Two bull elephants have been introduced to the Samara Game Reserve near Graaff-Reinet where the species last ranged more than 150 years ago.
The hope is that the pair of bulls, which arrived last week, will link up with the pioneer herd of six jumbo cows that were introduced to the reserve a year ago.
Samara general manager Marnus Ochse said on Monday, the new arrivals would change the dynamics of the reserve in a number of important ways.
“There may be some conflict as they vie for mating rights with the four mature females which will now start coming on oestrus every three months,” Ochse said.
“But the presence of the bulls should also make the herd feel more secure.
“Once they mate, the gestation of a pregnant elephant cow is 22 months and the arrival of calves thereafter, if all goes smoothly, will bring further stability and cohesion to the herd.”
He said the bulls would also have a positive physical effect on the reserve itself as well as tourism as their sheer size attracted attention. “They will probably open up passages, especially through the dense riverine vegetation, and we’ll see the regeneration of different grasses.
“More guests will mean money to put back into conservation, so that will be great,” he said.
The two male elephants were transferred from the Phinda Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal with co-sponsorship from the NGO, Elephants, Rhinos and People.
The same organisation has been sponsoring the monitoring of the females since they arrived in October 2017 as well as the training of two SA College for Tourism Tracker Academy graduates who have spearheaded the monitoring programme.
The latest transfer was part of a continuing project by the owners of Samara, Sarah and Mark Tompkins.
They were advised by the Centre for African Conservation Ecology at Nelson Mandela University to restore the predator-prey balance and the full suite of wildlife that historically occurred there.
Records of elephant bones, molars and tusks illustrate an ancient elephant migration route which saw jumbos move up the Sundays and Great Fish rivers onto the Camdeboo plains, branching into tributaries like the Melk, which runs across Samara.
One early explorer’s account captured in naturalist Dr Jack Skead’s Historical Incidences in the Cape Province Volume 2 indicates the elephants sometimes used to continue north to the Groote – now Orange – River.
Tompkins said the move to bring back elephants to Samara was also a response to poaching which had cut elephant numbers by 30% across Africa in the past decade.
“To safeguard the future of the species, there is a need to manage elephants as part of meta-populations [a group of spatially-separated populations between which translocations can take place to ensure genetic diversity],” Tompkins said.
“And to establish founder populations in areas where elephants previously occurred but have since been eradicated.”
Ochse said 13,000ha of the 27,000ha reserve had so far been fenced for elephants.
After the first calving, numbers would be assessed and selective contraception might be introduced to ensure carrying capacity and maximum sustainable population for the available range are not overshot.
He said the vision was to extend the elephant fencing further, and in the long run lower the fences dividing Samara and neighbouring reserves and to create a 104,000ha conservation corridor stretching up to the Camdeboo National Park.