As the editor of the local Knysna and Plett newspaper, if I came in on a Thursday and had people waiting for me, or a wad of urgent messages, it generally spelt a hullabaloo of one kind or another.
The stories that cause ripples are usually political in nature, but in this part of the world, where greenies thrive, publish an article about a local elephant and just see what happens.
I can tell you it garners more attention online than just another ousted municipal manager.
In March last year, I wrote an article which rapidly went viral.
A meeting was held at the Knysna Angling Club one evening and the topic was the possibility of introducing more elephants into the Knysna forest to keep the one lone female elephant company.
She is believed to be the only survivor from a once-thriving Knysna elephant population, which dwindled over the years due to habitat loss, human encroachment and hunting.
I expected a handful of people would attend the meeting, but more than 200 arrived, even though the event was not widely advertised.
It was hosted by Herd Instinct, the group spearheading a project to introduce more elephants into the Knysna forest ― the sole reason being to give the existing one and only ellie some friends.
I duly wrote my article, and no sooner had it docked online than social media blew up into a cacophony of local voices, with those for and against the move expressing their extremely strong views.
On the one hand you have the people who believe the elephant is lonely and their sentiments are perhaps fuelled by anthropomorphism (the notion that an animal, a god, or an object has feelings or characteristics like those of a human being).
On the other, you have those who don’t believe in interfering with nature.
Who really truly knows the answer?
It is now widely accepted that there is only one old female elephant, aged somewhere in her 50s, living in the Knysna forest.
Over the 10 years I have been on the Garden Route, she has been spotted now and then, and any sighting causes a frisson of excitement.
She was last spotted in the Karatara region when a video, which quickly went viral, was posted on social media after it was captured by local farmer Oubaas Fourie. It showed her calmly moving through his farm.
She has been called various names from Oupoort to Fiela, taken from author Dalene Matthee’s book Fiela se Kind.
Herd Instinct is made up of environmentalist and film-maker Ryan Davy, journalist Ivo Vegter, passionate Knysna resident Rod Ward Able and Jarrett Joubert, who is a nature conservationist and manager of the African Elephant Research Unit.
In March 2024, Joubert said, Herd Instinct had been planning the meeting for a long time in the hope that SANParks would come on board (since Oupoort lives in its territory) but after many months of efforts to communicate with the national parks body, the meeting eventually went ahead without it.
Once the article was published and a furore was under way, SANParks was quick to respond to me, saying more research was needed before there was any chance, if at all that more elephants could be introduced to the forest.
Herd Instinct’s proposal at that time was that three to five female elephants, between 10 and 35 years old, that lived at the Plettenberg Bay Game Reserve, be moved into the Knysna forests.
The owner of the Plett elephants, Ian Withers of the Knysna Elephant Park, was willing to donate them to this project and offer the financial support required to carry it out.
“Knysna Elephant Park has 30 years of experience in managing elephants and they say giving the lone elephant company is the right thing to do,” Joubert said.
Davy took four three-week expeditions into the forest to see Oupoort and eventually found her, thus confirming she was indeed the last remaining elephant in the forest.
Herd Instinct claims that Oupoort is lonely, which is evident from her occasional visits to herds of cows on farms near her territory, and she “sometimes cosies up to big forestry vehicles”.
Joubert said at the time: “For a highly social and intelligent species like an elephant, this is essentially a sentence of solitary confinement.
“Considering her estimated age and circumstances of living a lot longer, a measure of urgency is justified. The national norms and standards for the management of elephants says that every reasonable effort must be made to safeguard elephants from abuse and neglect.
“To leave a highly social and intelligent animal alone, deprived by human actions of a herd, is as definitive a form of neglect as imaginable and in blatant contravention of this.
“[Herd Instinct] will thus continue to press forward and remains eager to work with the public and governing authorities to create positive change for her.
“We believe Fiela will, after familiarising with them, begin to bond, as is the nature of African elephants who instinctually live together for safety and company.”
The earmarked elephants were free-roaming and while they received some food and human contact with the elephant guides, this made them ideal candidates because they posed a low risk to people, unlike totally wild elephants, Herd Instinct said.
Had the move gone ahead, the introduction of these elephants and the response would have been carefully monitored with cameras, tracking methods on each elephant, a four-wheeler vehicle and drones and non-invasive research methods, Herd Instinct said.
It was sad then this week, that the whole project was canned when Herd Instinct withdrew its R5m earmarked for the elephant rewilding proposal, saying that SANParks had failed to act.
“The withdrawal follows years of what we regard as SANParks’ failure to act, a continuing lack of transparent communication, and an absence of demonstrable commitment to the welfare of this iconic animal.
“For more than seven years, local stakeholders, and conservation partners have urged SANParks to engage constructively.
“Since 2023, Herd Instinct has offered a fully funded, specialist-backed plan ― with acclimatised donor elephants, an experienced operations team and rigorous monitoring protocols.
“Despite repeated requests for meaningful collaboration, we received little substantive engagement,” said a disappointed Joubert, who claimed that documents obtained under the Promotion of Access to Information Act showed no record of recent ecological or behavioural studies on the elephant project having been completed by SANParks.
No plan, no data and no path forward is how Joubert explains SANParks’ attitude towards the elephant.
Independent polling by Friends of the Knysna Elephant found 81% support across diverse communities for reintroducing elephants to the forest.
Public meetings convened by Herd Instinct also reflected overwhelming local support for providing companionship to Oupoort.
“The people of the Garden Route have spoken, and their views have not been acted upon,” Joubert said.
“Herd Instinct remains gravely concerned for Oupoort, whose ongoing isolation stands as a stark reminder of the cost of institutional inaction and the disconnect between SANParks and the environment and public it serves.”
When the story broke last year, the comment from SANParks was that it needed to do two types of assessments (sociological and ecological) and this would guide future management of the existence of the elephant/s in the area.
“A cautious management approach was needed with input from elephant specialists, landowners and conservation authorities,” it said.
When SANParks was approached this week, the national parks body said it would respond in due course and that the matter had been escalated to its head office.
For now, it seems that Knysna’s last wild elephant will live out her days alone in the forest that once echoed with her herd’s footsteps.
The Herald
