Addo Elephant National Park

[Klipspringer]

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... onal_Parks

Jan 2017 published

[Richprins]

[Richprins]

Chris P @ SANParks
‏ @Chris_SANParks
21h21 hours ago

Unbelievably two Grey Crowned Cranes pitched up on the banks of the Sundays River by Colchester in the southern section of @SANParksAENP earlier this week. The location as can be seen on the map is 3km from the Matyholweni Gate...

[Lisbeth]

They wanted to see another part of the world, can you blame them They are very pretty

[Flutterby]

[Klipspringer]

HISTORY OF THE ADDO ELEPHANT NATIONAL PARK

The natural and cultural heritage of the park has been studied by the Albany Museum, recording hundreds of sites of significance. This was done under what was known as the AENP cultural mapping pilot project conducted during 2002 by various researchers from the Albany Museum in Grahamstown. The Stone Age in the park begins in the Middle Stone Age (MSA) between 125 000 and 30 000 years ago. Scatters of MSA tools are reported along the Sundays River Valley and also inland at Addo Heights and Korhaansvlakte.

The later Stone Age peoples were ancestral to the San (Bushmen) and Khoekhoen (Hottentot) peoples who lived in Southern Africa between 30, 000 and 1, 000 years ago. In South Africa these small hunter-gatherer groups lived at the coast, where they exploited the marine resources such as shell fish, fish, seals, and sea birds. Many hundreds of shell middens are found along the coast in the park. Inland groups frequently lived in caves and rock shelters and there are many sites in the Zuurberg Mountain which testify to this. There are also rock paintings in some of these caves.

Excavations were carried out at Melkhoutboom and Vygeboom and these uncovered graves with rich grave goods indicating a complex belief system. These sites contain well preserved plant remains which indicate how they utilized their environment. The majority of hunter-gatherer groups had been pushed out of the Zuurberg Mountain range by the 1820’s and were forced to move further inland to escape European settlement on their lands. The Khoikhoi pastoralists by the 16th and 17th centuries, were spread all along the Coastal forelands from Namibia to the Eastern Cape. Many of the shell middens in the park contain pottery, confirming the presence of the Khoikhoi in the area.

There are numerous place names in the park which are derived from Khoikhoi, for example Kaba, Coerney (originally Koernoe), Nanaga, Boknes, Gorah, Kabouga, Kariega, Sapkamma, and others.
The name ‘Addo’ is thought to be derived from the Khoikhoi word ‘!Ga-dao’ pronounced ‘gha (with a click)-dough’ meaning drift (dao) where the poisonous Noorsboom plant (!Ga) grows. This later became ‘Kadouw’ or Addo bush. These names confirm the presence of Khoikhoi tribal groupings such as the Inqua, Damasqua and Gonaqua. They were absorbed into the colonial lifestyle of the 18th century, becoming farm workers for the Dutch and British or clients of the Xhosa where they were engaged in elephant hunting. A few groups settled at missions such as Enon, Bethelsdorp, and Theopolis. They were largely wiped out in the 1700’s by the smallpox epidemic and human persecution. They left behind rock paintings on the walls of caves they inhabited as well as shell middens in the sand dunes in the area.

As the Portuguese advanced towards the East, they continued the practice of erecting inscribed limestone crosses to proclaim their presence. In 1938 Eric Axelson discovered the fragments of the Kwaaihoek cross. Today the stone copy of the padrao positioned by Bartholomew Dias in 1488 on Kwaaihoek falls within the footprint of the park. The Dutch farmers who had started farming in the Western Cape moved to the Eastern Cape in the 18th century.

Nomadic Xhosa tribes had kraals in the area, including Chief Cungwa of the Gqunukhwebe (near the Sundays River mouth and inland) and Chief Habana of the Dange (near the Wit River which rises in the Zuurberg and flows into the Sundays River).
The area occupied by the Addo Elephant National Park was described by travellers during the 18th and 19th centuries as ‘an impenetrable thorny thicket’ and a ‘hunter’s hell’. Much of it is still like that today.

Hunting for ivory began in earnest in the early 1700’s as people began settling in the Sundays River valley and further east. Here they began to clear the land to make way for cattle and crop farming.
In 1786 Commandant Daniel Willem Kuuhn was granted a loan farm called De Gora. Large sections of this farm form part of the park as we know it today. Early writings record the presence of lions, ‘panthers’, rhino, buffalo, springbuck and wild dogs in the area of Sandflats (Patterson). There are records of red hartebeest, eland, hyaena, jackal and various antelope on the plains.

As more farmers moved into the area they clashed with the Xhosa over the possession of cattle and land. The Third Frontier War occurred during 1811/12. The military were tasked with driving the Xhosa from the Addo bush. To this end military posts were established at Addo Drift, Coerney, Slagboom and Rietberg under the command of Major J G Cuyler.

With the passage of time, hunting and the collection of ivory in the area increased. This had a detrimental effect on the animals. In by the early 1820’s Thomas Pringle noted that game on the Zuurberg was scarce. He put this down to hunting. In the 1830’s, a Mr. Thackwray was killed by an elephant while hunting. Legend says that he was challenged to chalk a cross on the back leg of a sleeping elephant to win the heart of a lady. He was crushed in the attempt.

Hunting went on unabated to the extent that an advert appeared in The Grahamstown Journal in September 1834 forbidding hunting by travellers on the farm Quagga’s Vlakte. Although the game in the area was under extreme pressure, in 1837 it was reported that 7.6 tons of ivory and 13 tons of aloe for medicinal purposes were exported via Port Elizabeth.
The last lion in the Albany area was shot in 1849. In 1853, the last rhino in the area was shot at Grassridge. The last lion in the Eastern Cape was shot in East Griqualand in 1879. The last black rhino in the Eastern Cape was shot at Graaff-Reinet in 1880.

With the advent of people moving into the region there was a demand for firewood for the kilns making bricks for use in Port Elizabeth. The Addo bush was now in demand to meet the need. This put pressure on the habitat for the game however, some buffalo and elephant survived.

In July 1886, the Cape Parliament passed legislation to protect elephant and buffalo in the districts of Uitenhage and Albany and hunting was limited to specific periods. Sadly, at this time the animal disease known as the rinderpest swept through the districts of Albany and Uitenhage. This decimated the animal populations but those in the Addo Bush managed to survive the disease.
By the 1900s hunters had exterminated most of the remaining elephants (and other game) in the area. Only isolated herds remained – the largest of these was in the Addo region: 140 elephants.

In 1900, Mr. Henry Attrill (who was married to the widow of the farm Gorah) and his foster son, Sidney, went hunting elephants. Attrill was killed by one. His death resulted in a call to ‘deal with’ the elephants in the area. The call was made to stamp them out completely. In addition to the death of Attrill the elephants were causing the farmers damage by way of infrastructure and crops. On January 13th, 1902, Sidney disappeared into the bush. His body was later found. The cause of his death was never clearly established. It was rumoured that he had committed suicide possibly because of a love affair.

Several irrigation schemes were proposed for the area towards the late 1800’s. In 1913, Sir Percy Fitzpatrick proposed the Cape Sundays River Settlement Scheme next to the Mentone / Strathmore Forest Reserve. The area would be farmed by ex-British World War 1 servicemen. Water for this development would come via a network of canals from a dam to be built on the Sundays River near Jansenville. Construction began in 1917 and as the dam filled up it flooded the village of Darlington. Originally the dam was named Lake Mentz, after the Minister of Lands at the time. In 1995, the dam was re-named to Darlington Dam.

Growth in agriculture in the region led to conflict with elephants as they damaged crops and competed with farmers’ needs for water. Local farmers put pressure on the government to exterminate elephants. In 1916, people, including the Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage Farmers’ Associations, called on the government to exterminate the elephants.

In 1919, Major P.J. Pretorius was tasked to shoot the remaining elephants. He set up his camp in Kinkelbos and used various methods while hunting, including a ladder to see above the thick Addo bush. Using a .475 Jeffries Cordite Express double-barrelled rifle he shot 114 elephants between 1919 and 1920 and also caught two elephant calves that he sold to Mr. Boswell for his circus. Pretorius applied to shoot one elephant in the Knysna forest for “scientific purposes” but shot between two and five (according to various reports).

His activities generated publicity and sympathy for the elephants, prompting a halt to the killing when only 16 elephants remained. He shot the first elephant in June 1919 and left the area in August 1920 at which stage there were only 16 elephants left.

During the 1920s there was little protection for the remaining elephants. They took refuge on the land of a sympathetic farmer, Mr. J.T. Harvey, near Barkly Bridge.

In 1925, the Minister of Lands, Colonel Denys Reitz set aside the Strathmore and Mentone Forest Reserve for the elephants. These areas had been set aside as forest reserves as early as 1890. In addition to the farm Kenmure, these areas became the core of the Addo Elephant National Park.

In 1926, the National Parks Act was passed by Parliament and the Kruger National Park was declared. This was followed by a proposal to develop a national park in Addo to protect the remaining elephants.

In 1931, the park (about 2000 ha) was proclaimed to protect the remaining Addo Elephants. The first Park manager, Stephen Harold Trollope (a former Kruger National Park ranger), chased elephants into the Park area using shotguns, firecrackers and fires.
Only one bull remained outside the park and it was unfortunately shot by Trollope when it charged one of his men. So died what would have been the twelfth elephant in the park.
The area was inadequately fenced and the movement of elephants continued to cause problems on surrounding farmland. Elephants were killed as a result of conflicts with farmers and collisions with trains.

In 1933, Trollope started supplying oranges, hay, pumpkins, lucerne, and pineapples to elephants in order to keep them within the Park boundaries, which was effective. Since elephants visited the feeding site at certain times, the practice of inviting visitors began. In 1934, he experimented with electric fencing using only one strand but the elephants learned to push over the supporting poles which weren’t electrified. His successor, Johnson also tried this method. One night in 1936 the elephants left the park and paid a visit to the Coerney Station forcing the staff to lock themselves in with the Station Master. In the process of their visit, the elephants destroyed a wood and iron building.

In 1943, Graham Armstrong was appointed as warden of the park. He tried trap-guns, tins hung on the fence that would rattle and disturb the animals. He tried a trip wire that caused a gun to discharge and in the process ignited a bottle of benzene which would set the grass on fire. The noise and fire helped but the elephants soon found an alternative route. He continued to experiment with methods of containing the elephants. Later, after he realised that the shock from the electric fence that the elephants received was too low he tried using a parallel electric fence but the elephants always found a way around it.

Below are two extracts from some of the many letters sent to the Parks Board:
“As you are probably aware, I am one of the people who has to put up with the elephants in the Addo Reserve. I could excuse it if they troubled me only once, but I simply cannot stand the way they have been carrying on lately. Last week they were in my veld no less than three times. The result? Fences were trampled down, poles were broken, and the standards of my dip smashed. If they damage my dip in any way I am going to hold you responsible. Most important is the wastage of my water, all bythe elephants. Where do you think I am going to find water for my animals if this carries on, especially now when we find ourselves in a critical position?

What do you think happens when they break my fences? My stock simply strays into other people’s lands with the result that I have to pay pound money. Not only is this unpleasant, but it also leads to bad friendship between me and my neighbours.

The elephants constitute a great danger to the public. Travellers passing at night simply do not realise the great danger waiting for them and not only once, but many times their way has been blocked by the elephants.”

and,

“I have to report that, as a result of your buffalo breaking a fence on my farm, I have lost seven trained trek oxen, valued at £25 each, which escaped through the broken fence into the adjoining bush. I shall be glad to hear what you propose to do by way of compensating me for this loss.”

In one case there was trouble over a borehole. A neighbour sank a hole and put in a casing. His efforts to drive the casing all the way in were fruitless and it projected about 45 cm above the ground.
To protect the open pipe he blocked it with a wooden plug. One night, the elephants visited the borehole, trod on the pipe and pushed it level with the ground. But the plug was even more firmly wedged in. The owner was furious about the plug, forgetting all about the casing which was now in the correct position. Luckily, Ranger Armstrong had no difficulty removing the plug which was made of spekboom.

An American soldier based in Kodiak, Alaska longed to become another Major Pretorius, who it is claimed, shot more elephants than anyone else. He offered his services to help get rid of the remaining elephants in the Addo area. He wrote the following:

“For what it costs me to write and send this letter, I am losing little or nothing if I do not prosper by this venture. I have never had experience in hunting elephants, but I am more than willing to learn in any way possible.

I have experience in firing the 45-calibre pistol. The Browning automatic rifle, Mark 1 rifle, 30-calibre rifle-grenade and the 50- and 30-calibre machine guns. I am an expert with the Mark 1 rifle.

I have had experience with Kodiak bears which are the largest in the world, weighing 2 200 lbs and standing 12 feet in height. But alongside your game they are pretty small.

If you would care to give me information on the matter, I would be most willing to accept the job of trying to rid your land of these wild elephants.”

He was not appointed!

Armstrong experimented with a fence built of railway lines, poles, lift cable, and wire. He eventually succeeded in building an elephant proof fence. This fence was first used to protect the windmills. This design eventually became the standard and in 1951 the City Council of Port Elizabeth agreed to donate 200 x 4 metre used tramlines for the erection of an experimental fence. Waygood Otis, the lift manufacturers, offered to supply large quantities of used steel cable. Armstrong built an experimental section of 750 metres near his house. One night he watched the elephants trying to reach some oranges that he had placed outside the fence. Bulls and cows tried to push the fence over but it held firm. Two weeks later, Armstrong decided that he had beaten the elephants.

The death in January 1952 of one of farmer Harvey’s employees as a result of an elephant attack on the Addo Heights Road brought about demands to erect a suitable fence to contain the elephants and prevent further attacks. More tramlines arrived from Port Elizabeth and from the City of Johannesburg as well as kilometres of lift-shaft cable. Work on the fence began in earnest.

In September 1954, Graham Armstrong completed an elephant-proof fence constructed with tram rails and lift cables. Approximately 2000 hectares had been enclosed. 4m-long rails are planted 10m apart. They have a mass of about 360kg and are planted 1.6m into the ground. At least 8 people are required to lift and plant a rail. Wooden poles were planted 0.9m deep every 1m (between the rails). Five droppers were suspended between the poles and the rail. Five strands of metal cable (14-16mm diameter) were pulled horizontally along the fence, along with two strands of straining wire that were used to secure the netting. This Armstrong fence, named after its developer, is still used around some of the park today. With the addition of a substantial electric current the method of construction has been used until as recently as 10 years ago. Today, a predator-proof electric fence is used.

In 1954, there were 22 elephants protected in the park. The last of the disease-free Cape buffalo were also protected by the establishment of the Park, as were the flightless dung beetle (endemic to the area, not just the park). Eland, the largest of the African antelope, were introduced into the park in 1957 and by 1971 had increased to such an extent that they were being sold to suitable game farms.

In 1968, the elephant bull Hapoor managed to cross the fence. It is believed that he used his massive weight to flatten the fence enough in order to get over it. The fence sprung back up behind him. His escape was detected by a former Addo ranger, Kleinbooi Kilane, who reported the escape to the warden, Sep le Roux. An attempt was made to chase him back into the park but he resisted and was eventually shot. He was about 50 when he died and his preserved head is on display at the Main Rest Camp in the Interpretive Centre.

Hapoor left his mark on the park. His leadership was challenged in May 1959 by a young bull known as Bellevue who wanted to depose him. A fight to the death followed in which Bellevue was killed and Hapoor emerged unscathed. Bellevue is believed to be the first elephant killed by Hapoor.

In 1966, the senior female of the herd, Granny (Ouma), developed an abscess and the staff decided to immobilise her so that they could treat the wound. One morning Ouma went down to drink on her own and having quenched her thirst, she disappeared into the bush. Sometime later Lanky, one of her sons who was now a full grown bull, went in search of her. He found her and pushed her and supported her until they re-joined the herd.

A few days later the elephants came down to drink and Ouma was among them but the others had to help her to move. It was now that the decision to immobilise her for treatment was taken. A few minutes after the dart struck she fell to the ground but immediately got up again and turned around a few times. Hapoor, who was standing nearby ambled up to her and when she moved off to a smaller dam he assisted her. Another cow, Eentand who was watching Ouma also came to her assistance. The trio moved off into the bushes where Ouma fell down again. At this point, Hapoor killed her. The only indication that he had done something was the blood on one of his tusks.

Hapoor made his way back to the feeding place where the elephants gathered around him. He led them back to the carcass where they stood around while he trumpeted over it as if daring anyone to challenge his right to kill Ouma.

Closer investigation showed that Hapoor had stabbed her four times with his tusk. Once between the ear and the eye – in exactly the place where a hunter would have aimed – and three times in a half circle behind the ear. All his stabs were directed at her brain.

This was not the end of the drama as Lanky appeared out of the bushes and followed Ouma’s tracks until he found her carcass. He stood over her until he was chased away so that the carcass could be removed.

In 1968, Lanky deposed Hapoor who was now 44 years old. He was driven out of the herd and became a loner. This situation did not suit him and he consequently climbed over the fence to leave the park. The 210 cm high fence was flattened to a height of 180 cm without breaking, bending or pulling out any of the rails, Hapoor climbed to his short-lived freedom. Sadly, knowing that the fence would no longer stop him and bearing in mind his aggressive nature, after trying to get him back into the park it was decided that he should be shot. He died at the hand of those who had protected him but against whom he had always borne a grudge.

The feeding of citrus etc. continued after the fence was erected in order to increase the chance of visitors seeing the elephants from outside the fence. The Sundays River Citrus Co-operative was donating substandard oranges and grapefruit. A viewing ramp and floodlights were erected for
visitors.
By 1976 about 25-30 tons of oranges were fed during the winter months. For want of a better system, a truck would enter the game area and dump the oranges. Elephants would run behind the vehicle screaming, roaring and grabbing oranges from the truck. They would be scared away from the entrance gate when the truck departed by cracking whips, throwing bricks and shouts. The vegetation around the feeding area was decimated, as elephants didn’t move out of the area for fear of missing the feeding sessions. Levels of aggression between the elephants rose and many were injured. Many elephant cows showed signs of stress by the secretions from their temporal glands when competing for oranges. Because of the negative impact on the vegetation and the elephants, the practice of feeding citrus was gradually phased out by 1979.

In 1981, the first tourist drove through the park.

In 1992, the farm Gorah was included into the park. The elephants made a rush for the area because of the abundance of prickly pears – a favourite of theirs. Park officials had to construct a new tourist road into the area as the elephants were no longer visible to the tourists in the original section and they complained of not seeing elephants.

In 1992, hippopotamus were introduced to a section of the Sundays River at Kabouga.

The current Rhino (bicornis bicornis) were introduced to the park in 1994 after the removal of the original (bicornis michaeli) which were the wrong species for the area.

Burchell’s Zebra and Warthog were introduced in 1996.

In 2003, 6 Kalahari lions were introduced to the park as were the first hyaenas.

The expansion of the Addo Elephant National Park into a ‘Greater Addo’ was first officially mentioned at the Open Africa Initiative in 1997. The plans to expand the park received a significant boost when academics from the Terrestrial Ecology Research Unit (TERU) at the University of Port Elizabeth drafted a proposal outlining the opportunities that could possibly be created through an expansion initiative. Dr Anthony Hall-Martin was instrumental in this process.

Through the combined efforts of SANParks and private donor agencies such as the International Fund for Animal Welfare, Leslie Hill Succulent Trust, Humane Society of the United States and the Rhino and Elephant Foundation, the park has expanded to its present (2016) size of over 176 000 ha. The existing Marine Area is about an additional 4 000 ha. Once finally completed, the end result will make Addo the 3rd largest conservation area in SA after Kruger and Kgalagadi and the only park in the world to encompass the Big Seven.

https://www.sanparks.org/assets/docs/pa ... guides.pdf

[Klipspringer]

History of Black Rhino in AENP:

4 wild-caught black rhino of the East African subspecies, Diceros bicornis michaeli from Kenya were introduced to the AENP in 1961-2. At the time, the status of the black rhino in Africa was critical and these were the only available rhino when national parks were attempting to restock parks with all naturally occurring game.

Every individual was known and named and their feeding habits, behaviour and ecology studied.

During 1977, bulls from Natal of the subspecies D. b. minor were introduced but removed by 1981 due to a decision by the African Rhino Specialist group of the IUCN. 3 calves possibly sired by these 3 bulls were also removed in 1983 and sent to the National Zoological Gardens in Pretoria.

Between 1998 and 2003, the michaeli rhino were translocated to Thaba Tholo Game Reserve, Mkomazi and Portland Zoo in the UK. Some of these rhino had to be airlifted from the botanical reserve where they were enclosed. The bush there is too thick for game capture vehicles to enter.
An Oryx helicopter from the SANDF assisted in this operation in 2003.

All the bicornis subspecies in the GAENP have been translocated here originally from Namibia, via Vaalbos and Augrabies National Parks. This translocation began in 1994. The first camp to be set up was in the Darlington area with 5 rhinos. Rhinos translocated into the AENP were also kept in a separate camp in the vicinity of Wayne’s Valley. When the fences were dropped in 1999, there was a Babesia outbreak amongst the rhinos and a few died. Babesia is a blood parasite borne by ticks and may be triggered by stress and or by dry conditions and reduced vegetation. All rhinos were then inoculated against this, as are all new introductions to the park.

It is well-known that the most important source of mortality in translocated black rhino populations is due to the immigrant animals being killed by the resident animals. The stress of translocation and of being exposed to resident animals can also cause disease in black rhino. Allowing residents and immigrants to meet by smell, sound and infrasound communication and then to later meet physically on mutually recognized boundaries decreases the chances of mortality.

The black rhino in the AENP are managed as a metapopulation (a population of sub-populations) internally in the different sections but also with Mountain Zebra National Park Mokala National Park and SANParks has custodial agreements with certain private reserves.

https://www.sanparks.org/assets/docs/pa ... guides.pdf

[Lisbeth]

How many black rhinos are there in AENP now? Wikepedia says 48. There is never a date on those website pages

[PJL]

How many black rhinos are there in AENP now? Wikepedia says 48. There is never a date on those website pages

They don’t like to put a number out publicly Lis because of the poaching risks... so any numbers you do find will be out of date

[Lisbeth]

That's what I thought. Thank you, Pete