In the footsteps of the Tembe elephants

A group of South African elephants will be moved to St. Lucia Lake as part of a project to promote eco-tourism and economic growth in the region

November 7, 2000
Web posted at: 11:21 AM EST (1621 GMT)

In this story: Tough times A unique sub-species? RELATED STORIES

TEMBE ELEPHANT RESERVE, South Africa -- After an absence of almost a century, the majestic shores of St. Lucia, Africa's largest salt water lake, will again be graced with the presence of elephants.

On March, 24 elephants from South Africa's famed Tembe reserve on the Mozambican border will be moved south to the eastern shores of St. Lucia, the heart of a wetland park that has been declared a World Heritage Site.

The relocation is part of a much larger project, the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative, aimed at upgrading infrastructure and promoting eco-tourism and other economic activities in South Africa's poor northeastern corner and in neighboring Swaziland and Mozambique.

In the longer term, the Greater St. Lucia Wetland Park will be turned into a "Big Five" game reserve -- boasting elephant, rhinoceros, buffalo, lion and leopard. Conservationists also hope relocation will be the first step toward reestablishing some of the ancient coastal migration routes used by Tembe's unique elephants.

"We may be able to link Kosi Bay (on the Mozambican border) with St. Lucia, sort of like an elephant corridor," Khulani Mkhize, assistant CEO of KwaZulu-Natal Conservation Services, told Reuters.

Others hope the elephants may once again move freely from Maputo Elephant Reserve on the Mozambique coast all the way to St Lucia -- but that is a distant dream.

Tembe's elephants have had a rough time. Southern Africa's coastal elephants once ranged all the way from Mozambique to the Cape Peninsula but human encroachment and hunting severed their old coastal routes. The only surviving remnants of this population are now confined to Maputo Elephant Reserve, Tembe, Addo Elephant National Park in South Africa's Eastern Cape Province and the Knysna forests.

When the Tembe reserve was proclaimed in 1983, its northern border with Mozambique was open to allow the elephants to follow the last section of their traditional migration paths.

But Mozambique's civil war was raging at the time and turned the elephants into targets, forcing the reserve to fence the northern boundary and close the elephants' route. Many of the reserve's elephants bear the scars of bullets and snares.

Because of their diet, the elephants of Tembe have exceptionally large tusks, which also made them a magnet for poachers. One huge old bull who ambled into view in front of a game hide on a shimmering spring morning recently had massive tusks over six feet long.

"The elephants here can be very, very nervous around people," said Sipho Sibiya, a jovial park ranger who was born in the reserve and spent his childhood living around the elephants -- before the fences were raised.

Austrian researcher Alois Haberhauer, who has studied the genetic makeup of the Tembe elephants at the University of Kriel, believes they are a unique sub-species of pachyderm, though the scientific jury is still out on this.

They tend to browse more than other elephants and are less destructive to their habitat, making them ideal candidates for relocation.

Conservationists say it is best to move the Tembe elephants to St. Lucia -- and not, say, excess elephants from Kruger National Park -- on genetic grounds alone, as they are the descendants of the area's original population.

"To stock the St. Lucia area with Kruger elephants would be in violation of the principle of conserving gene pools where ever possible," said elephant expert Anthony Hall-Martin.

Perhaps an equally compelling reason is the romantic notion of seeing the Tembe elephants following in the footsteps of their ancestors.

"Elephants once crossed this lake and I would love to see them do so again," Paul Dutton, a former ranger in St. Lucia who also worked for many years in Mozambique, said as he surveyed the lake from a remote shore.

And if some of their old coastal routes were reestablished, would they remember them? There is hope on this point, as they say that "elephants never forget."

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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