“We don’t know why, we haven’t got the slightest clue. They are still within the limits of the state forest but they have come dangerously close to private land. It seems they have adapted quite well and are happy,” he said.
Stehle said it was the intention to introduce more animals to the forest and the lessons learned from the time-consuming and sensitive relocation of relatively docile females meant “we will be able to accommodate a
“If sexing proves the Knysna animal to be a cow then she is sexually mature at 24 to 25 years. Then the bull mustn’t be too young, it has got to be not far from sexual maturity to produce some offspring soon,” he
If the animal is found to be a bull then it is hoped it will mate with one of the two Kruger cows after they reach sexual maturity within the next few years. —