Addo Elephant National Park meeting jumbo accommodation challenge
Since the establishment of Addo Elephant National Park in 1931 for the protection of the remaining 11 elephants in the area, the population has done extremely well.
So much so that it led to a steady enlargement of what is known as the Addo main camp section from 1955 to 2015 to ensure other biological components are not affected by the elephants.
The park is now home to more than 800 elephants in various sections and biomes.
The largest single expansion included the addition of the Colchester section towards the south of the park in 2010, with the dropping of fences between the sections.
The combined main camp/Colchester section is now about 268km² in size (Lombard et al. 2001) and contains several boreholes and earthen dams due to the lack of natural rivers in this section of the park.
Addo expanded substantially over time and by 2022 it had seven areas separated by fences, interspersed with private land in some cases.
This provided opportunities for elephant range expansion, with the main camp serving as the source for other sections of Addo and externally.
For instance, authorities translocated four juveniles from Addo to the Pilanesberg National Park in 1979 (Hancock, 1984) and a further 11 bulls to various private game reserves across SA in 2005.
In 2003, 61 elephants were moved from the main camp to the Nyathi section, while four bulls were introduced from Kruger National Park.
The Darlington section received 28 elephants from the main camp/Colchester section in 2018.
Fencing of the park in 1954 confined the elephants to an area which led to most of the main camp being used by elephants and subsequently resulted in impacts on vegetation structure and sensitive species (Lombard et al. 2001; Kerley & Landman, 2006).
To alleviate these impacts, the main camp was expanded into the Colchester section where water provision was limited.
However, the main camp/Colchester section was not big enough to significantly change elephant space use and therefore other management interventions to limit population growth, such as elephant contraception and water availability gradient, had to be implemented.
Recent studies have shown that historical management approaches have generally not been able to impose spatial and temporal limitations on elephant space use in the main camp/Colchester section (Guldemond et al. 2022).
This in turn could lead to impacts on other biodiversity components if management interventions are not continued and by expanding land availability through the consolidation of current sections and the addition of new land to Addo.
It is for this reason that the relocation of 42 elephants from the main camp to the Kabouga section (towards the north of Addo), last month was undertaken.
From observations of the various family groups since through nine tracking collars, it appears they are exploring and settling well into their new home.
As recently as June 3, Addo Elephant National Park biotechnician Joshua Roberts was in the area servicing cameras when he came across the youngest of the lot, aptly named Kabouga, and his herd — all looking healthy and happy.
The consolidation of the neighbouring Kabouga and Darlington sections is planned, which will provide the two populations with an even greater area to roam. Charlene Bisset — SANParks regional ecologist
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