Blog - Page 2

“The one who plants trees knowing that he will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life” - Rabindranath Tagore

Heike Zitzer has been a part of the White Elephant family since 2009. We are sad to be saying good-bye to Heike who left at the end of January 2019.

The burgeoning number of elephant is always a controversial and sensitive subject within the conservation community. Control measures have been widely employed to limit the growth of elephant within South Africa, and by 2008 the rapidly growing numbers in the Pongola Game Reserve soon came under the spot light. With the assistance of the ‘Disney Animal Program’ seven elephant underwent vasectomies. Although this team had perfected the procedure there was little investigation into the long-term behavioural implications of this form of contraception.

Kohlewe was the Zulu name given to one of our young elephant bulls who arrived, with his family, on the Pongola Game Reserve in 1997. Kohlewe, The Forgotten One, was originally left off the family tree by mistake.