Adine’s Notes – Khanyisa’s morning with the Herd

One of Khanyisa’s carers, by the name of Reply, (who you will be familiar with by now), joined us for our morning walk into the reserve with the Jabulani herd.

Reply is a junior carer, he is from our local community, and we have been training him for some time to work with elephant calves. However, he has not spent much time with the fully grown and rather large Jabulani Herd!

Reply saw a baby elephant (and big elephants) for the first time when he started working with us. Experience comes over many years, and no books can teach you enough on elephants until you spend many many hours and days with them.

So we set off for the walk with Reply and he started to learn the names of the elephants. It was great for him to see how the things we have asked him to do with Khanyisa, like throw sand on Khanyisa during walks, dig roots with her, or swim with her, has already given her some essential tools in applying her mind to different lessons now being taught by the big elephants.

He must start to learn more about the behaviour of the Herd in the wild and in general. So he spent a lot of time speaking to and learning from the passionate Jabulani carers, and he got to see firsthand how Khanyisa fits in with each elephant. It is equally as important that the Herd become familiar with him and his presence as he will start joining the longer walks to give Khanyisa’s milk bottle to her during the walks.

Khanyisa had a lovely morning and said a cute little hello to Zindoga, (Bubi’s son), who soon moved away when all the females started to gather around them!

On the way back home we took just Lundi, Bubi, Kumbura and Timisa to drop Khanyisa back at the orphanage, while the rest of the herd continued foraging. Kumbura and Timisa got a little confused and halfway decided they would return to their mum, Tokwe, so we let them return, and Bubi and Lundi returned to join them all again shortly after saying goodbye to Khanyisa.

I look forward to the next step of being able to give bottles of milk to Khanyisa during her walks which will start to get longer!

Thanks for all the support!
Adine