by CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) – When it comes to the niche business of moving elephants, Dr. Amir Khalil and his team may be the best.
The Egyptian vet’s résumé includes perhaps the most famous elephant relocation in the world. In 2020, the team rescued Khalil Kaavan, an Asian elephant, from years of loneliness at a zoo in Pakistan and flew to a better life with other elephants at a sanctuary in Cambodia.
Kaavan was called “the loneliest elephant in the world” at the time, and the project was a great success. But he wasn’t the only one who needed help.
After that the last elephant was in captivity in South Africa.
Charley, an aging four-ton African elephant, outlived his fellow elephants at a zoo in the capital, Pretoria, where he remained for more than 20 years. Elephants are sensitive animals, according to wildlife experts, and Charley has shown signs of being very unhappy in his enclosure since his partner, Landa, died in 2020.
Zoo officials decided he should be “retired” to a place more suitable for an old elephant – a large private game reserve about 200 kilometers (120 miles) away where he is likely to make new elephant friends.
How to get it there? Khalil, an animal rescue specialist at the wildlife welfare organization Four Paws, was an obvious choice for this huge job.
If ever an elephant deserved to enjoy his dark years, it’s Charley.
Captured as a young calf in western Zimbabwe in the 1980s and taken from his herd, he spent 16 years in a circus in South Africa and 23 years as a main attraction at the National Zoological Gardens in Pretoria. He is now thought to be 42 years old and has spent 40 of them in captivity.
“I don’t know how many hundreds of thousands of people and children saw Charley and enjoyed it,” Khalil said. “I think it’s time for him to enjoy life and live like an elephant.”
The mechanics of moving an elephant to a new world are complex. Khalil does not kill elephants and does not calm down, mainly because it is not good for such a large animal. Also, four tons of tranquilized elephant is hardly any easier to move.
And so, began a process of occasionally training a grumpy old elephant to willingly enter a large metal shipping container that would be loaded onto a truck. Dr. Khalil and other vets began. Marina Ivanova and Dr. Frank Göritz – who was also part of the Kaavan relocation team – interacting with Charley two years ago.
That was to gauge how ready he was to move and, crucially, to earn his trust. The interaction was carefully controlled, but was intended to teach Charley to respond to calls to walk up to a “training wall” with gaps so the staff could offer him a food reward. In Charley’s case, you prefer pumpkins, papaya and beets.
The same process was eventually used to lure Charley into the transport container. It was thought it might take months and months for Charley to become happily crated when that was introduced, but he was ready to go in less than two weeks of crate training last month.
“He was curious, and thinking, what is the new toy?” said Ivanova.
After an hour-long road trip on the back of a truck, Charley was brought into his new home at the Shambala private game reserve in late August.
He will be kept in a separate area from the main park for a few weeks to allow him to settle, staff said, given such a big change for an old elephant. There are herds of wild elephants in the park that Charley can join.
Khalil said it is still extremely rare for captive elephants to be reintroduced into a wild setting and he praised officials at the Pretoria zoo and South Africa’s environment ministry for allowing this project to go ahead. “It’s a great message from South Africa that even an old elephant deserves a new chance,” he said.
Another elephant move by Khalil’s team in Pakistan is planned for October.
Elephants are very intelligent, very social animals, Khalil said, and although Charley was unhappy, he could be mischievous and playful and show scenes of joy. Khalil compared Charley’s last unfulfilling years at the zoo with no companion to someone watching the same movie every day, alone.
At Shambala, Charley will have the freedom to take a mud bath, roam the bush and become a wild elephant for the first time in four decades with thousands of hectares (acres) to explore. Some of his early memories as a calf before he was captured may still be there. It is true, the vets said, that elephants have incredible memories.
Charley is already in contact with the other elephants out in the park from her holding pen, Ivanova said. Elephants have deep rumbles that can be heard 3 miles (5 kilometers) away that they use to communicate.
“I hear him roaring,” said Ivanova with great satisfaction. “We will help him become a wild elephant again.”
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AP News Africa: https://apnews.com/hub/africa
