Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Secret Elephants The Rediscovery of the World's Most Southerly Elephants by Gareth Patterson The Knysna elephants. The elephants that live in Knysna forests are a constant and mysterious part of life here in the Garden Route. We know they’re there, we hear stories about them all the time, and they feature prominently in our art and our literature. But we see them so rarely that any photograph of them - no matter how blurry or vague - is almost guaranteed to go viral. The experts disagree as to the size of the herd (if indeed it is a herd), but they can agree on this: the elephants future - and ours - depends on how we treat their environment. And this is what the Forest Elephants display in the Knysna Museum’s Old Gaol is really all about. Elephants and man. We humans have never got on very well with the Knysna elephants - or perhaps it would be better to say that they never got on well because of us. In 1782, for example, the French explorer and naturalist, Francois le Vaillant, spent six months in the Garden Route (Outeniqualand in those days) to catalogue its plants and animals, its fishes and its insects - but he was also the first person to shoot one of the elephants of the area (at Die Poort, between Plettenberg Bay and Knysna). And they didn’t stand much of a chance after that. The elephants didn’t always live in the forests (there’s far better feeding in the surrounding vegetation), but they would have retreated into them in the 19th and early 20th Centuries when the hunting - for sport, for ivory, because people considered them a threat - became relentless. The devastation didn’t go entirely unnoticed - but the few lonely voices that did speak up went unheard. The Cape Colonial Government, for example, paid no attention in 1870 when the Conservator of Forests, Christopher Harison, estimated that the Southern and Eastern Capes population of elephants had dwindled to only about 400 individuals. (The elephants’ range wasn’t limited to Knysna: the whole Garden Route from Knysna to the Tsitsikamma to Addo - north-east of Port Elizabeth - was considered ‘elephant country’ in the early days.) But men needed land! - So the hunting continued. The farmers in Addo, for example - who’d bought their farms at reduced prices exactly because of the threat of the pachyderms - complained about them, which prompted the Administrator of the Cape, Sir Frederic de Waal, to decree that they should be eliminated altogether. The job fell to Major Philip Jacobus Pretorius, who shot more than 120 of them before good sense finally prevailed, and the government decided to spare 16 of them, confining them to the Addo Reserve (now part of the Addo Elephant National Park). Didn’t stop Pretorius though: he applied for - and received - permission to shoot just one more of those last sixteen. And promptly went ahead and slaughtered five of them. The natural history museums wanted the specimens, don’t you know! And the ivory was worth a few pennies in his pocket, too. Back in the Knysna area, the elephants seemed OK at first - especially since the Government had decided to close the indigenous forests to felling (they remained off limits for woodcutters from 1939 to 1967, which gave them an opportunity to rejuvenate, given that they themselves had been pretty devastated by harvesting over a period of around 150 years). Concerned that no one knew the real status of the Knysna elephants, a working group of the Eastern Cape branch of WESSA (the Wildlife and Environment Society of Southern Africa) commissioned a survey of the Knysna herd, which concluded that there were between seven and ten individuals in our area. The game warden Nick Carter, author of The Elephants of Knysna (Purnell, 1971) made two surveys around this time: in the first he estimated that about 14 individuals had survived, but in the second he concluded that only ten had made it. And, with the birth of a calf shortly after he’d finished his work, he also suggested that the elephants were breeding normally, that the population size had remained static for 50 years, and therefore that all was good with the world. Except it wasn’t. In 1971 members of the forestry department shot an ageing bull and, by 1980, the department allowed that only two individuals survived in the Knysna area: a cow (which later became known as The Matriarch), and her calf. This galvanised the establishment of yet another working group - in 1981 - which came up with the idea of bringing four elephants from Addo to Knysna. But the Government made it quite clear that it wouldn’t take responsibility if the animals caused any damage (to this day, the Knysna elephants remain unfenced) - so the working group faded quietly away. In 1986, though, Daleen Matthee published her remarkable, bestselling novel, Kringe in ‘n Bos (Circles in a Forest), which, together with Regardt van den Bergh's 1989 film of the story of the woodcutter Saiul Barnard and his connection to the old forest elephant, Ou Poot (also titled Circles in a Forest) helped revive interest in the plight of the Knysna elephants. Another working group was formed, and this time the government did agree to allow outside elephants to be imported to the Knysna Forest. Three cows were this captured and transported from the Kruger National Park in 1994. After a period in a holding boma, they were released in the Diepwalle section of the forests (on the Prince Alfred’s Pass, about 20 km by road from Knysna). One of them died almost immediately, and the others moved out of the deep forest, preferring to feed on the pastures on nearby farms - and damaging, them, of course. And so the panjandrums organised once more: this time (in 1999) they captured the surviving Kruger cows, and removed them to Shamwari Game Reserve in the Eastern Cape. From then on, the official position was that there remained only one elephant in the area - but in 2000, forest guard Wilfred Oraai saw and photographed a young bull from a distance of only about 30 metres. This prompted the author and independent researcher, Gareth Patterson, to begin searching for the Knysna elephants in the following year, and to publish his findings in his 2009 book, The Secret Elephants: The Rediscovery of the World's Most Southerly Elephants (Penguin Random House South Africa). For seven years, "he covered thousands of kilometres on foot, following ancient elephant paths through the dense Afromontane forest and the surrounding mountain fynbos. He found abundant signs to suggest that, far from dying out, the Knysna elephants are, quietly and secretly, holding their own. Patterson's fieldwork, and his DNA research in collaboration with conservation geneticist Lori Eggert, established that at least five young females exist, lending support to Patterson's growing evidence that the Knysna forest and its surroundings are home to a small herd of young elephants.” (Penguin) Many officials and local conservationists disagreed with Mr. Patterson’s findings - but either way, the good news for any elephants that might still be living in the Knysna forests is that much of their range is now protected as part of the (also unfenced) Garden Route National Park, which was established on 6 March 2009, and which includes about 121,000 hectares of the land between Wilderness and the Tsitsikamma. The secret elephants: The rediscovery of the world's most southerly elephants, by Gareth Patterson. The secret elephants: The rediscovery of the world's most southerly elephants, by Gareth Patterson. The Penguin Group (SA). 2nd edition. Cape Town, South Africa 2011. ISBN 9780143528012 / ISBN 978-0-14-352801-2. Gareth Patterson's ninth book, 'The secret elephants: The rediscovery of the world's most southerly elephants', is a gentle, meandering account of his search for the elusive Knysna elephants, the country's only free-ranging pachyderm. Foreword by Dr. Dame Daphne Sheldrick DBE. Initially, it was with mixed feelings that I agreed to write this Foreword to Gareth Patterson's moving exposure about the secretive and mysterious existence of the elephant survivors within the beautiful Knysna forest. Aware of the tribulation and suffering of elephants generally at the hands of humans, my first feeling was one of sadness, that perhaps it would have been better had their existence remained a mystery for in that way they would be spared the intrusion of human curiosity that usually leads to harassment in the name of Science. But, upon reflection, I felt that perhaps it was inevitable that their existence become known, and what more sensitive person than my friend Gareth Patterson to bring their existence and plight to the attention of the world, and by so doing appeal to the good in caring humankind to afford them the privacy and shelter they have carved out for themselves over the years. How desperately sad it would have been had the Matriarch of such a highly social species lived all alone in her forested stronghold, with no one to love and protect and with whom to talk, all things we know that elephants do. As it is, Gareth Patterson has documented their secret world with empathy and understanding, as one who regards himself in harmony with it. Few could have done this with more perception than Gareth, and I hope that his moving narrative will ensure that the Knysna elephants are viewed with wonder and awe as a national and international treasure, symbolic of endurance against all odds, as well as symbolic of the precarious nature of their beleaguered species. I have been privileged to come to know elephants well for I have worked intimately with them for fifty out of my three score years and ten, having retrieved and reared their broken orphaned babies and gradually watched them return to where they rightly belong, back amongst their own kind in a protected area that can afford them the space an elephant needs for a quality of life. I have shed tears of sorrow aplenty as well as tears of joy for them and their kind. They have taught me and my colleagues well, and continue to do so on a daily basis as we follow the lives of the seventy-four orphaned elephants we have hand-reared from early infancy, many of whom are now grown and have wild-born young of their own, living unfettered and free amongst Kenya's largest single elephant population. We have healed the physical wounds of the orphans that have come to us, and watched with wonder and awe at the healing of deep-seated psychological scars brought about by the compassion and comfort of their orphaned peers and we have marvelled at their forgiveness. To have been befriended by elephants is a humbling and unique experience filled with wonder, awe and amazement, for every day brings new revelations about these wonderful, very 'human' animals. Their care of one another, and their understanding and compassion are surely an example of the very best of human traits; their gentle nature and forgiveness tempers justifiable resentment and anger against humans who deprived them of their loved elephant family. On numerous occasions we have witnessed first hand their mysterious perception of hidden dangers no human could have detected ahead of time. [. ] This is an ecerpt from the book 'The secret elephants: The rediscovery of the world's most southerly elephants', by Gareth Patterson. Title: The secret elephants Subtitle: The rediscovery of the world's most southerly elephants Author: Gareth Patterson Publisher: The Penguin Group (SA) 2nd edition. Cape Town, South Africa 2011 ISBN 9780143528012 / ISBN 978-0-14-352801-2 Softcover, 13 x 19 cm, 293 pages, black & white illustrations, some maps. Penguin SA. Gareth Patterson’s The Secret Elephants Pierces the Mysteries of the Knysna Forest. This October: The Secret Elephants, Gareth Patterson’s rediscovery of the world’s most southerly elephants. A remarkable story of how these animals fought their way back from the brink of extinction without any help from humankind. The elephants of the Knysna forest have long been the subject of mystery and conjecture. Over the years they have taken on an almost mythical quality, with many doubting whether they existed at all. In 1994 the local forestry department maintained that there was only one surviving Knysna elephant, the seldom seen female known as The Matriarch. The Knysna elephant was thus described as ‘functionally extinct’. This was the official stance until September 2000 when forest guard Wilfred Oraai encountered and photographed a young bull from a distance of some thirty metres. The question arose: who was its mother? And, indeed, who was its father? In 2001 Gareth Patterson began an independent study of the Knysna elephant. For the next seven years he covered thousands of kilometres on foot, following ancient elephant paths through the dense Afromontane forest and the surrounding mountain fynbos. He found abundant signs to suggest that, far from dying out, the Knysna elephants are, quietly and secretly, holding their own. Patterson’s fieldwork, and his DNA research in collaboration with conservation geneticist Lori Eggert, established that at least five young females exist, lending support to Patterson’s growing evidence that the Knysna forest and its surroundings are home to a small herd of young elephants. About the author. Well known for his work on the African lion, Gareth Patterson is an environmentalist, independent wildlife researcher and author who has worked tirelessly for more than twenty-five years for the greater protection of African wildlife. Patterson’s love for the wild has spurred various projects surrounding animal rights. He is the author of Where the Lion Walked (1991) and Dying to be Free (1998). He lives in Knysna and knows the area well. This very personal narrative recounts the powerful impact of these most endangered elephants on Patterson’s life. The Secret Elephants: The Rediscovery of the World's Most Southerly Elephants by Gareth Patterson. This is a very personalized forest experience, whereupon Gareth accompanies participants in their own vehicle. Therefore, usually the maximum number of participants is four (but more depending on vehicle), and. Walk Details. This is a very personalized forest experience, whereupon Gareth accompanies participants in their own vehicle. Therefore, usually the maximum number of participants is four (but more depending on vehicle), and a minimum of two. In turn one vehicle/group per forest experience per day. Join Gareth Patterson, award-winning wildlife expert, and author of the acclaimed books, My Lion’s Heart and The Secret Elephants, (which tells of Gareth’s rediscovery of the Knysna elephants) on a unique and personalised experience in the Knysna forest, exploring the magical and mystical world of the Knysna elephants – the most southerly elephants on Earth. This is not a search for the Knysna elephants (who must be left in peace, and undisturbed), but an intimate insight into their world by a man who spent over seven years (and covered some 22,000 km’s on foot – the equivalent of walking half-way around the world), studying these amazing and elusive beings. Please allow 20 minutes for the journey from Knysna, so that you are ready to leave with Gareth at 09H00. This is a very personalized forest experience, whereupon Gareth accompanies participants in their own vehicle. Therefore, usually the maximum number of participants is four (but more depending on vehicle), and a minimum of two. In turn one vehicle/group per forest experience per day. For more information, and bookings for The Secret Elephants Forest Experience, please email [email protected] . Overnight accommodation and game drives for non-walkers available – visit the website to enquire: http://www.giraffeview.co.za/ DATE: Friday 10th April, Saturday 11th April, Sunday 12th April & Monday 13th April. START TIME: 09h00. DURATION: 3-4hr. GRADE: Easy. COST: R650 pp (excluding SANParks conservation fee, payable on the day on entry to the Garden Route National Park – SA citizens R35, Non-citizens R95). BRING: Your own vehicle, water, hats and cameras! EXTRA NOTES: Easy: The 45 km drive, incorporated at intervals with short strolls. DIRECTIONS: Entrance gate at Gareth’s base. Old Cape Road, Knysna. Directions will be sent on registration. Knysna. WALK LEADER: >> Email to book your Walk Leader to book your place. The Secret Elephants : The Rediscovery of the World's Most Southerly Elephants by Gareth Patterson (2011, Trade Paperback, Revised edition) The lowest-priced item in unused and unworn condition with absolutely no signs of wear. The item may be missing the original packaging (such as the original box or bag or tags) or in the original packaging but not sealed. The item may be a factory second or a new, unused item with defects or irregularities. See details for description of any imperfections. What does this price mean? This is the price (excluding shipping and handling fees) a seller has provided at which the same item, or one that is nearly identical to it, is being offered for sale or has been offered for sale in the recent past. The price may be the seller's own price elsewhere or another seller's price. 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