By Don Pinnock – Daily Maverick
The campaign to free Pretoria Zoo’s elephants lasted for years and included accusations and protests. But finally, the zoo’s last elephant, Charlie, is back in the wilds.
Ater a nailbiting four-hour trip from the Pretoria Zoo, Charlie the zoo elephant has arrived at the Shambala Private Reserve in Limpopo, his new home.
Charlie was the last elephant in South Africa’s only national zoo and the first to be released back into nature. The EMS Foundation, which supported his release, has been informed that the zoo’s elephant exhibit will now be permanently closed.
This historic event is the result of years of negotiation between the South African government, the EMS Foundation and the Pro Elephant Network.
In the zoo, Charlie watched three of his friends die prematurely. He also lost his daughter when she was less than a month old.
He was captured in Hwange, Zimbabwe, 43 years ago and was trained in the Boswell Wilkie Circus. When it closed down he was transferred to the Natal Lion Park and then, in 2001, to the Pretoria Zoo.
Charlie at his Shambala holding facility (Photo: EMS Foundation)
Offloading at Shambala Private Reserve. (Photo: EMS Foundation)
Offloading at Shambala Private Reserve. (Photo: EMS Foundation)
In about 2020, activists began campaigning for his release to a sanctuary. According to Smaragda Louw, the director of Ban Animal Trading (BAT), keeping Charlie in solitary confinement in a barren enclosure with almost no shade and dirty water and with no enrichment is “nothing more than animal abuse for the sake of human entertainment”.
He will initially be kept at a holding facility while he adjusts to his new environment. He has no experience of foraging in the wild.
During this time he will be closely monitored by behavioural experts to see that he settles down to become the elephant he was always meant to be and that he meets up with and integrates into the existing elephant herd.
Hopefully, his release into a new habitat and life will go some way to healing the sadness of his isolation.
