By ffc_admin
HERD Operations Manager, Juan Ferreira shares some insight into elephants and their impact on the environment. Elephants are considered as ecosystem engineers, sculpting the landscape they move through and creating microhabitats for smaller mammals and invertebrates as well as facilitating much needed plant diversity. As the Jabulani elephant herd and wild elephant herds in the … Continued
By ffc_admin
It takes guts to raise a baby elephant in the wild African savanna and forests It takes nerves of steel and sometimes, when the little pachyderm is tugging on your tail or the rains just won’t come, it takes patience and a cool head. It also requires the transfer of symbiotic microbial bacteria from the … Continued
By ffc_admin
When baby elephants are born, they need to get up onto all four feet as quickly as possible so to have that first drink of Mom’s milk, and avoid tempting predators with the smell of new placenta. The longer they take to stand upright and keep those shaky little waif limbs firm on their new … Continued
By ffc_admin
We invite classrooms across the country or continent to share these videos with your students and spread the message! #STOPSNARING Our multi-language videos about snaring aim to reach more and more people across South Africa and beyond, and will form part of our community collaborations in schools, starting with English, Sotho, Shangaan and Shona. Watch … Continued
By ffc_admin
An exciting chance came for Owen and Godknows to learn not only more about bulls in musth in the wild but also about the incredible research efforts employed in the field of elephant conservation to gather data and help the species in new and different and vital ways. Elephants Alive’s mission is to ensure the … Continued
By ffc_admin
Khanyisa’s hairy albino chin! Elephants are anything but hirsute, but their sparse, strategically-placed hair is as important to them as is the head-to-toe covering preferred by many other mammals. In murky waters the bristle-like hairs on the snouts of the Amazon river dolphins allow them to forage in the muddy sediment while the tip of … Continued
By ffc_admin
Adine Roode, founder of HERD, together with wildlife veterinarian Dr. Peter Rogers and the dedicated team of elephant carers at HERD fought day in and day out to gain her trust, and provide her with treatment and care. Blood tests were taken which showed very low albumin levels and a low red blood cell count … Continued
By ffc_admin
A second elephant calf snare victim was brought into our care at HERD Elephant Orphanage, South Africa, on 17 February 2021. This young female elephant calf was found on a private game reserve in Phalaborwa, in Limpopo province by local resident, Willem Botha and his son, Liam. She had a wire snare wrapped tightly around … Continued
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“You can choose your friends but you sho’ can’t choose your family, an’ they’re still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge ’em or not, and it makes you look right silly when you don’t.” – Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird Elephants have been known to go without sleep for days, grabbing a … Continued
By ffc_admin
“If elephants didn’t exist, you couldn’t invent one. They belong to a small group of living things so unlikely they challenge credulity and common sense.” – Lyall Watson, South African botanist, zoologist, biologist, anthropologist, ethologist. Tusks are teeth, elongated and projecting incisors with the same physical characteristics as most mammalian teeth. There is a pulp cavity, … Continued
