Knysna elephants

The Knysna elephants are a very small number of African bush elephants (Loxodonta africana), a relict population of large herds which roamed the Tsitsikamma Forest and surrounding regions at the southern tip of Africa until the 1800s and 1900s, when contact with European farmers and hunters led to their near extinction. It is conjectured that about 1,000 elephants historically roamed the Outeniqua/Tsitsikamma area. Recent DNA analysis of dung samples has revealed the presence of at least 5 cows and possibly some bulls and calves, moving within an area of 121,000 hectares of forest managed by South African National Parks, and constituting the only unfenced elephant group in South Africa.

Before the arrival of the Bantu and European-origin settlers, the nomadic aboriginal people had lived harmoniously and in pure tranquility with the elephants and had little incentive for killing them or exploiting the forests. In two centuries the European settlers came close to obliterating the forests and killing the seemingly inexhaustible wild life to the verge of extinction, so that currently no large herbivores such as hippo, rhino and elephant are found alive outside nature reserves, the handful of Knysna elephants being the sole exception.

Ivory hunting and loss of habitat to agriculture had all but exterminated elephants from the Cape region of Africa by 1900. The last elephant in the vicinity of the Cape peninsula was killed in 1704 and elephant populations west of the Knysna region were extirpated prior to 1800. By 1775 the remaining Cape elephants had retreated for their lives into forests along the foothills of the Outinequa / Tsitsikamma coastal mountain range around Knysna, and dense scrub-thickets of the Addo bush (Dudley 1976a). As far back as 1870 it was estimated that only some 400 elephants remained out of the enormous numbers that had been observed in and about these southern forests in earlier centuries. Captain Harison, Conservator of Forests between 1856 and 1888, petitioned and begged for the Cape Colonial Government to formally protect the elephants and forests, but his pleas fell on deaf ears.

By 1919 a large herd was peacefully centered about the Addo area of the Eastern Cape. Farmers in this area had been sold their farms at greatly reduced rates and favourable terms because of the elephant presence. Nevertheless, these farmers complained to the authorities about damage to their crops, broken water pipelines and reservoirs and even loss of lives, though it later transpired that the lives lost were those of hunters tracking and killing elephants. Responding to the exaggerated complaints, the Cape Provincial Administration on 25 November 1919 hired a professional hunter and "celebrated" war "hero", Major Philip Jacobus Pretorius, to completely exterminate all elephants in the region. Initially only a reduction in numbers was contemplated, but on 1 April 1919, the Administrator of the Cape, Sir Frederic de Waal, argued in favour of total extermination of all those majestic elephants. By January 1920 it was decided to preserve 16 elephants which were to be left in the Addo Reserve.

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