Namibia – Summer Flower Shows and the Sandhof Lilies
February 6, 2014Condor flies to Namibia as of November
February 7, 2014By Jana-Mari Smith
Human Wildlife conflict is often mentioned when an elephant makes a surprising visit to human settlements. This past week however, the delight could not have been more when a lone elephant (where he came from no one knows) paid an unexpected visit to a number of farms in the Hochfeld area close to Okahandja. At present, he is still in the area.
UPDATE – TWO ELEPHANTS NOW? OLD BULL STILL SAFE.
The Thiessen family, who own the farm Otjimbuku and their neighbours took several photos of the event and described the elephant as gently maneuvering himself over fences, without destroying them, and giving no indication that he was bothered by human’s in his vicinity.
In her own words, Christiane Thiessen describes the once in a lifetime encounter. She said that when she and her family, and her staff heard he was at a close by cattle post, they immediately drove there. ” … went to the post and there he came slowly and majestically towards the post”.
“At his arrival at the fence he lifted his legs and without doing any harm to the fence, he climbed over it. He was not bothered with us at all. He just continued walking towards the next cattle post along the fence of the farm road, with the same dignity … allowing us to join him from the front and the back all the time”.
Christiane Thiessen
Christiane added: “Some in our community had never seen an Elephant before, so it was a very special day for all of us. I had always wished for an Elephant to come and visit our farm and this was an absolute thrill. How exciting to be alive and witness something like this”.
She said everyone who saw the elephant made attempts to find out where he originated from, but to date the answer remains ellusive. By Wednesday, he had been spotted on another farm in the vicinity – Ondunduvazerapi.
Her son Johan took a number of photos, showing the gentle giant leisurely making his way through their farm.
6 Comments
This is very likely to be one of the Erindi elephants, in August/September 2013 Erindi captured and translocated family groups of elephant from Khaudom Game Park to Erindi, mainly family groups. It is our understanding that the Elephants were not held in bomas for the usual amount of time.
Several reports were received after this translocation of elephants outside of Erindi reserve in the surrounding area including as far as Okahandja.
Cheers
Charlie
Hi Charlie, the farmers did immediately contact Erindi and MET. Erindi claims it is not their elephant. No word yet on what MET plans to do.
To add the elephant it moves onto unsympathetic farms is at risk of being shot I would recommend that somebody report it to Erindi and to MET active in the area with a request that the do not shoot it as a problem animal, but rather ask Erindi to come and re-capture it
It is really nice to see the pictures. But I hope to have very soon the new that finally Erindi or whoever correspond has taken charge to relocate these elephants and they are on safe. Because if this doesn’t happen for sure sooner or later they will cause damages in the farms, and their live will be on risk
The last couple of weeks there have also been elephant sitings just outside Outjo and between Otjiwarongo and Otavi.
I have seen him on our game Farm as well on the 31st January 2014, He is cool and I think he travelled a lot since he know how to pass over the fence without too much damage. the good thing is that he is very gentle and know how to inter react with human being. our Game farm is 72km North of Otjiwarongo.