Tuesday May 6 2003 saw the exciting climax of more than a year’s worth of planning and hard work for staff and contractors working in the Addo Elephant National Park near Port Elizabeth. Fifty-nine elephants were ‘persuaded†to move across the road to where the grass (and bush) is greener.
Local community members employed in the Parks Empowering People poverty relief programme had spent 12 months clearing up the new Nyati concession area of the Greater Addo Elephant National Park. This 14 000ha area north of the R342 road used to be farmland and South African National Parks spent close to R15-million on employing people to remove old fences, buildings, reservoirs and dipping tanks, and fencing the new wildlife area.
Finally Nyati was ready to be stocked with game. On the Tuesday morning the R342 road between Addo and Paterson was the site of frenetic activity as staff closed the road with a fence, erected traffic signs and prepared the railway line for the passage of elephant feet.
Spoornet obliged by shutting off the power to the railway line and the Department of Roads & Transport agreed to the temporary closure of the road. Branches and dung were strewn across the railway tracks to help disguise their unnatural look and feel.
Staff, commuters and curious tourists watched with bated breath as the helicopter coaxed the first group of elephants towards the narrow passage across the road. Tensions ran high as the elephants moved up to the opening in the fence, only to change direction. After two more attempts, the elephants moved across to the new area, testing the air with raised trunks. They quickly moved off into the bush.
With the help of game capture trucks, another two groups and a few individual elephants were chased across the road. There were some tense (but, when seen from afar, rather humorous) moments as elephants challenged the helicopter and vehicles, one cow even pushing the grader with her forehead!
Eleven elephants who refused to be chased across were later darted and moved by the game capture team.
The elephants have since settled down very well in the Nyati concession area – an area where elephants were shot out more than 70 years ago. Other game released into the new area includes four elephant bulls from the Kruger National Park (introduced to increase genetic diversity), black rhinos, buffalos, elands, ostriches, red hartebeests and mountain zebras.
The opening of this new area forms part of the expansion plans of the Addo Elephant Park. The park is in the process of growing from about 60 000ha to more than 400 000ha. This Greater Addo Elephant Park will cover five biomes, from the coastal dune forests near Alexandria to the valley bush thicket of the Addo area; from the Afromontane forests and mixed grassland fynbos of the Zuurberg mountains to the succulent karoo of the Darlington Dam area. When these plans are realised, tourists visiting the Greater Addo park will be offered a ‘big seven†experience, combing the ‘big five†– elephants, lions, rhinos, leopards and buffalos – with whales and great white sharks in the marine zone.
Black rhinos take wing
In the early 1960s, East African black rhinos, of the subspecies michaeli (Diceros bicornis michaeli) were brought into the Addo Elephant National Park because of the high poaching threat in East Africa.
In later years, South African National Parks (SANParks) took a decision to remove this subspecies and restock Addo with black rhinos endemic to the area (Diceros bicornis bicornis).
The process of relocating the East African black rhinos began nine years ago and the last two were relocated to a botanical reserve within Addo in order to separate them from the bicornis black rhinos. The two bred to produce two more, bringing the small population of East African rhinos left in Addo to four.
The relocation of these four rhinos finally took place in April this year, with co-operation between Addo and the national defence force. Because of the extremely thick bush in the botanical reserve, normal game capture and relocation methods were impossible. It was only when the defence force provided their biggest helicopter, an Oryx, that the operation was made possible. The park provided the aviation fuel and the defence force provided the services of the Oryx free of charge, using the opportunity for a staff training exercise.
The park’s own helicopter and a spotter plane criss-crossed the area, searching for the elusive East African rhinos. Once the rhinos had been spotted and darted, the vet and game capture team were lowered to the ground with a winch. The animal was loaded on to a stretcher and then lifted by the Oryx to a game capture truck, where they were loaded into a crate and woken up in the bomas.
The four rhinos have found a new home at the Thabo Tholo Game Lodge in Limpopo, where a breeding population of East African black rhinos is being established.
In a separate operation, four black rhinos of the subspecies bicornis were translocated from Etosha National Park in Namibia to Addo to boost the Addo population and increase genetic diversity. The rhinos have been released into a holding camp, where they will be able to adapt to local conditions for a year before being released into the park.
The South African National Defence Force provided its largest helicopter to lift the East African rhinos out of dense bush. The animals had to be strapped to a strong ‘stretcher’ and winched up into the air – where they ‘flew’ across the treetops before being deposited in a game capture truck.
Photographs courtesy of SANParks.