Playful Pachyderm Pair at San Diego Zoo Safari Park Are Thriving

Hey, Lana! You can find Jan’s “three nursing baby” photo in our ”Mothership” blog, (previous blog) the date is 4/11.
It’s just ABOVE your lovely comment of Kaia being a tortoise 🐢 in the sand!
BE CAUTION: Don’t stare at the screen too much when you scroll it down, otherwise you will get dizzy 😵

See you soon, Dr Watson! ;))

I was sorry to read the news. It does hit hard when you read it for the first time, but I had a gut feeling the boys were gone. “they were off exhibit?” I really didn’t believe that. I didn’t know how to admit to my hooman herd that I suspected the worst, that’s why the story of 38. I am a realist because I learned to work with abused and abandoned animals you have to be. Like Dame Daphne, you love what’s entrusted to you deeply, hard and fast, because those are the things that earn your trust with animals, it can’t be fake, and it can’t be superficial, it has to come from deep within, otherwise, you will never earn their trust. Dame Daphne knew from the get-go, she would have to say good-bye someday to her babies, but it didn’t stop her from doing all she did. The longer time you spend rehabilitating an animal the shorter the time before you have to say good-bye. If that makes sense. They break your heart when they first come to you, they break your heart when they leave.

Maybe Mac and Emanti were the choices because they were more bonded and so close. One can only speculate. I can only imagine how the Keepers feel. They come to work every morning knowing they are going to see the faces of their Ellies, and then one day, it all changes. It had to be hard for them to prepare Mac and Emanti for the move. The Keepers from Caldwell must have gone to SDZSP and spend time with our Keepers to get acclimated with the boys. It had to be heartbreaking for them to share all they knew about the boys knowing all along they would be leaving.

Animals don’t think like us, they live in the moment, they live to survive. Now we have to look at the positive, as hard as that is, but we owe it to Mac and Emanti. They are in an established Zoo and their habitat is more than just a small yard that zoo’s once housed animals in. They have a nice pond, they have a good climate and they have each other. You can bet they’ll get spoiled for awhile too. They may not understand what’s happened to them, but they will move on. Ellies are smart, and they will make the best of it.

The boys are growing older, and we will see more of this in the future. It’s for their safety they have to go so no one gets hurts. I wish them all the best. My hope for them is not my happiness, but theirs. We still have a wonderful herd, we have great Keepers. Our Ellies are safe, fed well and allowed to be Elephants. Our Keepers are awesome. I pray for our Keepers as while we loved our boys from a distance, they loved them physically and I know their hearts are breaking too.

It’s not fair, I know, but like Dame Daphne, we set ourselves up for heartbreak when we know we will have to say good-bye someday. At least we know, our Ellies will never have to face a poacher, drought or the loss of a Mother by the hand of a poacher or hunter. They are safe each day, there is always plenty to eat, pool parties, and they have us to love them from afar.

I pray for all my hooman herd as I know your hearts are breaking and I wish I could make this easier for you all. It’s going to be okay, it will be okay for Mac, Emanti and our remaining herd. We have to share our boys with the rest of the world, and let them be loved by others too.

I just saw the article and I feel sick to my stomach. Lana and Marula, your instincts were right. Mine kept telling me they were both missing and gone, but I didn’t want to believe it. I know cooler heads will prevail, but to me moving Mac and Emanti was wrong, wrong, wrong! and the article is incorrect too. It is PR spin. Notice that it is written by public relations and not by any of the Keepers. In no way, in any of my observations did I see Mac being rejected and pushed away by Swazi, ever. I never saw them driving Emanti away either. As a matter of fact, when he came back from his illness they were very kind and gentle to him. Even Luti was being nice to him! Why in the world didn’t they send Luti and Gadze if they wanted to create a bachelor herd. They are much more robust and Luti is terrorizing Umngani! They must have a higher bidder for Luti and that zoo is just not ready for him yet. Come on SZSP, Emanti was barely recovered from his illness. There is something very fishy about all of this and we’re not being told all the facts. In this case, I feel like the species survival plan is being used as an excuse and the rejection of the two by the herd is just plain wrong. We knew at some point they would need to go and join another herd, but not these two at this time. I just feel the wrongness of it in every fiber of my being. Emanti had barely recovered from his illness. I agree with Joyce Poole and the Amboseli scientists, sometimes zoos, are just plain big business. I just don’t see all of the Keepers being in agreement to this, I don’t. I had a student who was a Keeper at the San Diego zoo 20 years ago and she left because the Keepers didn’t have the final say and their opinions about what was best for the animals was not always listened to, but instead decisions were made by people higher up in the hierarchy who did not interact with the animals on a daily basis. Why do I get the feeling that Caldwell Zoo had there new refurbished elephant exhibit and they wanted to fill it. How much did they pay for our dear beloved boys, What happened to their other elephants? What is there elephant survival track record? Texas weather is no walk in the park in the heat of the summer. And 2 elephants is not a bachelor herd. I can only hope that Emanti who was always the low man on the hierarchy, will be able to thrive like Jan’s foal 38. But they need more of a herd. Two elephants is a very vulnerable situation. I can’t imagine though that Emanti doesn’t miss his sister Kami and playing with his buddy Zuli and Mac was still so bonded to his mother, Swazi. It just doesn’t feel right in my gut to take them away from their families. Too soon, too soon and wrong choice of bachelors in my opinion. I’m not a animal communicator like Anna B, but I just feel a deep wrongness to the whole thing. I’m not going to say any more at the moment unless I really go off even more and say things I regret. Thank goodness, Lana is our hooman herd matriarch with the wisdom of watching the changes in the herd over the years and all her elephant research and wisdom. I totally trust that you Lana, will be able to guide us through the pain and loss and feeling of betrayal. And Jan has been watching them for quite a while too as well as Poppy, Paula and East Coast Fan. I’m so heartbroken, I might be missing from the posts for awhile, but I will keep reading your posts and watching our ellies. And you can bet I will be researching, Caldwell’s past track record with their elephants……..Do they even have an elephant cam?

There is a new post by sdz safari park regarding Emanti and Mac’s move to Texas.

Hmm, my silly super-slow typing skill is getting my way. Now, I found loads of comments when I woke up today! My life-saving nectar please keep coming!!! I just finished writing to Esampu. I’ll bee very busy, won’t I? I love you all❤️

Just a quick note or two, no time right now.

Gawa, the “bee incident” was a long, long time ago. Apparently there was a swarm deciding to “move in” at one of the logs/stumps. We only knew that the elephants suddenly were moved from the upper yard to the lower one, and found out afterwards that they’d been evacuated so the bees could be dealt with. Ellies are scared of bees anyway, for good reasons. Get some stings up that nose and misery! Annabelle at Wild is Life got stung, poor baby, though only one bee. When it stopped hurting it started itching and–this is true and there was video–she figured out a way to use a very thin and flexible branch up-her-trunk to scratch it. Now THAT is tool-making! And brilliant for an orphaned ele only about 4 years old at the time. Marula and I had discussed it because of how important the “training” is for the ellies–that they could be evacuated quickly without any panic or incidents because they are used to being asked to move around a lot in the course of a normal day.

Jan and esampu, it may comfort you to know that in spite of Luti’s “nastiness” later today, in the early morning (it was barely after sunrise) Umngani, her family, and Msholo were in the lower yard. It was beyond peaceful. The golden morning light, the ellies all calm and relaxed. Kaia was with her mother, although she briefly went to (I think) Neepo and reached up to give him a trunk-kiss, then she went back to be with Umngani. The sense of harmony among them was beautiful, and I was so happy to see Umngani “her old self” for awhile. Clearly between having Msholo right there (I got a lovely little screen-print of Umngani, Msholo, and Kaia all together) and the fact that she knew Luti was in the upper yard with his own family where he couldn’t “get to her,” she was totally at ease. You could almost feel it through the cam–I suppose I was reading her body-language subconsciously. So she had some rest and quiet time before having to deal with Luti’s aggression later in the day, at least.

Gawa, “wow” with the pink-shoe screen-print! That’s terrific!

Oh my gosh, new blog just went up! Oh… oh… this is going to generate a huge flurry!!! I won’t say anything yet! Oh.

Thanks all for the kind words on my wedding plans! I can’t wait for it all to come together.

On my morning rounds of the cam today, I did happen to catch a sad scene of Luti pushing Umngani out of the group. Everyone got branches this morning and was enjoying them on top of the “hill” in the big yard and he shoved her away from the herd. Kaia was not close by and everyone was very focused on breakfast, so Umngani was on her own. I checked the cam just now and she is still on her own, away from the herd, but with her baby by her side. Sending strength to Mama U! Hopefully Luti grows out of this.

Northern California, what a wonderful word-picture of Kaia and Zuli mud-playing and dusting! and that she was actually quite gentle with him for awhile. I did see her half-lying/half-“spooning” with him the other day (maybe the tail-end of this same incident?) and noted she was less boisterous than she usually is. She’s getting a little older now and perhaps more aware of his feelings instead of being totally self-involved like all babies are. As you and others have mentioned, she’s also getting and giving more attention and affection with the babysitters (and with her mother). Swazi and Nisa–without Mac–yes, I think they’re probably “consoling” each other; I think whether we see Mac and Emanti or not, they are still in touch (maybe even literally) with their family, but when you’re used to spending the majority of your time together, even limited separations are difficult sometimes. I haven’t seen Mac yet, but maybe today… It’s barely dawn there now and I see some sweet volunteer is already busy with the cam; we are so lucky to have such nearly-constant PTZ cam-work going on at the Park by our cam-operators. I agree that it’s very interesting how many interests we all share–animals in general, of course, and not just elephants, but also reading and other things that gradually work their way into the “conversation.” And thank you for your empathy and encouragement, though I don’t always say it. 🙂 With all that you have to struggle with in your life, you are amazingly sensitive to others–people and animals alike. (Dare I quote the famous line from the old “Dr. Zhivago” movie? “It’s a gift some people have.” I think I got that right?)

Marula, your “Tour Guide” persona was fabulous! I loved that–and the reference to “my baby” Neepo, too. I was thrilled to read that your hope to see one of our ellies nibbling on the morning-glories (if white, maybe what we call “bindweed” here in the East) came true! Especially that it was Khosi. I don’t know what it’s so special to see ellies eating flowers, but somehow it is. I think because they seem to savor the whole experience–which they probably do, with their heightened senses of smell and taste and texture. They do have limited color vision but it’s not black-and-white, so that even may play a part. The series of vignettes for the 8th and 9th were just SO good–especially Ndula splashing Zuli playfully. (There was a wonderful video at Explore cams–I don’t know if it’s still available–with a mother ele who kept gently pushing her baby over into the shallow water where she was drinking; I had the feeling it was a lesson–in how to not-panic when submerged briefly–as well as a game. Some lucky people had actually seen this “live.” ) The incident with Msholo and the little girl–and I agree about the parent!–was marvelous. Oh yes, he would be very gentle, he would know that was a “human calf” for certain. As for the beautiful “romancing” between Msholo and Swazi, that was a delight and so beautifully described. (Have you read the poem “The Elephant is Slow to Mate” by DH Lawrence, by the way?) Your tour is a resounding success with all of us! Oh, and I love seeing the swallows swooping around, too. I also like the crows; I know a lot of people don’t like crows, but they are so smart and there’s something about their swaggering-around that gets to me, like they are as wise as Odin’s ravens.

Jan, the photos of Msholo reaching up are so welcome to see! And the great story-telling about the enrichment box! I saw the last 5 or 6 seconds of that–I saw it on my Kindle, and raced out here to the comp, but by the time it loaded and I waited through the Butterfly ad (beautiful the first time I saw it, rather aggravating now since I’ve lost a lot of good things in that mere 5 seconds–which makes you realize how much we miss without even knowing it, given limited times to watch and that the cam is only able to cover one location in the 6 acres at a time)… by then, Zuli was walking off behind his mother. So I was very happy to read your post and visualize what I’d missed.

Esampu, your wedding will be wonderful. Elephants and books! Two of my “most favorite” things! Yes, the older ellies do like to tuck the babies underneath themselves–with the females it is likely just a “maternal” urge and with Neepo (or other male) probably just a “protective” urge. And affection, of course, they remember how safe and loved they felt when they were little and their mothers towered over them and around (the big legs!) them. Khosi was always trying to squeeze Nisa under there although she wasn’t tall enough for the baby to fit. Like Kaia, Nisa would sort of squirt herself out of there like a little seed or nut exploding from its husk. I remember when Shukuru was only a year or two old, they said in the diary that she would often fold-up her mattress and push it between her front legs and try to “mother” it–like a little girl with a home-made baby-doll. Since she went on to be the mini-matriarch at the Nursery, she certainly did put her instincts to good use later.

East Coast–Hi! Don’t you dare get us speculating about Mabu! 🙂 I think it’s too soon for him to be coming back again. Swazi should be the only one “available” right now?

Daylight at the Park–

Marula, thanks for the tour. I was in shock to read about Msholo and the little girl with pink shoes. I have to say, that was taking a chance!

I’m heading for bed but wanted to share this screenshot of back in the day. Three nursing babies. Nisa nurses from Swazi, and Neepo from Mama U. And then big boy, Luti, yes Luti, from Ndula. It’s proof he nursed a loooong time. Can you tell who’s who? https://imgur.com/Nqo97c2

Marula, you’re so sweet – thanks for asking about my planning! Our wedding will be in a historic mansion so we won’t need much decor. But we are planning on centerpieces with books, tea light candles, and then small bouquets in vintage vases. My fiancee and I love to read, so we wanted to have books in there! Our place cards will likely be the old school library “check out” cards that will double as favors. I found some great ones on etsy that I’m going to buy closer to the date (July). Our cake will have two tiers – it’s vanilla frosting with fresh flowers (will match my bouquet) and rose gold metallic accents. We will also have pie and churros in the dessert bar. And up top, our two ellies – the toppers I bought on etsy. The male elephant has a bow tie and a green baseball hat (my fiancee loves baseball) and the girl elephant has a veil. We are going to send an invitation to Msholo and Umngani in care of the keepers, I hope they respond 🙂

Oh, and my necklace is called the “things we love pave elephant mini pendant.” I’ll likely wear it on my wedding day, too! My dress has tons of beading so I want to keep the jewelry simple as not to distract and that necklace is very small.

I’m so glad we’re all on here discussing the cam! It’s truly my favorite TV show and I love discussing it with all of you. I do hope there is a new blog posted soon so we can start fresh with comments and get some new high-resolution photos!

Esampu, still me talking
Like Gawa and Lana both at very far away, California bay somewhere in New York magical woodland, you in Denver and me in New Zealand are all thinking (posting)alike at the same time is pretty so amazingly awesome! Even though, the subject was pee and poo😆Esampu, even the story, older girls trying to put her underneath them to “nurse” her is similar! But what I saw was Neepo doing so. What was he trying to do? Copying what Khosi does to her little sis? Anyhow, he was adorable!

I’m just being nosy just like we love to see Umngani and Msholo romancing, how’s your wedding planning going on? Have you decided what flowers are for the decoration complementing the ellies cake? Or what the colour theme is ? I looked up the Kate Spade ellie necklace. Is that the gold one with twinkling diamonds all over or the one, a mother and her baby Ellie doing a trunk-kiss? Both ones are so pretty!

It was definitely a crazy ride, and we were all exhausted afterwards but we got through it together. Thanks to the “drill”, I
was able to experience the most generous and amazingly beautiful friendships among the best hooman herd I could ever ask for.

Lana, likewise, I was holding your hand😊. I did see the drill as Swazi’s. 🐊But to me ironically it was more like the bee incident years ago which you mentioned before and all had to evacuate. It was crazy day for them. At the end of the day they all were okay. And the causing bee was me. 🐝ha-ha-.You always are the first one to acknowledge and give a hand to someone who needs it at the preciously right moment. It’s so amazing what you do. You have the natural ability to heal somebody. Lana, I’m respectively calling you, you are the spiritual healer to us all and a great friend as well as our matriarch. You’ve got many “jobs” for us haven’t you apart from your chores? No wonder we are glued at you. We all were gravitated in to you one by one right in the center. You are the magnate that hold us together and make us feel well protected and safe around you. Thank you always. I really appreciate it.

Dear Gawa, immediately after I found out the greatest news( much much later than you guys did) the whole wide world became so much brighter. You know the feeling, even the tiniest thing can make your day. When I tuned in right after that, I saw Zuli doing a poo. Yes, you heard me right. I said poo poo! It brought such joy over me seeing his tiniest pea-like poos rolling down. I felt like my new day also started rolling as normal. After receiving your sweetest heart and your screen grabs, I felt much much better. So thank you for always being the fresh spring breeze for me so that I can breathe deeply.

Jan, your morning hello and the shares of what you see first in the morning is always my pleasure, my absolute favorite thing. It is my soul-indulgent moment when I read yours while I’m still in bed. I wake up much later than you do, although I’m well ahead of time. I’m in a funny world, you see. Then I do a big stretch and start my day. And I loved M’sholo the arborist! I saved the images;)) I was very surprised when yours popped up middle of nowhere! SoAmazing how he can stretch like that. Did you see Today’s SDZSP Instagram? They put up the photo of M’sholo standing just like your screen grabs. What a coincidence! (( I’m still very careful for saying “telepathy” or “synchronicity” so I said “coincidence”instead 😉 but you know what I really meant)) Yes, just like East Coast, my brain work exact same way too, always speculating and seeking for an answer. I can’t help it.

Northern California, if anyone could weave such a heart piercingly beautiful tapestry, it IS you. You brought me into tears. Please show me how on earth you can come up with such poignant words that every time you grab our heart so deeply and emotionally. You send someone into her inner sanctuary for soul searching. Then, she returns her head up with a triumph afterwards. Not everyone can spin the luminous fibers and create the beautiful thread as you do so easily by yourself. I wish I could create the light of thread myself and then weave like you do. You’re the soul-weaver and everyone’s inspiration. Thank you. I absolutely enjoyed your peek inside the ellies world yesterday too.

I just wanted to say I am so grateful for all of you. I can’t tell you how much it meant to me when all of you formed a Protective Circle around me. Thank you so much for sharing me your strength. You definitely have an Elephant soul.

I want to share with you all what our Escondido herd were up to both on 4/8 and 4/9. It’s the two days caravan tour. The guid name is Maruka. All aboard! Let our tour begin!
Day1– (4/8)
At just round 9 am. Lana, “ your baby” Neepo put Kaia between his legs, sandwiched her tightly rather forcefully? He really likes to play “a big brother” role. The two of them were so adorable. But Kaia immediately wiggled her body and squeezed her bottom out, then ran off to her much comforting big sister, Khosi. It happened so quickly.

Just before 12pm, Ndula walked to the pool at the west yard, Zuli was walking very slowly behind her. He looked sleepy or tired? He wasn’t at his mood for playing. Nudla went down the stairs and waited for him to come along with her by the water. When he arrived right at next to her. She gave him two big splashes of water with her trunk. Zuli was soaking wet from his head to bottom. I almost could her chuckles. Adult ellies can be very child- like too. She was so satisfied with Zuli’s face and amusingly trotted away.

About 1:40pm Gadze was mud-bathing. Then, Neepo, Koshi Umngani and babies came along to join him.They were having so much fun that M’sholo drinking water at the pool rushed over them. He didn’t want miss a thing. He called everyone else and the mud party began!! I was so glad that Esampu captured the moments to share!!! Thank you!

Day2– (4/9) What a memorable day for the tour Guid, Marula when she found out that her favorite Emanti and his bestie Mac were actually at SDZSP all the time, didn’t go anywhere! Come on, wipe your tears and let’s begin the second day of the tour! Shall we?

At 2:45pm Khosi was enjoying her afternoon all by herself off from babysitting duty, she walked along the wall near the stonehenge cave at the east yard/ upper yard. Then, she stopped in front of the white morning glories. She stretched her trunk out through the wired fences ( glad it’s not electric ones), then she sniffed a bit felt the flowers and took a couple of them and leaves too and put them into her mouth! She walked off for more wandering. Oh, I was dreaming to see one of ellie would show up and eat ones just like I saw a photo of wild ellie doing so. I really loved it was Khosi.

At 2:30 pm, my co-guide Northern California told me so perfectly that Swazi was also receiving the branches from the keeper. She was reaching over the giant rock by the pool while Nisa was waiting behind her. She is still too small to do like her mum does. And M’sholo was getting some branches at the same time from more difficult position that only he could reach one. A big thanks to Gawa and Jan’s screen grabs and also the YouTube that Esampu told us, we were able to see our ellies do get their nibbles from the real trees or even morning glories just like wild ones!!

Just after Msholo had some fresh nibbles, he walked right into the pool at the west yard,( this was when Jan saw him walked off from the pool at the west yard yesterday ), he was cooling him off, splashing and drinking the water, even he peed in there. The pee made the perfect white circle in the water, it even looked as a lucky sign for the perfect day!
And to top it off, the most unbelievable and amazing thing happened to a little girl with pink shoes who was sitting on the bar fence at the time with her dad holding her. ( frankly speaking, the parent shouldn’t have done
that, it was quite reckless things to put his own child too closely to the animals. Ellies are “who” animals so we can trust them fespecially M’sholo is the most sweet gentle giant, but still…), Msholo gently and so ever lightly touched the little girl’s left foot, pink shoe! And he casually walked off leaving the audience and me with a big awe. When he was out of the pool, walking towards the main gate, he looked as if he was wearing dark knee high boots. He was rocking it!

And this was the end of the tour departing from Swazi and Msholo’s big romancing at the fountain at 6:45pm.They chose a perfect evening for it when nobody is around but us nosy hooman from distance still respecting some privacy just as Nisa left her mum a while ago. M’sholo laid his trunk over Swazi’s head for well over 5 minutes or more. When she shifted her body, his trunk synchronized as her. What a beautiful dance they were playing. It looked to us that it was pure affection and Swazi was appreciating with that this time. We had to leave them while they were still in the middle of romance. A young girl said to me “please let us stay a bit longer! This is still PG-13, isn’t it? I wanna keep watching the big ellie kissing her lady ellie!” While quietly leaving the corridor, we found Zuli peacefully sleeping right by his mum…a little hay was falling down over him sometime twinkling itself by the evening sun.
I hope you enjoyed the tour with me and took lots of memorable photos to take home with you. Remember to pop in our suvenior shop, there are lots of elephants goods there. My favorite of them all is the notebook made with our ellies poo!! Good bye and I hope I’ll see you again….

((When I was enjoying Swazi and Msholo’s right middle of the never ending romancing, the cam operator decided to leave. noooo! I said. But I knew why because the cam found Zuli sleeping. Nothing can beat the sleeping baby.))

I just imagined what a great adventure Gawa and Nusu will have their own on the 25th.✨

Just before I was about click POST COMMENT I I found Jan and Nothern California!!! Just as excited to read my morning “News paper” my favorite article, Jan’s-what I see in the elephant valley, I was so happy to see Northern California here. Thank you both for finding your tiniest and precious time to post here within your such hectic schedule. Thank you😘

While M’sholo nibbling hay away in front of the big pool, the water is looking so calm and dark earthy green. I see swallows, the free spirits, flying very high and diving low just above the water surface to get the floating insects. In a blink of and eye, they are up in the air again.

Beautifully written Jan. I was able to picture it all perfectly in my mind’s eye from your descriptions. I just love the part about Zuli proudly playing with the stick like a baton leader. I could almost see him marching along. I guffawed out loud and then again when you said he was spearing and or sticking his head in the box. What a character he is! I wonder if there were more treats hidden in other off camera areas that the other ellies found too?

Dear Marula, please don’t worry about anything on my account. I could “feel” you across the woven tapestry of our luminous fibers in pain and hibernation and was sending lots of love and comfort and smoothing out the frayed fibers of light and was so, so excited for you to wake up in New Zealand and find out that all was well! Gawa and Lana, I love the “Swazi alligator drill” analogy that was such a great thing to visualize all of us in our hooman herd gathered outside the pool of water anxiously accessing the situation and starting to practice grieving the loss of our boys which we know will probably happen at some point. I just can’t wait to see Emanti back in the swing of things again and out and playing with Zuli. Let’s all try to grab as many screen shots of him when he does! Because I was watching every minute I could for the last few days watching for Emanti and Mac, I caught some fun little vignette moments. The days and times are all scrambled up in my mind because its been so hectic here with my daughter and then the worry of the boys. Here are a few things I remember:
Esampu thank you so much for pics of the mud party. I caught the tail end of it and just saw Zuli and Kaia covered in mud and playing by the tree stump so I figured that they must have been having some mud slinging fun a little earlier. At one point later on, or maybe another day I saw them playing near the edge of the mud hole and Kaia enthusiastically trying to get Zuli to come in and play. She was dipping her trunk in the water and then, Lana, I got to see the helicoptering with her trunk that you had talked about! It was so adorable and she was in such a state of abandoned ecstasy with the water and mud. Zuli was kind of watching this time and not wanting to join in this time. It was funny because at another time of day they were just rolling around in the dust and Zuli was just enjoying the soft feel of it on his skin and Kaia kept climbing on him and finally he jumped up in kind of a dusty huff on annoyance and kind of rammed her, as if he was saying, “ok, enough” . She respected that for a little while and even came over as he lay back down and was rubbing in the dust and it was so sweet because she was gently nuzzling and touching his ear. It was so touching to see her being so gentle with him, gently touching and exploring around his ear and kind of stroking it. I had never seen her so soft and gentle. Then after awhile she just couldn’t help herself and she had to climb on him, but it seemed more gentle this time–almost like she was trying to lay on him but kind of beside him (like spooning). It was so sweet. Gawa, thanks for nightime photos. I could see the ellies in the night one time. I don’t think it was on the roar and snore night because I didn’t see the obnoxious flashlights blaring on them. It was so magical to see the ellies gliding in and out of the shadows, very ethereal. And then at one point I could see Zuli and Kaia dancing about in and out of the shadows and light, playing and jostling with one another even in the dark! Wow, no wonder they need to take their naps. Especially Zuli he loves his naps. Lana, I loved your story of Kaia running ahead of her mom for her play and training sessions with the Keepers. She just seems to love her sessions and we all like to say teasingly her adoration and crush on Evan! I saw her go charging up in that direction the other day all by herself (I’m not sure if she heard some noise of someone up there or not), hoping to get in through the training gate, but alas, it wasn’t time yet. Then she turned around and around with her ears sticking out in a little bit of alarm and you could almost here her say, whoa, where is everyone and where’s my mom (they were way across the yard over at the Stonhenge rock outcropping. And I even saw Swazi reach out and give her a brief, gentle touch of reassurance as she ran by. I was wondering if Swazi was missing her dear Mac? I noticed in his absence that Nisa is taking advantage of this time without Mac and has been hanging closer to her mom (in between babysitting times) and Swazi has even been allowing her to eat out of the same feeding box like she does with Mac. I’ve also been seeing a lot more of the gentle trunk laying on the heads phenomenon lately. I think it was you Esampu that mentioned that? It was so cute, I think it was yesterday (sorry again everyone for time scramble in my brain because I’m up and down at such odd times of day with my daughter), but Khosi was just in such a state of excitement and was wet from head to toe so I figured she must have just come up from some great pool party fun off camera and she came up and gently laid her trunk across Kaia’s head and then sweetly hugged and caressed her. Kaia seemed so delighted by it, that she acted almost Zuli-like with a return little reaching up and caress of her trunk. I was so happy for her. She seems like she is being touched and snuggled a lot more by the babysitters. She’s also been hanging out with Ndula and Zuli a lot. Today, it was exciting to watch Msholo climbing up reaching way up over the giant rock outcropping above the pool to get some branches with delicious leaves. At first I thought he was pulling them out of the tree himself, but then I could see a Keeper or maybe a garderner was maybe trimming branches (or brought the branches) and was putting them way up on the rock outcropping to give Msholo a little more challenge and thrill of reaching way up to find the branches up way up along the top. Then the camera panned over and I could see other ellies enjoying some branches along the fence line that the Keeper had given them. And last but not least in my little ellie vignettes was Zuli giving himself a lttile dust bath shower with his trunk. He was so clearly happy and proud of himself as he flung the dirt up and over his body.
Im falling asleep as I gype this, so off to bed for me n=now….

More thanks to linda for gathering info about the two missing boys. I had found it to be huge eye strain to constantly search for them on cam. And I’m still in a quandary here about the whereabouts of that infamous green transport crate. Hmmm … I wonder if maybe Mabu might return for visit soon? Oops …. sorry about that … my brain tends to get easily sidetracked about these sort of things. Anyway, thank you all for your most descriptive shares to this Blog !

Once again, thank you to Linda for thinking to contacting the Park via e-mail, and to Felix for replying so promptly!

We all did form a protective emotional circle for each other, the way the adult ellies do in a “crisis,” didn’t we? Marula is right about that! And how good to learn that this was, as she also said, “just a drill.” I think that it’s taught us a few things–besides not jumping to conclusions, and I’m as guilty as anyone else where that’s concerned. We did discuss things sensibly, and consoled each other, and tried to find the positive side of it all. It’s good preparation for the future, we’ll know better how to cope when the time comes. (“Alligators! Everyone out of the pool!” as Swazi would say.) And we can hope “the real deal” won’t happen for awhile yet!

I’m going to skip re-hashing things we’ve been saying about the boys and just reply to the other interesting discussions. If my fingers don’t seize-up before I finish typing!

Esampu, I was very interested in your information about the Denver zoo elephants, since it confirmed what I hoped, that they can adapt (I remember reading the Toronto ellies had been moved, but not where). I want to check your photos–not had a chance yet, but I bet they’re great, like the others. 🙂 As for elephants resting their trunks on other ellies’ heads, I think with older to younger, it’s just plain affection and/or reassurance; with adults, it can be the same, or sometimes I think I read that it’s a gentle declaration of dominance… We’ll all be looking for a glimpse of you on the 25th–I hope you have a truly wonderful day. It’ll be great if one (or more) of us actually sees you!

Jan, as I said earlier (it’s still 4/9 here), I loved the story about 38’s gradual change, so poignant but so upbeat in the end.

Northern California, I am so glad you got the good news so quickly, I know you were hurting so much about “our babies.”

Marula, I hope you’re feeling less guilty now, and are buzzing again like a happy little bee. As I said, you have no reason to take the blame whatsoever. 🙂 I see from your earlier post that you had looked up the Wild is Life videos and information. Yes, the “Zimbabwe Elephant Nursery” one always makes me cry, too, at that one point. Poor Roxy; like Dame Daphne, she is a very courageous woman to take on so much potential heartbreak. “Mischief and Moyo” is priceless. (Incidentally, in some of the earlier videos and information, Moyo is spoken of as “he.” For some reason, maybe because the calf was so premature, they didn’t know it was “she” until several months had gone by. They’d never dealt with an ele before, as you heard, so that alone might explain it, elephant anatomy is rather confusing. Never explained, just suddenly switched the pronoun.) As for the roller-coaster ride we took, I’m glad I could “hold your hand.” It makes me think of the first (and last!) time I ever rode on a roller-coaster, and I was an adult. My now-ex-husband’s arm around me made me feel a whole lot safer than the safety-bar-thing did; that bar probably protected me better, but it was absolutely useless emotionally. People need the touch–physical or mental/emotional–of other people, to get through the scary times.

Just checked the cam, Ndula and Umngani, aided by Khosi, were leading their babies away from That Fierce Sprinkler. Msholo, on the other hand, was reaching over to drink from it! Now both babies are with Ndula and I think–I hope–they’ll decide to play a little…

Hey, Gawa, right on! I see you thought of Swazi, too! I just was ready to post this and checked the blog on Explorer to see if anyone had posted anything since my little short one! Honest, I didn’t steal your idea! I promise! 🙂

Marula, you have absolutely NO reason to feel that it’s your fault there was a commotion about Emanti and Mac. We all put the same “clues” together and were pretty sure of what they meant. So do NOT blame yourself, not in any way, okay? It looked to all of us as if they must have gone, even though it didn’t seem to make sense given their age and Emanti having been unwell. So don’t be upset, please, okay?

I’m posting this immediately I saw your comment, I’ll answer the whole thing next but I don’t want to wait when you’re feeling so bad about it and for no reason. Just remember how supportive we’ve all been of each other, which is a good thing to learn. We’re like our SD ellies, we’ve formed our own “herd” even though we’re not related to each other! 🙂

Whew! What a wonderful relief about Mac and Emanti and kudos to Linda for thinking “outside the Comments box” and contacting the fine folks at the SDZSP directly! And thank you to Felix for the prompt reply!
I loved the horse story too and it brought me some peace this morning when I read it, Jan, so thank you too!
Marula, can’t wait for you to read and respond to the good news about “our” boys and my apologies for forgetting to thank you for identifying Emanti’s partner in crime in my screenshot — I truly meant to.
Did anyone else see the antics last Friday night during the roar ‘n snore at the park? I took a few screen grabs and have posted them. One is of M’Sholo reaching waaaaay up high! https://imgur.com/gallery/s4j4mX5 and https://imgur.com/5h1oaiW
We will be at the park all day on the 25th of this month (Apr) and think we both might wear red shirts so y’all can spot us on the cam throughout the day!

Good morning! to you all BUZZY BEES🐝 !!!
Oh my goodness, what should I do??? I went into my hibernation just a little bit only for a day and woke up this morning I found more than 14?( I lost counting) comments since I posted (4/8) I guess the world is spinning really fast for me. How am I going to catch up with you all. My slow typing is not helping me either.

Lana, young ellies’s “boy scouting” part really showed me hope and I wanted to celebrate our two boys great adventures (IF our speculation is right) and I watch YouTube video “When an Elephant Smiles” by Wild Is Life Zen. At the end of the video, I saw two wild ellies appeared in the night to greet with the orphan babies. And I watched a couple of more linked Wild Is Life vids. The vid “Zimbabwe Elephant Nursery” was so moving to watch though it’s only 6 minutes clip, which made me cry.

It’s been very hard and concerning for us about our two boys so I want you to watch the video if you want to laugh at loud🤣. It’s called “Mischief and Moyo”
I needed to get back writing to you all but I was very much distracted by this funny video from ZEN. And now I run out of my time. Oh no 🙈. But a wee bit more.

Esampu, Thanks for the vignette! What a soap-opera!mI only read the lovey dovey gesture ( the looong pause of Msholo laying his trunk on Swazi’s head was so beautiful to watch)but I didn’t know that part. Fascinating!

Gawa, thank you for the date info of the screen grab of Emanti and Zuli. That was taken no so long before their disappearance. Who would thought your photo would be the last memory of Emanti in Escondido? 😔
Thank you also for the Visualization of the Amboseli Trust for Elephant Site. From that Lana and I solved the great mystery together! You must read it you missed the part, please find us on 4/6 comments and read mine and Lana’s ❣️
It’s not so hard to find us on 4/6 comments since there were only us unlike 4/8 and 4/9!!! oh no, no, I’m not complaining. You’ll also find the ID info of the screen grab, you wanted to know who the ele was next to Emanti.

All your comments are sweet nectar to me, thank you very much and I love you all! I’m just saving them for later to appreciate it. Then, I’ll drink it all up at once! Yummy yummy 🤤❤️🐝 I’ll see you later 🐊. Hopefully very soon…

Whoo hoo!! I am so relieved and happy! Thank you thank you Linda for being so smart and on top of it and thank you to Felix for your prompt reply. I feel like I can breathe again. It just didn’t feel right to me that those two would be sent away, so I’m greatly, greatly relieved. Jan, I loved the heart-warming foal story as well. I”m so happy that when Marula wakes up in New Zealand, she will be able to read the good news! Yay, for us all, hooman and ellie herd, more time with our dear Emanti and Mac (and for Zuli and Emanti to still have each other as well). I send love and healing to them both and to all of you my hooman herd.

we got an answer! emanti & mac are still with us! copy of response to my email inquiry below:

04/09/2019

Dear Ms. Lee,

Thank you for your interest in the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo
Safari Park.

All of the elephants including Mac and Emanti are perfectly fine. Their
care staff has the ability to take them off exhibit form time to time to
conduct routine check ups and up close monitoring of these elephants .
Please continue to watch the elephant cam to get a glimpse of them.

I hope this information helps!

Kind Regards,

Felix
Customer Service Team
San Diego Zoo
San Diego Zoo Safari Park

sure do hope that the 2 boys are healthy, just being observed or have a minor issue. keeping fingers & toes crossed. blessings to y’all…

Jan, I am praying for the IF. Lana, I loved the quote by Edna St. Vincent Millay: “I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.” Your quotes are always spot on. Thank you.

i sent in a request for an update on emanti & mac, on the online “contact us” form on the main page of the safari park. i’ll post if i hear back from anyone. – on a different note, has anyone else noticed that mama u and msholo have been hanging out together? i see her going up to him, or him to her, oftentimes with little kaia there too. i don’t see luti there as part of the group, either, so maybe the big guy is watching out for mama u & kaia. i didn’t get a chance to watch the cam much today but i did observe this in the last few days. hope y’all are doing well, sending warm thoughts your way…

I feel for you, Northern California fan, and sorry your upset. We don’t know the story, IF, in fact, Mac and Emanti have left the herd. And, it could of been something that was planned before Emanti was ill. But we do know, IF, they have been moved, a lot of consideration went into that decision and wherever they may have been moved to, it will be a good place. And, chances are, there is a cam there where we can still see them.

So very sad to see the Panda’s go home. I feel bad for the SDZSP Panda herd and the Keepers, it’s so very hard to let go.

Oh my heart is aching so much in anxiety not knowing what is happening to Emanti and Mac. He still looked a bit fragile to me last time I saw him out in the yard, so I can’t imagine they would ship him off to another zoo (let alone, God forbid, a freezing cold midwest zoo). Plus, Mac was still so attached to his mother, traveling around the yard and eating with her wherever she went. I just can’t imagine they would pick those two to send away. It would break my heart. Why not Luti who seems more than ready? He could go with his buddy Gadze even though Umngani’s family would miss the great G-man terribly. I am in such denial and disbelief that the SDZSP would actually do that. It doesn’t make logical sense to me. But I feel a foreboding if Marula and Lana are both sensing that because the two of you both have such an intuitive sense with “our” ellies. Jan, I also got big tears in my eyes: first reading from Lana about the bulls coming to check on the orphans, then Gawa’s story about the little orphan finally reaching through with its damaged trunk to touch the bull, then the beautiful vignette about Dame Sheldrick and the thier orphans parents greeting them when they cross to the other side, in what to me is heaven too (thank you Nusu that lifted some of the weight from my heart and yes, I see what a beautiful Soul you are too!), then my next tears from terror and sadness reading about the Midwest winters (potentially for our dear Emanti and Mac and for any ellie who has to go live there). Please Creator, please don’t let it be our dear boys. The alternative thought re Emanti and Mac might be that Emanti had a health relapse and they are keeping Mac with him. Which is not a great thought either, because that would mean Emanti is quite sick since we haven’t seen either of them in how many days?

Dearest friend, blog monitor, please, please respond that you will ask the Keepers what is going on with Emanti and Mac. This is really painful for all of us.

My heart goes out to all the Panda lovers too. Many of them are in great pain as the loan agreement with China has ended and the beloved Pandas are going home very soon. Can you imagine if one day the SDZSP announced that ALL our ellie herd were being sent home? Well, we would probably be happy if they were going to a big, safe reserve in Africa, but I would never want them to go back to Swaziland. I have been reading some really unsavory things about the management and care of the elephants there. Anyway, let’s send love to the Panda fans. They are a dedicated “herd” like we are and they are in great, great pain to watch their family go. Even though, many of them do say, that of course China adores and takes great, great care of their beloved Pandas and some are happy that they get to go home.

NorCal Fan, I have to express my deepest gratitude for the kindest compliment I think I’ve ever received from someone I’ve never met. I had tears in my eyes when I shared it with Nusu and he said, “She sees you, babe.” (He thought I was emo over another sad elephant or rhino rescue.) BTW, we live in the East Bay and not too far from Tilden where we love getting buzzed by hummies or spotting deer while on a hike or at the driving range there. Talk about a magical place. And speaking of magical places…thank you for the tip about the otter cams of the slough — we had no clue!

OMGosh, Lana, thank you for sharing about the wild bull visiting the orphans at the Wild is Life place we had yet to learn about! What a wonderful new world you opened up to us and that video was incredible. I took special note of the one little trunk that is damaged (Annabelle) that tried to reach from between one set of posts and couldn’t and then moved closer and reached out to finally touch him. So precious! A few months back, we also read about the first head-scratching bull that visited Sheldrick and how he hung around for a bit and then came back with other bulls to prove his wild tale to them. You described it so perfectly!

And regarding the heartbreak that can come with loving elephants from the orphanages, something Nusu said to me that gave me some peace when Merru passed away and still does is, “in your mind’s eye, picture any orphan from Sheldrick (or elsewhere) being welcomed to the great beyond by Dame Daphne with her loving arms opened wide and all the grateful matriarchs of babies she rescued are surrounding her welcoming them too.”

We saw the same scenes of the 2 boys in the pool yesterday and little Kami walking around the periphery not quite sold on joining them. It was a little sad to me because it seemed she might have been missing someone to join her….? I also saw another M’Sholo poking Luti in the butt to discourage him from bothering Umgani incident yesterday morning and then this morning 2 of the boys were really giving that giant tree stump the business while they eagerly awaited the keepers with their buckets of treats. Can’t help but think they’re all a little off with the disappearance of two precious members of their herd…

Lastly, for today, Jan said what I really wanted to about elephants in the midwest and since we both grew up in Chicago we can attest to all of it….not a good place for an elephant.

What an interesting scene you described with Swazi and M’Sholo, esampu. It sure is fun to speculate as to what they might have been saying to each other. Oh, and we luv that gestures database and just last week I shared a screen grab of the head shake (I say “snap”) with Nusu. We also loved both the videos you mentioned and recommend them as well but have your tissues ready for the Naledi one because while it has a happy enough ending, it gets somewhat hairy there for a bit.
We can’t stop thinking about the disappearance of Emani and Mac. And I checked that the screen grab I shared was dated 3.28.19 at 7 am, just in case further sleuthing is required, Marula. We’re having a very hard time contemplating that these precious little bulls could be on their way to freezing cold Wisconsin and when we did a google search a video piece on YouTube showed up of a local news show from Milwaukee covering the fact that the Zoo was rated one of the 10 worst for elephants?! All we could think is that all the money recently spent there could have instead been given to the SDZSP and they could have built another place for a bull herd. After all, aren’t they rated the #1 best place for elephants in human care?

Marula, you’ve learned an incredible amount of things about elephants in a very short time! You just soak-up knowledge like the proverbial sponge. And there are things that for some reason don’t “make it” into most (or even “any” in some cases) of the books/documentaries, as we’ve discussed before. I learned about the “scout” part–looking for places that would be safe for the breeding herds–only from Sheldrick’s originally )and I think Dame Daphne said it in her book years later) and I was amazed. “Can that be true?” I wondered, although I trust them totally where ellies are concerned; but it just seemed so incredible to me. But it is so. And I finally recently heard it one time, in a South African documentary about ellies. And I’ve seen it now “in my own time,” twice, as I’ll tell you in a minute. But try to give you a short “history” first. When they built their first Reintro’ center in Voi, there hadn’t been ellies around for a long time due to the terrible, terrible poaching back then–the ellies had gone to places far away. But after awhile, a few bull elephants began to appear, coming to the stockades during the night to investigate and communicate with the orphans. And in due time–not right away by any means–females with calves returned to the area and then eventually began to interact with the orphans when they were out browsing for the day. This happened again at Ithumba when it opened, although there were more ellies in the general area. And now I “saw” it happening just this same way when the “special needs” center opened in Umani Springs–there were already many elephants there, but of course they were shy of people and no doubt very curious and confused about the orphans. Again, youngish bulls came first, in the night, and so on. It took months for the wild ellies to actually interact with the “babies,” out in the bush, but they do now–though most are still very nervous if the Keepers are near. And now, it has just happened with the Wild Is Life ellies taken to a park in Zimbabwe where they will eventually be released into the wild–and there is a little video clip of it: It’s at night, and there are one or two wild bulls. One of them is reaching into the stockade through the “bars” (the orphans are kept in there at night to be safe, though they roam all over in the daytime with the Keepers) and all these little trunks are reaching through the other openings to touch his face, his tusks, his trunk, etc. This is the beginning of that same kind of slow “getting to know you” contact that will, in gradual stages, over months and years, make it possible for the orphans to join wild herds. (Wild is Life in Zim, the GRI facility in Zambia, “our” Retiti in Kenya–these three places are basically following the procedure that Daphne Sheldrick “invented.” A long slow years-long process where the orphans thenselves decide when they are ready to leave to live a wild life. And it works, for sure, as you’ve seen with things you’ve read about ex-orphans at Sheldrick’s joining wild herds, having wild-fathered wild-born babies.) So the wild bull elephants do a lot more than just wander around looking for romance! Also they do form “bachelor” herds in the wild, and two or three friends and/or relatives may stay together in their wanderings, and young ones learn from the old wise ones kind of like apprentices to artisans. And the really old-and-wise bulls often have two or three young bulls who stay with them and guard them, called “askaris.” (I even saw this on one of the Djuma Game Drives years ago on live-cam. The younger ones kept between the old bull–he was ancient!–and the Landrover, just there, not threatening or anything, but ready to do what they could if there was trouble. The old bull just calmly went on eating; he probably was well aware of the fact that the vehicle was no threat, in fact he likely even knew that vehicle from past encounters.)

And sometimes it IS “all family together,” the bulls not only return to visit but sometimes stay with the families for days or weeks or longer, just with them companionably, until their restlessness sends them “on the road again,” or they get messages from distant females who are wanting to mate. But their lives are certainly more complex and complicated than the average documentary would lead you to believe! (Although I’ve read and seen for myself that big bulls will lie down to be less threatening to younger smaller ones for sparring and push-games, I don’t think I’ve read or seen that anywhere except Sheldrick’s and SDZSP. Though my memory may be playing me false. And of course there might be something about it at Elephant Voices… I’ll have to take a look later.)

It’s still dark at the Park right now. I wonder what’s ahead of “us”–the ellies and the viewers–today? 🙂

I just watched the pool party a bit ago. It was really great to see the 2 boys having such a good time. Not really sure which ones they were, just know that it didn’t appear to be any of the girls in the pool. Just surprised that Kaia or Zuli
didn’t join in at some point.
I read the Milwaukee County Zoo web site and it does appear they are going to have fabulous facility for elephants. Not really sure about the need for young bulls since Bittney and Ruth (the zoo’s current female elephants) are both in their late thirties. But who knows. Perhaps the blog monitor (please please please) can check with the keeper team as to the where abouts of Emanti and Mac. I feel that all of us are very concerned about them and want to follow them where ever they may be.

Have I had bad luck today or is the herd hiding?

Every time I’ve loaded the stream, it’s an empty spot of the yard. Kind of a bummer.

I also am sad at the idea of emanti and mac leaving. But it’s a natural thing.

We have a “bachelor herd” at my local zoo, two of them are younger and are always together as they are brothers. But the other three are not , they will occasionally share space. I think it is always a risk for them.

I don’t believe it. When I went to check if the 2nd comment had posted, at least, I see that the 1st somehow got through in spite of all the techno-chaos. So ignore the 2nd and this one!

Marula, I was delighted and amazed about our “synchronicity” with the daffodils and all! That’s astounding! I’ve seen some similar things over the years but this one is really outstanding. Also I see we have the same “scrambled” reading interests; I always say that anyone who tried to psychoanalyze me based on my reading would give up in despair. I do love poetry, in fact I have a collection of scrapbooks I made over many years, with poems I copied and tried to find magazine pictures, cards, etc., to illustrate–as well as cut-and-paste my own montage pictures. Re: Emanti and Mac, yes, I think we’re thinking the same, and I’m not ready for it either, if we’re right. But I have thought of some good points that may comfort us. IF. We may be totally wrong, of course, we’ll just wait and see.

Northern California, so very glad you’ve been able to post, even in installments! I could just picture Zuli “bush-bashing” the leafy branch–absolutely too cute for words. I remember Neepo doing that once when they had some huge leaves that might have been some kind of palm or maybe even banana leaves, I don’t know, but same deal, doing all sorts of things with his “leaf” and attacking and trampling it. I don’t think he tried to eat it, though. 🙂

I was thinking about why SD has so many little bull ellies, and I wonder… I think I read that they have a higher mortality rate than females, in the wild. So maybe Nature has arranged it so that more boy babies than girl babies are born? I really liked your analogy to indigenous rites of passage, regarding all those rambunctious male calves. Like you, I hope SDZSP will be able to build a “bull herd” enclosure someday. I bet they’re trying to figure out how to make it work, even now. As Jan said, there was something mentioned quite awhile ago along those lines.

I am hoping that all will be well for Anna B.

You have certainly seen the world! I loved the ocean but didn’t get there very often and only briefly when I did have a chance (Cape Cod–yes, Nauset where Beston wrote, among other towns–and St. Petersburg and The Strand near San Diego). I had hoped somehow to go to the Cape again, but it won’t happen now that I’m so far away from the coast. I don’t regret that, it’s so beautiful here and what can compete with deer in your back yard! But I think it is very hard for you to be confined as you are now; I know how I felt all those years in that tiny second-floor apartment (though I was also grateful I had a place to live at all). I hadn’t thought about Grandmother Spider–have you seen the wonderful paintings of Susan Seddon Boulet? That was where I learned about some of the shamanistic things; her paintings were very surreal and yet also with a realism in the people and animals. I haven’t followed-up much on shamanism, however. Or maybe I’m into that without knowing it! I loved that beautiful concept of “threads of light” and your wonderful description of it. Of course it takes us back to the whole thing with that speech of Chief Seattle’s. I was just now looking for the quote I wanted so I could cite it properly: “Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it.” And that “whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.” This is particularly poignant to me since I have just been looking at Nick Brandt’s new book–well, the photos on-line–where he’s blended two photos together showing wild African animals in the midst of civilized things, like elephants in the midst of bridge construction for instance, as if they wandered in there. These photos also show people as being equally threatened by modern life. Brandt has done several [colossally expensive] books about threatened African wildlife and is one of the people involved in Big Life Foundation to help and protect elephants and other animals.

Well, it’s nearly tomorrow here (late at night on 4/6) but when I checked the blog about 1/2 hour ago, I saw that you and Marula had posted… Hmm, there are elephants visible in the semi-darkness at the Park, I see. Or, no, by the time the “Ad” for the Butterflies finished, the ellies had walked out of cam range. Just as well, it’s too late for me! 🙂 Would have been nice for the night-owls in other time zones, however.

I tuned in mid-morning and was so happy to see a few ellies enjoying fresh branches and leaves. Zuli was having a grand time wildly swinging around a fairly large branch filled with leaves, tossing it and catching it, attacking it, trampling it and then finally tearing at it and attempting to eat some of the leaves while his mama and Msholo were nearby calmly eating. I think it was Luti (hard to see because it was far away) was also eating peacefully (probably because Umngani was not around to bully). I’ve been thinking about it too, Gawa and Lana, and I think Luti’s bullying and aggression does have to do with them not being in the wild and having enough space to splinter off or have a room for Luti to go hang out with the bachelor herd. It is why indigenous people had (and some still do) such rigorous rites of passage for the young males who reach the age and transition that Luti is going through. It must be very challenging for the herd (and for the Keepers) to have this young male who is going through his, almost, out of control, high testosterone phase in such a relatively small space. It would be wonderful if at some point, SDZSP were able to expand their elephant acreage to accommodate such challenges and give our wildly successful reproductive herd (which speaks well of the SDZSP care of our ellies) more room and space for a bachelor herd. I think Jan had mentioned something about that. I’m dreaming of it for them……
There is so much to say regarding all the beautiful, thoughtful, funny, sweet, challenging, loving and wonderful sharings from all of you my hooman herd. And I always have such limited time to try and quickly get a posting in. I’ve been reading all your posts avidly everyday. On some days, I think it’s the main thing that motivates me to keep going. I drink it all up hungrily like a honeybee to nectar (as Marula would say). Marula, Marula, what would we do without your loving, funny, poetic and wise musings everyday? Lana your wise and welcoming matriarchal postings sustain me through the darkness too. I believe in synchronicity too and think it’s no coincidence that I was drawn (almost magically) to discover the SZ video cams a few days before Zuli was born. Each of you long-time watchers welcomed me and helped me and I know a few of you told me that you had been through major health crises yourself. Jan, I was so touched you wrote about your son and mother even though I know your life is so hectic and busy. I know there was a bigger picture to losing my mom at such a relatively young age and why I am now going through it again with my daughter. Caring for a loved one and living through and experiencing their suffering, is so very painful, but I believe it causes the soul to grow and deepens the empathy and compassion you have for other human beings. I have always had that for animals, but needed to learn that regarding my fellow human beings. I too am surviving through prayer and the love of some close friends and the love of all of you. Gawa, you are such a sweet soul. I feel your loving gentleness but also your strength. I thank you and Marula for sending me love every day. Lana, I thank you so much for asking me how I was doing (exhausted to the bone but enduring) when I know you struggle off and on so much yourself–my heart is with you. aBrooklyn New Yorker (may I call you Brooklyn NY?), welcome to our abundant sharing herd after you’ve been watching for a year! Yay, yay. I loved Brooklyn and stayed there with a friend the 2 times I went to NY. Midwest fan welcome! (I think you’ve posted before haven’t you?) and what happened to our lovely Linda from the south Bay Area and our sweet, wise Animal Lover? East Coast and Paula, I was so very happy to see you both pop in for some posts–always so great to hear from both of you. Esampu and Gawa, I love the photos with easy links to access them–thank you, thank you! Esampu, are you majoring in Biology? You have such a passion, I can picture you studying elephants in Africa……….
Ah, how to respond to so many of the posts without going on and on. So I will attempt to be brief, but will probably not be, and that’s why I put my ellie sharing first and saved the personal sharing until the end, so people who just want to read about our ellies can skip this part if they don’t want to read it. Marula and Lana, I had never heard of Beston, so of course had to look him up. I look forward to reading his book someday about his time living alone on Cape Cod. I don’t know much about the East Coast seashore, except for spending a few weeks in Camden. Maine, so it will be very interesting for me. I feel like the sea is entwined with my soul. Throughout my life, through synchronicities, I have been drawn to and given opportunities to travel, study or live by the sea: San Francico, Berkley, Bermuda, the Virgin Islands, San Juan Islands, southeast Alaska, Greece, Hawaii, Mexico, Findhorn, Scotland, Monterey Bay Area, Muir Beach and China Camp in Marin. I have been living in Mendocino County for 20 yrs, 2 hours inland from the sea and now that my daughter and I can’t make it to the ocean, I feel like my sealskin/soulskin is parched and drying out (from author Pinkola Estes). I was born in San Francisco, but we moved when I was 3 to the Sonoma Valley where I grew up with the white-tailed deer, jack rabbits and my beloved ancient live oak trees whose great trunks cradled me as I lay in them for hours daydreaming and reading. But my parents brought us often to the beautiful Sonoma County beaches–especially one called Salmon Creek with large sand dunes that my sisters and I played and explored in–so I smiled because of Beston and his beloved sand dunes. Ahh, Gawa, you made me sigh with deep, happy memories when you mentioned Elkhorn Slough. I was studied at UC Santa Cruz from 1977-1985 and lived in Santa Cruz, Pacific Grove and Big Sur so I traveled through and would stop at Elkhorn Slough whenever I was making the journey through there. I have particularly fond memories of a canoe trip with my Ornithology class. It was so exciting to watch the return of the sea otter to Elkhorn Slough at that time and now it looks like they are quite abundant there! Marula, I too had looked up Elkhorn Slough when Gawa mentioned it and saw there were a couple of video cams, but unfortunately have been unable to access them on my computer for some reason. I am so thrilled Gawa and Nusu that you kayak there and go to Big Sur! Where do you live? As you can see, I have lived a very full active life (I feel like I’ve lived a few lives just in this one life). It has been a very outward, in-the-world kind of life. Even my spiritual path has been very outward. So I feel like my present life, being homebound and taking care of my daughter 24/7 and living with her suffering is destiny too for both her and me. It is a destiny that’s unfolding but I believe it is for soul-growth handed to me by Creator and my Soul–teaching me about being there totally for another human being, unconditional love, patience, endurance, being in the moment, going inward into my heart, connecting with Creator, gratitude and enjoying the little, simple, beautiful, miraculous and challenging moments of life. I feel like “our” ellies have been teaching me that too–what they have been through and how they live now with such grace and loving gentleness and compassions in such a relatively small space. They are my zen masters. I’m not always successful because I can be a very action-oriented and impatient and have always needed a lot of alone time in Nature. It is like I am being put “through the crucible of fire to burn off the dross” I still chaff at the bit sometimes. It’s hard for me to not be out in my garden and walking on our land. I could feel your pain when you talked about that too, Lana. Marula, I remember the anger and sadness when my mom was so ill, but it also deepened me and later it lead me onto such amazing, soul-growth adventures. It was her final gift to me. And yes, I too believe in cause and effect, but over the years it has mellowed into an allowing of the mystery of it. I loved hearing about your elderly, beloved mentor and you learning about all aspects of weaving with her elder wisdom mixed into it. Lana, I also loved your beautiful wise words about weaving and life. I had a shamanic teacher who taught us about weaving and the luminous fiber threads that emanate from our being and connect us all to one another and to all of life. She said those threads of light weave us into a web around the planet (thus the tales of Grandmother Spider) and we are all interconnected through them in a beautiful tapestry of life that is Mother Earth and then out into the stars and the Universe and Creator. So yes, I believe we can probably learn (or remember) how to communicate telepathically along those threads. Speaking of which, please send lots of love and positive thoughts to Anna B. I just read from her newsletter that she has been battling for her life for the past year (maybe cancer). I guess she is doing a webinar at the end of April (her first in over a year), so I would encourage anyone who’s interested in her work and can afford it, to sign up because you just never know if this could possibly be her last one. I sincerely hope not, because she has given so much help and healing to wild animals all around the world. Her website is called AnimalSpirit.
This has taken me all day to write between my other tasks and I apologize sincerely for its length………

Our daylight saving ended last night. It got more inconvenient for me to keep up with the Escondido ellies. My clock says 10 am now but it’s already 3 pm at SDZSP. I’m missing the best part of the day which is definitely early morning when things get much more interesting in the ellies world. Umm, it’ll take me a while to get used to…

Lana, thanks for the Kaia and Umangani’s earlier day hand feeding and regrouping share. I could picture Kaia running and making a 🐝line for the section at the barn! I think she likes to make a decision herself and take a lead before someone else does. I’ve seen her trotting with Msholo before from the Stonehenge at the upper yard and she even went ahead of him, marching away. Soon after, Mama U was in a hurry trying to catch up with the little one. It’s a great sign of leadership right there.
I also saw Umngani kids were in the barn earlier (before the dawn for me), it was good to know the Umngani family was separated from the rest of the herd(Luti). Mama U and Kaia even had their own separated section from her big kids.

I can only tell you who was who the dust-pile at the time. I only had a glance at them playing and then I dozed off💤, darn. When I opened my eyes, I too saw only Msholo at the Stonehenge. So, I missed the good bits.
It was Zuli on the dust- pile. The babysitters were Kami and Nisa.

I saw Ndula mud bathing too. And I missed the fun bit again, though I saw Nisa got the muddiest face of the bunch later on. It’s great that we are filling each other the gaps we missed.

To be able to hear the history of the Amboseli herds and the the natural cause was absolutely fascinating. It was so heartbreaking and also astonishinas for me to hear the 2008-2009 draught. I was wondering why there were so many deaths among all kinds of ages, males and also females and it affected everyone. I had no idea about the history behind, I only knew nothing but the result from the graphic images. I was so pleased that you told me as well as the babies born from the survivors. Of course. Elephants conceive their babies for 2 yrs!! I forgot about it. Why didn’t I see that? Oh, the great mystery was solved!! Lana, this is an incredibly awe experience for us, don’t you think!? We both solved it together!!!

Yes, the power of the internet is great! I only discovered about the liveCam things not so long ago. Since I’m not a facebook or twitter kind of girl, making friends online is still an unbelievable event for me. But anything is possible where we live in these days, so all working great for me. I’m very appreciative of this great new discovery.
Since I was a little girl, the library was my playground because both of my parents were busy at working. I was such a book worm and still am, I took out as many as books I could carry home and went back for more. I just love the smell of old books too. I still prefer to turn pages with my hand. But I also take advantage of Google as well. In fact, I admit that I google everything nowdays. It’s so strange we say “google” as a verb.

Before I go, did you all notice that we haven’t seen Emanti and Mac for 3 days now? I wonder where they are. I know they’re at the back holding. But what for???

When I tuned in today (4/5)about 1pm SD time, a keeper was alone sweeping and trimming the bushes alongside the stairs near the barn at the upper side. He looked like a keen gardener to me with a hat on working very hard. What so amusing and I was super jealous of him was that he got the whole 12 of ellies in the audience, standing in line by the wall and watching him so closely. I wish I can do my gardening like that with the ellies!!! Autumn leaves are falling here and my garden needs a lot of tidy up. I need a hand (trunk) from a great arborist like Msholo. (( note; Emanti and Mac weren’t at the front yard all day today, I guessed they were again together hanging around at the back holding;))

Have you noticed that white morning glories are now in their full bloom? They’re near the Stonehenge cave at the upper yard. I wonder whether our ellies have some nibbles from there. I’ve seen a photo of a wild ele with a white morning glory in his mouth. I tried to search for the photo once again but now it’s completely lost in the virtual world.

Gawa, a trunk hug from me❤️ My wish has been granted AGAIN by another charming fairy🧚‍♀️🏻!!!
Aww, I just love Emanti’s face in that photo. How happy he looks! Yes, definitely he’s smiling. Thank you SO much for sharing with us.
And you wanted to know who the young ellie next to Emanti was?
It’s Nisa 🎉100%!!
I was pretty sure but I had some doubts at first. Because the views from the cam sometimes play up the size of ellies and confuse us in dimension-wise too. A small thing may look bigger than actual or a steep hill may look pretty flat on the screen and such. In the photo, the size of Emanti and Nisa showed very similar. But in reality, he is much bigger than her. That confused me to determined either it was Kami or Nisa. So just to make sure I didn’t make mistakes, I checked a couple of photos of Nisa and yours in comparison -especially the shape (pattern) of her ear looking from the profile and her eyes as well. And today I was hoping that she would come to the same place in front of the tree stump as your photo. I was calling Nisa telepathically all day. And then, in the late afternoon, she finally came along with Kaia! She even stood there exactly the same angle as well! My thoughts actually worked for real! I was so excited to see her at live cam whose ears were absolutely identical to the one on the photo. Just in case, I compared it to Kami’s ear but they were completely different. I triple checked before I made it to the conclusion. Now, I can tell you it IS Nisa. So I supposed she was babysitting Zuli that day, that’s why she was right next Emanti. The mystery was solved!🔍🕵️🏻‍♀️Ah, I feel much better now.

The visualization of Amboseli families/herds are absolutely fascinating! I was completely mesmerised by such a complexity of the research. At first, I was happy to follow the pink dots= births. And then, it was so interesting to see so many family members moving around to join another herd. In 2009, there were staggering numbers of spirits were called upon by angels. Why so many deaths in the particular year though? Very mysterious. Freda was among the others, 74 years old when she too passed away. 3 years later in 2012 was the baby boomers year. It was so unbelievable to see such numbers of “pink dots” in graphics. I was very surprised and happy too.

I googled Elkhorn Slough and imagined you free-spiritedly kayaking. And then,look what I found!! You can see otters floating on the river on live cam! Check it out on// elkhornslough.org otterCam//
I was ecstatic when I found an otter floating on the water with his arms on his belly. Saw a, did you know about the life Cam? I’m sure that Northern California will be so excited to see them too!

Lana, I’m sorry to hear that you sometimes have “bad” day. When I don’t hear for you, I hope you are just busy. I checked the weather in your region, and still very very cold over there. Jan and East Coast (?)too. “Please take care. Keep warm and don’t catch any cold.” This message is to all of the hooman friends in the cold regions. And “Let’s enjoy the warm sun and nice breeze like our ellies and otters are feeling right now!” Shouting out to Northern California, Gawa, Esampu(?) and everyone in the warmer regions😁

We all are very worried about “Luti harassing Umngani”. I said that Kaia is a relaxed baby and kept emphasising that Umngani can defend herself. Of course she can. But it doesn’t mean that she wants to. I may be wanted to believe that there was nothing to worry about and take it as lighthearted as possible. But after reading Lana’s wise comments, I realised and regretted at the same time, I have been not wanting to admit that Umngani and Kaia’s emotional distress. All Umngani kids must be feeling that too. Just before Ndula Luti and Zuli were separated from the rest in the afternoon, I saw Luti stormed off to Umngani. His eyes were only focused on her but nothing else. Luti very sharply shoved Khosi’s cheek and Kaia was just trying to escape from the big wave. It made me gasped and held my breath. I’m on the same page as you all now. Very worried and feeling helpless- I hate that feeling.

Jan, l was so thankful for everything you said and even you told us your most difficult experiences in order to give us such deep levels of empathy and I don’t know how to express my gratitude to you. You’re such an incredible woman. (and an incredibly busy woman too.) I will keep thinking about what life application lesson means to me.

Northern California, my heart shattered to hear about your mother and also your daughter. Please check your mailbox every day that I keep sending a parcel filled with my love and hope to you. You are the bravest and strongest fighter who I want to fight with and conquer whatever is against us. And I am always overwhelmed by your compassion of love. Thank you so much. I also hope your daughter can have a restful sleep just like 💤Zuli. I saw him sleeping this afternoon (4/5) entirely for over 30 mins at the lower yard until people from the caravan tour woke him up.😩🤫 Then, the cam quickly switched to the upper yard and I found Kaia was sleeping there at the very same time. I can send your daughter telepathically singing a lullaby. But the second thought maybe I shouldn’t…because I’m absolutely hopelessly at it. I sing totally out of tune😮🎶🙉🙀(your cat)But I’m a good dancer though.🕺💃🏻

Lana, I can’t tell you how much your every bit of word heals my wounds and brings me such hope and joy. I can feel your warm voice as reading your beautiful words too. You were the first person to acknowledged and welcomed me with open arms. And you were the first person that I opened my heart to and shared my story with. Thank you so much for being in the present moment for me whenever I want to lean on or just need a friendly company. You are my inner sanctuary.

Feeling a bit chilly this week, I remembered Esampu’s memory of Sheldrick keeper who once feared of the ellie’s dungs might fall onto his head while sleeping next to each other. I just cracked out laughing…Thanks.🤣

Animal Lover, if you happen to be reading our ele blog, did you know that the Milwaukee County Zoo has an Amur tiger cam? (Their tiger exhibit doesn’t look a nice as ours here at SDZSP, but I did just see the tiger!)

In preparing us for an elephant move from SDZSP, I would like to mention that the Milwaukee County Zoo has announced that they are opening up a new elephant exhibit next month. Their exhibit can hold up to 5 elephants including bulls. They already have two female resident African Elephants named Ruth and Brittany. I do not know if any of SDZSP elephants will move to the Milwaukee County Zoo, but just thought you would like to have an idea as to a possible future home for one or more of your beloved elephants.

Happy Friday! Thanks everyone for the updates on how Umngani is doing against the pest, Luti. I’m glad others are protecting Mama U and Kaia. I just tuned in (10 PST) and I caught her chasing him away, I think he was trying to steal her food. Kaia was down the way hanging out with big sister Khosi, so she was out of the line of fire. I’m really glad that Umngani is defending herself, it’s gotta be tough being at the bottom of the ladder.

Thank you, Gawa for posting that adorable photo of Emanti! I have a soft spot for him as the rest of us do, apparently. Also, the story of poor Zuli getting dung on his back was hilarious. It reminds me of stories I’ve heard from the Sheldricks keepers from when they used to sleep on the floor in the elephant’s stables and they would wake up to the elephants about to drop dung on them. No wonder they’ve now moved the keeper’s beds up top, as a loft bed!

@Marula. In the ‘Trunk War’ photo on San Diego Zoo Safari Park FB page, the weights of Kaia and Zuli are mentioned in a comment on the expanded photo page.

My dearest Lana, I absolutely loved the way you described the synchronicity of our life metaphorically to the weaving. Oh, that’s so beautifully done. I write it down your wisdom words into my journal and marked with a Post-it. It was especially meaningful for me. So thank you very much. I believe Carl Jung’s concept of the Synchronicity too. Everything occurs in our life is connected to one another. I like William Whewell’s concept – the Axiom of Causality, according to his belief;
1. Nothing takes place without a cause.
2.The magnitude of an effect is proportional to the magnitude of its cause.
3.To every action there is an equal and opposed reaction.

Plato also said back in 360BC, from one of his dialogue that-
In addition, everything that becomes or changes must do so owing to same cause; for nothing can come to be without a cause.

A tiny coincidence like me seeing an otter’s picture the day before Northern California told us about her wild experience with otters in Big Sur. Or you introduced me Beston’s world months before and we both were very surprised to find that our Northern California herself had experienced very similar wildlife as his! ( the moment I read Northern California’s, I imagined your big smile and I thought out loud, “ Lana!! Can you believe this!!?”

We only are able to figure out the synchronicity of “cause” much later in life, mostly it just slips away and we don’t even notice it. Because it is so premature and invisible. It must be like a grain of sand in the whole universe. But sand-like “cause” surely has a meaning and gravity within itself.
So, I believe that it definitely has a meaning that my dad’s got sick and it will definitely lead me to the next one. As Jan experienced with her mother, it will show me too what it meant by that cause many years later. And I’d like to find myselmuch grown as a person. So how we react to the present is really important because it is very much connected to the future and past as well.

Still talking about the synchronicity and the meaning of our life, I must say this is definitely NOT a coincidence that I met you, Lana. I never thought I was able to find a person like you again. Once I had a person very close to my life who, I looked up, admired (worship-like)and loved her so much with all my heart. I can’t ignore the resemblance between you and her as a person ( she was in her 90s so I’m saying this as a person wise) I don’t believe this is a random thing at all. Thank you very much for being the most beautiful matriarch to me.

To all of my hooman friends in the herd, to be able to have conversations with each of you is just as important for me. Thank you everyone for showing me the same amount of compassion and empathy as our ellies do for each other. I really appreciate it with bottom of my heart. I can’t tell you how much it means to me to get to know you, Lana, Northern California, Jan, Gawa and Esampu♥️ I really look forward to “talk” to you, East Coast Elephant Fan, Paula and Poppy, and more 😘“old-timers” me respectfully calling. Of course, it’s just as exciting to meet more new people here too! It seems that us Busy Bees are so loud having conversations and so much fun here that now welcoming more new-bees ( newbies )!!! It’s SO awesome!!!🌟

Lana, when the earthquake struck Feb.22 2011. I was in the city library and the bookshelf fell over like dominoes falling. Lots of books flew over me. But luckily I didn’t get hurt. My sister was at a different aisle. The lights were off and it got very dark all of a sudden. I yelled out her name and went looking for her. Thank God, I found her soon because she too was calling my name. Everyone was surprisingly very calm. In fact, all of us were in a state of shock. Only the emergency alarm was set off which was so ear-piercingly loud. We all quickly evacuated outside. Then we saw the glass scattered everywhere. A lot of collapsed buildings collapsed. There were huge cracks on the concrete grounds and roads. My sister and I followed the crowds going to the same direction. Then it led us to the square, where many people gathered in. We stayed for about 3 hours there, because we had many aftershocks coming again and again. Then we had to walk home because we couldn’t get inside of the car park building. It took us over 2 hours to get home. Our family and house survived just cracks and a chimney fall. More people experienced far worse than us. Lots of people died that day. We were very lucky. I found out on the news that the little antique shop, where we were at only 30 mins before the earthquake struck, was completely collapsed to the ground. The entire roof fell down. If only we decided to stay a little longer…I got a chill in my spine. We can talk about it no problem now. But not so long ago now, we had some anxiety problem and got scared really easily over a little shake or noises, even what the tracks made. That was horrible. Once my city was very famous for the beautiful gardens. Now, there are still constructions everywhere for rebuilding. I think the earthquake destroyed our charms. We used to have lots of Scottish inherited stone buildings. Now it’s all destroyed and gone. That was especially hard for elderly people because they all grew up with them. We don’t know how many more years we need to wait to see our city rebuilt again.

To hear about Ndula sheltering Zuli from the sun and also Swazi too made me love and respect elephants even more. They surprise me and also teach me every day.

To relate to your sharing, which baby ele tries and practice to put something on his/her head. I saw Zuli was standing right behind Khosi. He was just happened to be there luckily or unluckily. Her dung landed on top of his back! Zuli’s ears flared up, he was wiggling his body. He didn’t know what was on his back. After many wiggles, finally Khosi’s fresh dung fell off. Zuli stopped and gazed at it. Then, he decided to do dung-bathing!
What a happy kid he was!! Khosi’s dung flew everywhere!! He can turn anything into a new toy! Very positive thinking 😄

Hello All,

I’m fairly new to viewing the elephant cam. It’s been approximately a year since I’ve discovered this beautiful family. I saw Luti harassing Umngani today around 12pm EST and in the end Msholo ran him off. What is the cause of his aggression?!?!?! It worries me because Umngani is a mom caring for a young Ellie. Luti appeared to be persistent in his attacks, but it was good to see Msholo step in and end the nonsense.

Yes Midwest Fan, I did notice that the green transport crate had been removed from the West yard. :
I had been experiencing severe reception problems with Elephant cam yesterday. Then there was a very strange early evening occurrence where the same 10 second segment of cam video was replayed over and over in a continuous loop for approx. 20(?) minutes. I haven’t yet been able to do a complete an Ellie ID head count, but hopefully all is well. Anyway … just read the updated weights for the little ones. Wow … Mkhaya, 683 lbs and Zuli, 727 lbs!

Just wondering if anyone else has noticed that the crate is gone from the east yard. It was there yesterday ( 4/3 ).

Yey! My wish has been granted🧚‍♀️🏻✨by a beautiful fairy!!! Thank you so much, Esampu❤️
What a peaceful photo and you were able to capture the perfect moment! I totally missed to tune in yesterday so I’m SO pleased you shared one with us.
And also I’m really happy to find that the babies CAN have a nap when both are at the same yard. I think it’s a huge change especially for Kaia. They look really happy with sleeping as much as playing together.😄👍
EAT hard, SLEEP hard and PLAY hard, you guys!!

It’s wonderful we have so much “conversation” going back and forth but I can’t seem to keep up with it! So forgive me if I end up skipping something I should have replied-to.

Northern California, it gladdened my heart to see that you had a chance to watch some of the videos and, even more, to be able to write some comments. Your background with the otters and all was so interesting and so poignant. “Great joy and great sadness” is exactly right about anything to do with wildlife. Like you, I’ve never been able to “toughen up” (unless I just avoid it altogether, which is “the death of the soul” as far as I’m concerned, having attempted it for a short while and feeling as if I’d “lost my Self”). Compassion and empathy for others–what kind of a life is it if you don’t have those? But it does hurt terribly sometimes. Once in awhile I can “distance myself,” if I have to, but mostly I just try to endure the emotional devastation. (One of “my” deer is so lame that I don’t know how she’s made it through the winter, poor old girl.)

Sweet Marula, a big “trunk hello” back to you! We talked about the Swazi family with the Keeper the other day. I hadn’t seen that Nisa held the Keeper’s thumb with her trunk-fingers (old computer and old eyes, both)–knowing that made the interaction even more special! Thank you! Yes, they were adorable. Seeing that nap session with Kaia and Zuli must have been marvelous, and then esampu’s photo, too! That was so poetic about the sleep-dust… You are right about Northern California and Beston, what a good comparison. I don’t think it was coincidence that you’d seen the sea-otter picture not long before; synchroncity is the most fascinating thing, how there are all these strange connections as if there’s a pattern woven in our lives, significant things that are so surprising, but we don’t know when or where the threads are going to connect/intersect nor what that pattern will be. It can’t all be random. (You’ll appreciate the weaving, yes? I never did weaving, but sewing and embroidery and all, yes, years ago when I was able.) Thank you, too, for sharing some of your background, I am so sad to hear about your father. I remember that terrible earthquake, one of my penpals lived in New Zealand at the time and I was so worried about her.

A BIG thank-you for mentioning “Wisdom of the Wild”–it has to be one of the oh-so-few Sheldrick things that I have NOT seen before! I was so thrilled to watch it today. Yes, Dame Daphne (I think some of the Keepers called her “Mama Daphne” and I like that so much better) was an incredible person, with unbelievable courage to keep fighting to find a way to make a milk formula so small babies could survive, and to put herself through heartbreak after heartbreak for the sake of the orphans that came into her care. Especially these last years when there were SO many babies, some of them newborns. She believed that elephants–some of them anyway–did communicate telepathically, and certainly had the stories to prove it. I especially loved the time that she hadn’t been to the Voi unit for about a year because of health problems, and when she came, Emily (the matriarch of the ex-orphan herd there) and all the others were standing in the road waiting for her as the car drove in. How did they know she was coming?! And how touching and wonderful that they wanted to be there to greet her. She must have cried. I sure would have! (Actually I did, just reading it.)

esampu, the picture of Zuli and Kaia sleeping was great! I loved the story about Zuli and Msholo. It’s no wonder he was uncertain at first when he was smaller and “new.” Can you imagine how enormous Msholo must have looked? I remember when my Kithaka moved from the Nursery to Ithumba; he had never seen an elephant larger than 3 years old, since he’d been rescued as a newborn, and the first time he saw the really big ellies there, he came running back to the Keepers for protection. Of course he adjusted quickly, but I can only imagine what a shock that first time was for him! Especially since he was a cocky little guy back in Nairobi… Terrible about the bull-hooks and that whole scenario for so many years (and still, in some places). Protected contact and positive reinforcement are such a relief after all that awfulness. Giving the ellies a choice as to whether they want to interact or not–they are so intelligent and self-aware, they will come of their own accord for treatment, and if they love you and trust you, they want to please you.

Gawa, the photo of Zuli and Msholo was wonderful. Perfect! I’d seen something like that one day but not gotten a screen-print. As for Zuli and his “sticks/branches,” I saw him put a stick on his head just yesterday (or was it sometime today? I think yesterday 4/2)–he managed to keep it there for several seconds. I’m sure he’ll be tossing other things up there and across his back, sooner or later. That reminds me of something long ago, and I’m not sure who the calf was after all this time. He’d tossed some wet vegetation (hay? big leaves?) on his back and then he couldn’t shake all of it off, and he couldn’t quite reach it with his trunk, either. He was clearly uncomfortable, but stumped for a solution. His mother (whoever she was) came over, calmly grabbed it with her trunk to rescue him–and ATE it! Too funny. 🙂 You just never know what those ellies will do.

Saw Zuli napping this evening, he was dreaming and his little legs and feet would move a bit from time to time. Ndula stood there casting her shadow across him; I wonder if it was hot there today? I remember a hot day when Nisa was tiny, she was taking a long, long nap and Swazi was eating hay, but she–Swazi–kept moving so that her shadow was always protecting Nisa. I had read that they do that, but it was remarkable to actually see it.

Marula, ask and you shall receive! Here’s another screen shot I grabbed of both babies asleep again! This time, they’re not next to each other, but it’s still very cute. Kaia got up about a second after I took the shot, Zuli stayed on the ground (no surprise there, he loves to sleep!)

I’m very sorry. Oh, my. It got annoyingly long post again, didn’t it? I started writing about five in the morning and now it’s over 8 o’clock. I’ve got to prepare my family breakfast 🍳👩‍🍳No wonder outside was much lighter through the curtains. But I have to say I was in my inner sanctuary while I was writing to you. So thanks!

Northern California, your post has never got lost. I found yours right after I sent mine up. So it means we were reading each other’s at the same time and writing again. So our telepathic wave of love wasn’t ended at all. In fact, as the waves have come to you and back to me, back and forth just like the endless tides. You are still receiving it telepathically from me with a wee otter’s help, even just now you are reading this.

Your wildest story was so inspiring to me. You living alone in a remote for 4 months is absolutely staggering. What a lifetime achievement that was for you to accomplish by yourself alone! You are the bravest!! Don’t deny it this time because I’m telling the truth. You spent the countless night looking at the constellation and watched the tides coming and going in Big Sur. You watched the otters until the sundown and learnt so much from the nature world… Wow, exactly like Henry Beston in Cape Cod! You and Beston have the same connections of the way you physically experienced in the Marine Life and the way you appreciate Mother Nature and also you have the same quality of nature telling as he did. Therefore you and he have so much in common. I can feel your wild heart from your writing. How you describe the wild surroundings and share your insights of them is breathtakingly beautiful as I try to imagine from them.
I read, again and again, I spent the whole day thinking of you and Big Sur, otters wrapped in kelp! along with other marine animals as well as the admiring preditors (of course including your cats too). Thank you very much for sharing another beautiful side of you.
((Believe it or not, the day before yesterday, I did randomly see a picture of a cute otter with a small caption which got me so interested in which said that each of them has got their own favourite stone as a tool and keep one intact securely into the excess skin (pocket) under the armpit. And otters particularly love abalone and urchin which are all delicacy to us hoomans;))

Thank you so much for sending your love back to me. I caught it with my arms wide open. I think it was the reason why we were both reading and writing to each other at the exact same time- channelling the same frequency of telepathic waves. I really needed that yesterday. It was one of the days that I was feeling low. But don’t worry, my battery has fully charged up now thanks to your post, the SD ellies ( the cam was not working on my computer either but it got back at the end of the day ), the youtube videos. I watched a little 10 mins clip of the Sheldrick documentary -“Elephant Orphans…Wisdom of the Wind”. I wish I could watch the whole things. Daphne is beautiful at heart and I’d like to know more about the inspiring and the strongest fighters-the orphans who taught me at the end of the day my pain is just nothing compared to things they endure. And I also learnt that within their lowest and darkest day, there’s still hope and lighter side to it just like the orphans have their keepers who fight with and try their best to give one a second chance and other older recovering ellies that give caressing as if a mother.
Thank you for your compassion about my dad. Sometimes my negative thought about his illness gets me really bad. I become a very sad and angry person. I am angry with the illness that made him so fragile and vulnerable. How deeply my family got stuck in the mud and we are still waiting for someone to help us. Thank God, Tim was rescued safely. You are right. We have to be very strong and some point you must be detached emotionally from a brutal life, otherwise, we break. I still remember when my dad had been put in the ICU and spent over a month in the hospital. My mum, my sister and I visited him every day stayed with him from morning to the sunset. It still haunts me sometimes to remember him being so thin. I don’t know how we did get through. The doctor in ICU told us that “He might not make it tonight. But all human life is limited and we all die eventually.” I furiously cried in disbelief when she said that. What a heartless things to say to a patient family. But to come to think of it years later, it probably was her way of defense mechanism, which all the doctors and nurses are put constant battles against many sick life. They need to be prone to the pain and desert themselves from all the emotions. As you said -we need to be detached emotionally. The bright side of this horrible experience, the bond between my family has got stronger than ever. Our life still runs very much around him. But we’re okay with it. My dream was to become an chef and also patissier. And I became one and loved so much working at the hotel for over 6 years. But recently I let my work so that I can have more time with my dad and be a support to my mum who’s been his main caregiver 24/7. Now I’m working at home doing the apparel business to locals. When I was a teen to my early 20s, I learnt all kinds of skills of making clothing and patterning, weaving, spinning, dying textile, tapestry, knitting, embroidering etc from the weavers & spinners guild which I was belonged to. We once had the beautiful stone built art centre but the earthquake completely destroyed it in Feb.2011. I was extremely lucky that I survived. The elderly ladies all in their 70’s and 80’s who were so kind of sharing the knowledge with me there. My best friend (she calmed me one) was 88 years old American lady from Chicago who migrated to New Zealand. She was a very artistic lady. We shared our thoughts (me mostly listening) and a love of poetry. We had the best time together until she passed away when she was 96 in 2013. I admired her so much and worshipped her. I was a very peculiar teenager back then interested in those kinds of artwork. But I’m very thankful that I was able to learn all. Because they’re very useful to my work now. So it all worked so well.

Life is very interesting. You never know when to turn and then what to do and who to meet along the way. Just like now, I’m talking to you from far far away and not knowing your face but 100% feel right and completely connected to… Whenever I feel low, I jokingly tell my family that my house has got a little hole and a cold wind coming through, now I need to go collecting my ellies dungs and cover the hole all up with it. It’s the enchantment dungs. So the bad spirit won’t come inside and haunts me along with the cold wind. My family knows what it means that I need time off from everything and pull myself together.
Then I turn my favourite Dixie Chicks songs on. They are such a booster in my soul so as to write to you all or enjoy watching the SDZSP ellies. Sooner or later, I’m myself, again. Happy me😄 You all are my great enchantment that works every time on me. Thank you.

Marula, I loved your description of Kaia and Zuli napping together with feet intertwined so endearing and the part about the enchantment sleep dust from the moms. And then even Esampu’s image to add to the whole mental image! And even Neepo napping! It reminds me of one of the mango-visiting videos when the matriarch brings the herd of wild elephants right through the lodge (I think it was Lana that recommended it) and after feasting on mangoes about 4 or 5 of the young ones are all sleeping sprawled out and entwined together (you can almost sense them snoring!) in total peace, safety and contentment under the mango tree right in the middle of the lodge grounds because they have established such a good relationship with the lodge owners and staff that they feel safe enough to do so.
Marula, I hope you got my special thanks to you a few posts ago because I think we were posting at the same moment and it might have got lost in all the posts. I want to make sure you got it because your post to me from April 1 was very special, comforting and timely for me. I think you are gifted like Anna B. but just might not have discovered your abilities yet. My daughter is sleeping a lot today, so that’s why I’m catching up while I can and posting so much today……………

I saw very very rare site yesterday (4/2), Umngani, Khosi, Neepo, Ndula were in the stone shelter at the west yard and Zuli and Kaia were sleeping together.💤 Zuli’s little foot was on Kaia. Their bodies were attached together. I think it was me first time ever to see them took a nap together! How could it possible!!Especially from Kaia let Zuli sleep and her sleep with him!? Yey!!! I yelled out but stopped myself 🤫. I wished that everyone stayed very quiet not to wake the babies. It lasted for 15 minutes or so, the babies occasionally flapped their ears and tails. Mums were enjoying dust bathing at the time which created a huge smoke in the cave. Maybe it was a sleeping dust? Because It worked so well. I saw Neepo was also lying down, sleeping. Although, the quiet nap was suddenly broken by curious Msholo’s big entrance.The babies quickly got up and find their space because the cave got very crowded all of a sudden. Kaia was trying to reach Msholo’s tusk a couple of times. They looked very cozy with him. Unngani and Khosi sandwiched him very tightly. Trunk twining each other and caressing. I saw very affectionate gestures among them. What a sweet big family they are.❤️❤️❤️ I wanted to see them like that forever.

Ahh esampu. Just saw the photo. So, so adorable. Thank you.

I spotted a rare sight today: both babies asleep together! I’ve seen Zuli sleeping many times, but rarely Kaia and never both babies together! I screengrabbed it for all to enjoy: https://imgur.com/H9NIKoH

Glad I can help, Marula! I have been following and researching ellies for 2 years now (nothing compared to some of the long-time fans who post here), first through the Sheldricks and now here at SDSZP. Not sure how I found this herd, but it was probably via an Instagram video of the babies. Seeing them in person was so lovely, they are so much bigger in person! The only thing we didn’t see was a Zuli/Kaia play session – unfortunately, the babies that day were separated. Kaia was still very amusing, running around the exhibit with one of the nannies while Umngani took a break. Zuli was more focused on trying to destroy the feeder box that Ndula was eating from. I don’t think they could eat solid food at that point.

I caught the herd this morning around 7:30 PT and everyone was being very playful and affectionate. Mama U had her trunk on the back of one of the younger ellies and Zuli was pretending to nurse from one of the other females. A bunch of them were huddled together. Ndula watched from a few steps away and then walked into the group. One of the other elephants (sorry I can’t recognize many of the very well) started walking backwards into the herd and he was kicked away – perhaps this was Luti? At that point, Umngani ran away and little Kaia followed her.
Emanti was drinking water and Zuli came up to him and started to try to play with him. It was very cute and they played for a little bit.

I love watching them in the morning, they seem most “elephant like” then.

Esampu, great that it was the right one! It was SO romantic and tender. The way the sunlight hitting their body was doing some beautiful effect, don’t you think? -almost the veil-like. One thing made me giggle was that those white birds on each of ellie’s back, being very nosy!

Yes, the little stadium you saw has been apparently used for presentations or Khosi’s big birthday party that Jan was able to see years ago. It was good that ellies didn’t mind the weather and you were able to meet them. Wait, Christmas Day in SDZSP!? Come on, how romantic is that!!!

When I started to observe our ellies, I noticed some liquid coming from Msholo and sometimes ladies as well. I didn’t know what they were until you mentioned the name -“the musth” the other day. And thanks for explaining it to me today. Now I know what it is, I’ll be quite excited to see it from anyone! But the lady on the video said that female cycle only last 3 or 4 days, it means Msholo really needs a bit of Luck🍀🧚‍♀️, doesn’t he? And Ndula avoiding him is certainly not working, either. Oh, a fairly godmother or whoever, please help him!

Marula, the video you found is the correct one! Tim mates with a female named Oprah and the Amboseli researchers describe the whole thing.

I do hope Msholo is successful – when I first started watching the cam (November of last year), he was definitely mating, and then that stopped until recently. The elephants at my local zoo are always going in and out of musth (the period where their hormones are really out of control), so I think it is normal for them to stop being interested. The one person I never see Msholo approach is Ndula – she has a really tough exterior/look, I would not want to mess with her!

I think you also had a question about a “show” with the elephants – the day we went was Christmas Day and it was pouring on and off all day, so the activity at the zoo was somewhat limited. All the ellies were out, but many other animals weren’t. We did see a little “stadium” off to the side, which is what you may have seen, but it was empty and nothing was happening that day.

Marula, you are the Heart of our hooman herd. You have added so much on so many levels to our herd. I’m in awe of all the information and intuitive hits that you have gathered watching and reading about “our” ellie herd in such a short period of time. Yes, I too was going to say to East Coast that I was so happy to see a post from you too. When I first starting watching the cam (just a few days before Zuli was born) you, Jan, Poppy and of course dear Lana helped me and greeted me so much and I was so grateful. I’m so glad Jan you’ve been able to add some beautiful posts (loved the beautifully written white tail dear encounter) even with what sounds like an incredibly busy life. I miss Poppy’s comments too and sometimes Paula a long time watcher will pop in with some wise comments too. I hope both are well and just has been too busy to be able to post but have been avidly watching our exuberant babies playing, exploring and learning and have been celebrating Emanti’s recovery back into the herd. Thank you to all of you for all your wonderful shares about ellies and your magical animal moments. Each one was so very special. Any of you who have watched Anna and Spirit the black leopard, will be so happy to know that I read and saw a short video that Spirit’s sanctuary had brought over the two leopard cubs (now grown) that Spirit had been worried about from Germany and the 3 leopards are now living happily together. That information brought such joy and healing to my broken heart. I hope it will bring some healing to your broken hearts Gawa and Nusu. The full documentary of Anna with the baboons and other animals (Marula, I thought of your story with the fantail landing on your hand when the bird lands on her) and the indigenous people that talk about their tracking abilities and telepathic abilities is also very inspiring and uplifting as well. After watching it and watching some other you tube interviews with Anna, I feel pretty certain, Esampu, that Msholo felt your love and admiration to him and came over to say hello back–I haven’t had a chance to watch your video yet–I can’t wait! Gawa and Nusu, I can’t wait to hear your adventures with “our” ellie herd when you go there. Please send extra love from me to Emanti when you are there. Also, I would be so grateful, if you have time during your visit, to go to the Tiger Trails and visit Rakan the young tiger. He looks so heartbroken every time I see photos of him or see him on the tiger cam. He’s the one who grew up with another rescued tiger (diff subspecies) who he adored and then suddenly Fish and Game took Moka his friend away to another sanctuary when they were young adults. I can tell that Rakan is so lost and heartbroken without his friend and confused where he went. From what I’ve heard from Animal Lover’s posts, Moka is very happy in his new sanctuary home, so maybe you can tell Rakan that he’s ok and we can all send Rakan lots of love. Anna B, says that we can send long distance telepathic messages too, so maybe we can all try that as a hooman herd? And maybe send and receive some messages to Luti to calm down and some love and reassurance to Mama U and Emanti. Wouldn’t that be wonderful if we got some messages back?
Early this afternoon, I was watching darling Zuli exploring beside his mama and eating hay with her. He so cute with his contented chubby little face. He eats and chews and then gets distracted by something, just like a preschooler, goes off exploring a little, then comes back and scoops up some more hay. It is so funny and fascinating when he balances little sticks on the top of his head. I’m so sorry that I missed the incredible mud party, but you described it so well Marula that I was there in my mind enjoying it and cheering the babies on and Emanti too. This afternoon, I was also watching Swazi drive Ndula away from each feedbox that Mama N tried to eat from early this afternoon, but felt nothing but compassion for Swazi as now I know about the terrible culling massacre of her family that she survived when she was probably only 3 or 4 years old at Kruger and then probably some starvation later in Swaziland. I sent her love and compassion and images of abundance and plenty of hay and treats for all. Anna B says the best thing for animals that have been traumatized is not to send pity, but the greatest healing for them is to just send them love and compassion, so I have been practicing that.

A big trunk hello to East Coast Elephant Fan!! I was much delighted to find you here this morning. I haven’t seen you for quite a while. Before I was welcomed by the Hooman herd, I’d been a long blog reader myself. I enjoyed and learnt so much from your comments among other ellies enthusiasts. It’s so incredible that I find myself in the circle now!!! that once I’d been longing to join in and having so much fun with you all. 💗✨

Oh, how so tiny and cute Sundzu was!! Thank you very much for the precious information. I looked up the Reid Park blog and they only briefly talked about him once. And here at SDZSP blogs there are only available until 2015. I didn’t know much about him. I really appreciate that you brought it up. Thank you. I’ve actually seen the YouTube video “new born elephant at San Diego safari park” before. Even though it was one of my favourite old video, I was never able to find who the baby was. I love the video so much because when he fell, the audience was cheering him up as he was their baby boy and when he was back up again they gave big applause for him. I’m so glad that I finally found who he was. As I said before, I want to know all history of our beloved ellies as well as their family members who are currently living at different zoos. I’m very happy that you guys bring it up a time to time. That’s a real treat for me. I’m like a big sponge absorbing so much knowledge and information pouring to me every day. And I’m loving it!

As Lana said, we miss so many incredible things because most often we don’t get to hear or see it in books or documentaries. A lot of (small) things are edited out, unfortunately. Sometimes the tiniest, unimportant or ordinary thing can be the most extraordinary of all. That’s why I love so much about us discussing everything here. Even, my tiniest question get answered! 🥰 I appreciate with all of your kind gesture. Thank you all very much. I want to give my trunk hugs to you all!!!

East Coast Elephant Fan, I really do hope we get to see you here more often, please. ❤️

Some newer viewers of the Elephant cam may not be aware that four male calves were born at SDZSP during 2010. Sundzu, male calf born to mom Litsemba, fathered by Mabu, was born December 27th. He was quite an active (wild) youngster, standing up to the other boys even tho he was the youngest of the pack. In 2012 he was sent with his family to reside at Reid Zoo. I found 3 YouTube videos featuring Sundzu when he was still at SDZSP. If anyone is interested just do a search in YouTube for the following titles: ‘Newborn elephant at San Diego Safari Park’
‘Sundzu and the mud hole’ ‘Baby elephants playing at San Diego Safari Park’.
Also be aware that there are several other newer videos with very similar titles.

Lana, I loved how you said about “Emanti and Mac” and “Gadze and Neepo” – their ways of expressing love for each other./The ritual of affection, which was calligraphed in a slow-motion… So beautiful!!! Thank you. You are brilliant!!!

I wanted to ask you all what you think about this;
Last Wednesday (3/27) after the sunset, about just after 7:00pm (SDZSP time), I saw Swazi and Msholo near the stone shelter at the east yard, head to head sparring together in not fighting or wrestling kind of way as boys do. They were doing like the way you described it for Emanti and Mac. After a couple of minutes or so, they were parted and went to their own ways. Then, right after that it was very refreshing for me to see Swazi laying down on the green lawn for a while, having a good stretch there in the twilight.

And then, Esampu told us that Msholo tried to mate with with Swazi on last Thursday (3/28), though he was rejected by the matriarch😝. I thought this two incidents might be related.

Can sparring between a bull and reproductive female mean the invitation of love? I often see Msholo puts his trunk over other females backside but not sparring…I just wonder.

By the way, Lana, you must’ve been having an awful time with a mouse. But the way you called one-“a wee white-footed mouse” reminded me of Beatrix Potter’s story. So cute.

Lana, thank you so much for your comments about “Destiny”. I read and read that part yesterday and today too. You absolutely perfectly described it. “Yes, Lana!!! That’s it!!!!” I actually spoke out loud as reading it. Thank you. As our hooman herd read it too, they will revisit each of their own time and think – when the destiny called you and its gravity pulled you in while changing the direction completely different and then sent you to where it wanted you to be. Here we’re now, walking on its path, how we take it and live with it is completely up to US. We never know when the destiny calls us afain, and take you on to your next chapter. That is why Life is so interestin. Sometimes it can get a hell of a ride. But still, I love mine.

When I moved to the folklore story from the Cherokee tribes, I instantly pictured -the fire wood burning, an elderly Native American with his low husky voice started telling an ancient story…. I loved it so very much! Lana, Jan, I hope you’ll be able to communicate with your deer more as those ancient people used to do. Well, you’ll have a plenty of opportunity to practice so, keep it up!😁 I want you, Gawa to do the same thing with your happy visitors, hummingbirds, okay? Then, I’ll try to practice too with my little hedgehog friend🦔
This conversation we’re having is great!! keep us talking, all thanks to Northern California ❤️Thank you!!!

Lana and Jan, I’m really happy and super interested when you two talk about the ellies when they were much younger- things I don’t know. Now, I know. It’s “the stadium.” That’s what it is. I’ve been wondering about it.
Yes!! I’d love to see our ellies celebrated there, too! Though, it’s hard to see. I think they use the site for the presentation to introduce the Ellies to the visitors and explain about their nature and things? I’ve seenthem do the tricks there before. That must be very fun to watch for the audience.

Jan, how sweet Nisa’s birthday party was! Thank you for telling us that. I could imagine them having a blast! Because I watched Luti’s 1st birthday party, Lana!!! Wow, that’s how our ellies celebrate theirs. How cute and small Luti was!!! Very chubby little one too. He was a little bit big for 1 year old ele? I thought. I can’t wait for Zuli and Kaia’s birthday!

After the video was played 5 or more times, I accidentally clicked the next one or maybe it did autoplay itself? I discovered the fascinating video names “Elephant Exhibit Expanded”. You must see if you haven’t seen one.
Curtis will explain to you how the new elephant valley created and how the whole thing works- including the hydraulic gate too. I saw3 or 4 little ones along with the much younger looking adults eles. I really love the video, particularly because we get to see every direction from the whole valley that I can’t see from the cam, also with the dimensional perspective.Now I see how the ground so bumpy and there are lots of slopes too. No wonder it’s called the elephant ”valley”.

Thank you, Jan! I read your post just as I was headed for bed myself, so I slept better with my “memories” verified! I’d been looking at some of the old Trunk Talk videos of the “kids” when they were tiny, shortly before that–I’d forgotten how impossibly cute it is to see 3 or 4 or 5 little elephants, all just about the same size, rolling around in the mud or whatever. You hardly know where to look. And every time I watch “Playin’ with Papa” I seem to see something I missed the time before.

What I also found that I had never seen before was an SDZ-generated YouTube video about Luti : “Lutsandvo’s 1st Birthday Party.” (That is how they spell “1st,” not “First,” so may make a difference when you search.) This is great and it’s a MUST-SEE for the new people as it shows his cake, and Mindy is discussing the whole thing from start to finish. So we get to see Mindy! 🙂 Also Luti was adorable as a baby, of course. Happy watching!

Dear Gawa and Nusu, I saw the most beautiful picture of Maarifa and Merru today and read about their incredible journey. I am truly sorry to hear that you are in such an agonising pain right now for both of your beloved ones. I really pray for you that your upcoming visit to SDZSP and the ellies will show you the light and help you to keep focusing on the happy side until the memory of Marrifa and Merru become the celebration of their life.

I’m really happy that we saw the incident together and share our thoughts on that. I can’t imagine how stressful that’s been for Umngani. Also, I can’t believe Luti’s strong determination of chasing her! Is he ever going to stop?… I have doubts about that.
Gawa, I’m honestly relieved and pleased at the same time to hear that we could share the same thoughts about the ongoing battle for the wild animals, too. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. I read it again and again.

I do hope the documentary about the black leopard, Spirit among other amazing animals will do your soul-healing a bit as certainly they did mine.

Trunk wave to you /”, too, Jan. I was really happy to see you here when I woke up this morning. You shared the moment with us as if I were watching the Cam with you the whole time. I’m glad that I didn’t miss a thing! It’s impossible for me to get up that early 7:15SDZSP time to catch up with the ellie herd. Very good spotting of 12 ellies and you found out later that mama U and Kaia have been separated. Also, I appreciated the info that they had a peaceful night in the corral. I was worried about them actually. Thank you for telling us about them so as Emanti. We are so in the team Emanti, aren’t we?😉

I saw the black dirt you were talking about earlier too. Also, there was a mud puddle nearby and Swazi was mud bathing with which had some RED dirt in it. The big splash of it on her face made her significantly great looking matriarch. I guess the keepers must have scattered various kinds of dirt around so that ellies can enjoy the different smell, feel and taste to it.

I was totally amazed to hear you really do live in the heart of the nature reserves!! Your whitetail deer story is just mesmerizing -totally a fairy tale to me!! Thank you so much for the great share of your surroundings. I wish I were there with you to experience with the mythical creatures though. I could feel your excitement wave coming from reading. Each time you see them , you must feel as if it were the first time for you to encounter one and the magical moment disappears in a blink of an eye just like the snow flakes landed on the deer’s body. Oh, let me just daydream about it for now…♥️

Oh my goodness, esampu, the video was, awesome!!! You were very close, and I love the way he “bee-bopped” walking towards you. That’s amazing! You captured that moment so well. Thank you so much for sharing.

That Msholo, is one handsome bull, no doubt about it. Thanks again. It made my afternoon!

Hello and happy Friday, hoomans. I also saw the incident with M’Sholo stepping in by essentially putting himself between Luti and Mama U. I was so very happy to see it. I hope that it continues and think it is good that the keepers still give Umgani and Kaia some private time at night every now and then. It must be so stressful to have what is our equivalent of a stalker in your life and then be stuck in a contained area with them 24/7.
Marula – I completely related to what you shared about struggling to respond to some of what we’ve shared here about the heartbreaking side to loving elephants and think you expressed yourself beautifully. There is so much more to our love of the elephants and wildlife in general than just how fun they are to watch. So much more. And while most of us don’t have Anna B’s gifts per se,’ I do think many of us do have the empathy required to read and relate to elephants especially well. BTW, the black leopard now named Spirit story was amazing and we’re saving the full documentary to watch this weekend. Thank you for the tip about the videos about her, NorCal fan.
Yes, we received yet another one of those next of kin letters regarding Maarifa as we did for little Merru last fall. I still can’t talk/write about it without tearing up b/c it was a terrible shock and we’re both still sick about it….
Needless to say, we are very much looking forward to our upcoming visit to Escondido and hope to be able to make our love for all the elephants at the SDZSP so apparent that they can feel it and maybe come walking towards us as M’Sholo did to esampu. 🙂
Oh, and I have a few very cute screen grabs of Emanti playing with Zuli where he a) hugs Zuli with his trunk but almost appears to be trying to blindfold him with it and then b) looks like he is trying to climb on Zuli and then almost did succeed in play-mounting him! And, sure enough, Zuli was smiling the entire time.
Thank you for all the amazing wildlife stories and emotional or smile-inducing shares of late and enjoy the weekend.

Hi Marula! I agree, the electric fence was definitely a bit jarring, but ultimately, it’s for everyone’s safety. There was an incident at the Cincinatti Zoo a few years ago here in the U.S. where a child got into the gorilla enclosure and it ended awfully for the gorilla. I would hate for this to happen or for anyone to get hurt (a guest or one of the elephants). I also know that on nature reserves in Africa and Asia, they also use electric fences to keep elephants out of communities. The reason being that elephants really like to eat crops, which many of the people depend on for income, so it can cause a lot of tension. I wrote a paper last semester for my Environmental Studies class on human/wildlife conflict and it is really heartbreaking all around. Poaching gets a lot of attention, but habitat loss is a major problem, which leads to these kinds of conflicts.

Anyway, happy Friday to all. Many of the younger herd members (I call them “the teens” collectively bc I can’t tell any of them apart except Emanti of course) are huddled together, Swazi is in there with them, too probably because her kids are there. Ndula is standing off by herself, Zuli just sauntered over to her to nurse, I’m guessing.

Speaking of Swazi, I think I saw Msholo trying to mate with her yesterday, but he was swiftly rejected. Better luck next time, M’sholo!

Marula, it’s late here but I wanted to say that I’m so glad you saw the incident too, and caught some of the things I either missed or was unsure about. I was certain Msholo had “taken charge” but I didn’t see that he was giving her emotional support with his tusk against her. (From your noting the time, I see why I didn’t get any screen-shots (I’m “slightly obsessive” about that, too)–it was when I was trying to eat lunch!) Let’s hope this trend continues, that the others intervene and protect her and Kaia in this “passive resistance” way. Luti would “get the message” eventually and learn some manners as well, I hope.

I loved your story about the white-tailed deer. They are such magical creatures. They do look bigger than they actually are, even if you’re standing up close to them; I think some of it is an illusion because of their long slender legs and necks and the large ears. I was very surprised when I found out that the average height–at the shoulder, I presume–is only 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 feet tall. And they do sense emotion and intent; it may be that she didn’t know you were there, or it may be that she knew but realized you were no threat to her. As to the fact that people and animals may have had that kind of communication (like Anna B’s) once upon a time, I think it’s entirely possible. So many tribal cultures all over the world refer to a past when people and animals, and animals with other different-from-them animals, could talk to each other. There’s got to be something to it. And so many true stories about bonds formed between humans and wild animals, even nowadays… It’s not so unusual that baby animals would trust humans, for a variety of reasons, but it’s always amazing when adult animals do, who have no reason to trust and often every reason NOT to.

Thank you for getting back to me about the Umngani incident today! Now I feel much better to have that both confirmed and very nicely elaborated-on. I wonder what will happen next?! (I’d say “tomorrow,” but it’s already “tomorrow” where you are, and nearly “tomorrow” here.)

Emanti and Mac were grouped together into the pen closure first this morning and then at the east yard later on, So that they could enjoy the space and food entirely for themselves until the rest joined them a couple hours later. I liked the idea very much.

Hello! to you too, my “Hooman” friend 😉, Jan. Thanks a lot for the GREAT tip, “select all” and “copy”!!! Oh, I don’t know how many times I’ve experienced the computer meltdown when I clicked POST COMMENT. What a savior!!!
And I loved your Msholo story. It was nice to be able to watch the video first so that I could perfectly picture him reaching the bush or tree branches here and there, with him taking the advantage of being so tall. Just after the sunset yesterday I saw him browsing the tree branch by the pool at the east yard. But it seemed like he had no luck this time eating some of it. He has to wait a wee bit longer in the summer when all the leafy branches are fully grown. I wonder there are any Jacarandas by the wall ,too visible from the Cam so that we get to see them flowering in the season. I’d love to see them!
I’ve seen Don’s YouTube video, too. It was so kind of him that he was explaining about the baby Kami to the visitor right next to him, while filming. I thought he’s got very nice and warm tone of his voice, only an elderly man has. You were really lucky that you’ve got to know him in person. You must’ve cherished the memory of him so so much.

Esampu, I think it’s such a treat for us to hear the story from someone who’s actually been there and experienced it all. And especially for you, with Msholo !!! I didn’t know the fence is electric. It suddenly gives me a kind of captive feeling. But I realised soon that is just there for the precarious reason only not to let silly humans get through it. Am I right?

Northern California, thank you so much for your warmest comments of acknowledging me so sweetly. Your kindest heart is really contagious to everyone. You certainly make me feel very happy. Lana, your comment yesterday meant me so much. Thank you. I feel you understand me completely. As for that I feel very safe being around you. And I appreciate with wisdom of your heart which encourages me so much everyday. Yes, you are right. The both of your recent comments and discussions did help me get through and taught me how to handle the horrific time.

Northern California, I finally watched the full documentary of Anna Breytenbach last night. I was really moved to see how she respectfully interacts with those wild animals and the ones in the animal shelter. I didn’t know there were so many kinds of shelters or sanctuaries around the world for the different wild animals as well. When I saw a wild bird landed on her shoulder and she communicated with the one in the shelter, it reminded me of the fantail landed on my hand (very briefly in my case.) I was thinking at the moment, thanking the bird for coming, rather than “come closer and land on my hand” in a demanding way. And also I remember my acquaintance with the wild animal when I was in Arizona!!(random, right? I’ll tell you more about my Arizona story some other time.) My host family took me to the southeastern mountain for camping. When I was at the stream alone, sketching the scenery. Suddenly I felt something. I glanced at back. It was a white tailed deer so closely standing right behind me!! no more than 3 feet away. She casually started to drink beside me and I was quietly observing her. It was quite a long time until she decided to leave. Of course, it wasn’t like Anna. But at least, I respected her space and I stayed very still but without any fear. Instead I was screaming with joy inside. I was sitting on the ground, from my view, she looked really big. Probably Anna might say the deer accepted me as who I was for her company at the time? I’d like to believe so. The people in the documentary are absolutely right, the abilities of understanding animals and natures exited from long time ago-hundreds and thousands of years or more. I guess humans back then saw them as “who” not “what”. Communication of the mother nature was so naturally blended into their everyday life so there was no need for the explanation. Because everyone could do it. Unlike us now desperately seek for the answer. When the abilities slowly slipped away, the fear of not understanding the nature made humans built up the wall between them. I think animals and the whole nature hasn’t changed a thing since the beginning, still communicating us. I think it’s like the radio, we just forgot the right channel to tune in. It’s very unfortunate that we can’t hear the voice anymore. Maybe, ancient people could hear the elephants talking, the low frequency voice, too. Most of us are approaching the nature in a wrong way. I hope there will be more of Anna that can teach and remind us how to. So, I think when some of us encounters a “magical”moment wasn’t so special after all. It’s just one of our fragment of ancient ability is kicking in. We were capable of so many unbelievable things back then. It’s us that stopping it. So shame….This is what I thought from the documentary. So, Northern California and Lana, I believe Anna B. 100%! , too!! I’m so glad that I got to watch it . Thabk you🤗

Glad I could share the video of a young Msholo with everyone! My fiancee and I are obsessed with him, so we occasionally search YouTube to see if there are any videos of him out there. That one is particularly good because there are no loud guests and we get to see a close-up of his beautiful face. I hate zoo videos to be honest because they are so loud, there are some exceptions.

Jan, I also always enjoy watching him reach up on the rock shelter for the browse from the nets – I don’t think any of the other ellies can reach. But Msholo is so nice he lets the others eat the hay that falls on the ground.

Another fun Msholo moment: when I went to the Safari Park, he was in the smaller yard and we were the only people standing to the side of that yard and we were calling out to him. He started strolling towards us, looking right at us (I think!). Maybe he recognized his name and thought we were keepers with snacks. He then stopped and started eating from his hay box. It was great! That fence surrounding that yard is electric, so it was also a little less scary to have a 10,000 pound animal hurling towards you 🙂 The yard is super close to the guests, so I can see why it’s electric – they could probably easy break through it.

Northern California, I just saw your latest comment. Must have been while I was typing! Yes, I watched the Anna B. black leopard video and I was absolutely fascinated. Like you, I’ve had (still having, with “my” deer) some experiences with wild animals over the years–not many, so I know it’s not just my imagination!–that can’t really be explained except as some kind of empathy/telepathy, conscious or unconscious. And it’s a two-way street, the animal is doing his/her part in the “encounter.” So I tend to be less skeptical than someone who’s never had something happen along those lines. Intend to watch the other videos when I have a chance, since they are long. Re: Msholo, I love watching the ellies munching away on their hay, in fact I often have the cam on when I’m sitting eating my own meals because it’s so calming to watch them. A couple of days ago I did happen to be checking the other cams and one of the polar bears was just waking up–it was daylight–from a nap, doing all the rolling and stretching and twisting around sinuously, s/he was so big and so beautiful that it took my breath away. I don’t think I ever realized how supple their bodies are, they’re always lumbering across the ice or diving into the water in documentaries; clearly, just like ellies, there’s a lot you never see on film!

Marula, I thought you expressed yourself beautifully as usual. You are such a deep, loving new addition to our herd. Esampu, I love watching Msholo the arborist! What a magnificent being he is–he will be quite a presence at your wedding. Has anyone had an inclination or a chance to watch Anna Breytenbach with the black leopard at the rescue sanctuary in South Africa? It is truly inspiring and she is so very humble and gentle. She has helped so many animals in zoos and sanctuaries (and out in the wild) all around the world. She says we all have this ability. I believe her because I have had some truly extraordinary and mind-blowing encounters with wild animals before (though any communication done on my part was totally unconscious). Someday, if I have time I will tell you my different stories of close and intimate encounters with two fox cubs in Marin, a donkey in Assisi, Italy, a mother black bear and her two cubs in back country Yosemite, a white tailed deer and a jack rabbit when I was little and a couple of amazing hummingbird interactions (Gawa + Nusu, I know you will appreciate one of those because it was in Tilden Park in Oakland). Knowing that each of you in my hooman herd are so sensitive and such animal lovers, I’m sure that you have all had some yourself. Anna’s stories, just like the love of Sheldrick’s Keepers, SDZSP and all their projects around the world, the sweetness of our herd and the children around the globe protesting climate change, bring me hope for humanity and help mend my broken heart when I have to read or hear about human cruelty. As you said Marula, we have to focus on the good and wonderful people our there fighting to protect and care for our animal family otherwise our hearts will break.
I was just watching Msholo quietly and peacefully munching and it soothed my soul. Also, if you’re ever up in the middle of the night and want to watch another peaceful sight, tune into the SDZ polar bear cam and they are often sleeping with the cam on them and you can see their big paws as they contentedly stretch as they roll on their backs or on their sides. They are so sweet and it is such a calming sight to watch them before you go to sleep.

Luti’s bad behavior is reminding me of some of the Sheldrick elephants who get to a point where they are so hard to handle, that the Trust either moves them in with an older group or transfers them one of the reintegration units. This is what happened to naughty Esampu who was moved when she was 2 so that the older ellies could teach her some manners. Sounds like Luti needs some elephant charm school as well!

Saw an interesting interaction today. First, two of the boys were sparring (I *think* one was Luti). They were fighting by the waterhole and then Msholo, Umangani and Kaia broke the whole thing up, walking right in the middle of it. Umngani flared her ears at the one I assume is Luti, sort of challenging him. He walked away from the group, and Msholo, Mama U and Kaia joined the rest. I wonder what the conflict is.

“as the ellie world turns” – anyone on the cam at around 12:30 pacific time? i looked at it just as umngani was forcefully shoving luti backwards, the bottom of her beautiful tusks were flat on his forehead and she was pushing him hard. she came back and then kaia was nursing, so i’m guessing that kaia might have been nursing before, luti got too close & mama u let him have it. luti came by afterwards and was bugging mama u again. khosi and kami came over and surrounded kaia. gadze went up to luti a couple of times and gently touched his tusks/trunk to luti as if to tell him to behave himself. luti head butted gadze twice, but then the third time after gadze touched him again, luti wandered off. a few minutes later luti came back & tried to back into mama u and bumped kaia. so (i think it was khosi) moved herself between kaia & luti’s butt. somehow nisa was there, luti shoved her a couple of times. mama u wandered off slowly and calm was restored. that luti dude, he needs to get over himself! maybe a class for him, manners 101 (p.s. i’m pretty sure i correctly identified the ellies here, thanx to marula’s 3/5 post!)

Wasn’t that video wonderful?? It brightened my day again watching it just now b/c this is one of those days when I’m so grateful that “our” beautiful and special ellies are where they are (at the SDZSP). Many of them have been through hell but they are now safe, loved, very well-cared-for and enriched unlike so many elephants struggling or being hunted in the wild or trying to recover after suffering from unspeakable traumas at an orphan’s nursery.

It IS incredible that all elephants don’t hate “hoomans” isn’t it? And when Lana mentioned Mbegu, I wept again for her remembering her rescue story and because there have been too many losses in the less than one year since our eyes, minds, and hearts have been opened to the plight of all elephants (and rhinos) in the world. Merru, Raekie and now Maarifa will always be in our hearts and we will never forget them or Emanti and Kami’s momma either.

It’s so wonderful to have found a place where we can talk and share our thoughts, insights and concerns about/for these incredible and sentient beings and to know that we can turn on the “cam” and be delighted by what we see and experience while watching the amazing and complicated herd at the SDZSP. Once again, thank you to all at the park or on the camera for all that you do.

Thanks, Gawa! Yes, that’s what Zuli was doing, only staying “up” a tad longer and just doing it without a playmate. (Your comment was posted a few hours later than my last one, held up by the SD computer because of the link–the Monitor has to verify links to be sure they’re safe ones, another reason to thank the people at SD!)

Oh no, oh no, oh no!! I just lost everything I had been writing to all of you for the past hour or more! I was thanking each of you for the trunk hellos and each of your particular sharings that I had enjoyed so much. Ah that is so discouraging and now I’ve run out of time…… Just know that I’m thinking of each of you and enjoying all your sharings and am so grateful to each of you. Loved, loved, loved Kaia trumpeting and running wildly in the pool that day and Zuli trumpeting as well and your reassurances to me re Kaia, dear Marula of Kaia tucking herself between Khosi’s front legs, Zuli rearing up on hind legs, Lana, Esampu spying the cute family scene, Jan and her shelties and “hoomans” and oh so many more things I said to each of you. I’m so sorry they got lost in computer land when I pushed the wrong key and then tried to go back to the post. Darn, darn. Congratulations on engagement Esampu! I have so much more I shared and thanked each of you about. I’m so sorry they got lost. I’m so grateful for all your warm, happy sharings of our ellies, because I have a terrible discovery. Here I thought I was escaping the traumatic elephant stories by not reading any of the books and then I began to research the history of our beloved ellie herd. I have been researching Kruger National Park and then found out about the terrible massive cullings that went on in the early 90’s when our adult ellies were just babies and young ones before they got sent to Swaziland as orphans. Who knows exactly what Msholo, Swazi, Umngani and Ndula experienced before they were translocated to Swaziland. But in the cullings (which they experienced), elephants are rounded up from above in helicopters and they stampede in terror and also huddle trying to protect the little ones as they are shot from the helicopters– it is a mayhem massacre and all the adults are shot and they save the babies and young ones who are then sold or relocated. I have been researching and that is indeed what happened to our beloved now-adult ellies! Isn’t that just horrifying! I feel sick to my stomach. After surviving this, our ellies were only about 3 or 4 years old when they were relocated to Swaziland after all the cullings in Kruger National Park. I found it in a research/protest letter from one of the scientists from the Amboseli Trust for Elephants re Swaziland’s unethical wildlife management practices as well as his questioning of Swaziland selling our ellies in 2003. Oh my god, how awful. So if Swazi doesn’t always seem to exhibit the most caring or wise behavior, this is the reason why. Lana and Jan, I’m amazed she even knew to round up the herd from the water when she thought she sensed danger. No one ever taught her or any of our adult ellies how to be. It was pure, raw survival and they probably turned to each other for comfort and learning as best they could. And they had no loving Keepers to help them, sleep with them and feed them like they do at Sheldricks or Reteti. I’m now absolutely amazed at how well they do and it speaks to the care that our Keepers give them that they have been so successful at creating their own families and are mostly calm and seem happy. As well as showing us the innate empathy, wisdom and compassion that elephants have. It also explains to me the PTSD type behavior I sometimes see in Umngani when she is triggered by Luti or some other unknown factor or goes anxiously roaming for food in the early mornings. The early 90’s cullings at Kruger were so awful (banned in 1994) that I read that all the park rangers refused to participate 15 years (in 2009) later at Kruger when the ban was about to be lifted until public outcry stopped it. I have even more love and compassion for our dear ellies and for the Keepers who love and care for them. I don’t want to leave you on this terrible note, but instead want to direct you to this amazing You Tube video of this woman who calls herself an “interspecies communicator”. This is how I found out about the cullings in the first place. She does talk to elephants at sanctuaries and zoos, but in this particular clip, it is her astounding accuracy in communicating with a black leopard at a wildlife sanctuary in South Africa that will amaze you with a story that will warm your heart and it moved me to tears. If any of you, feel moved to watch this, I would love to hear any of your thoughts about what she does or says. I haven’t found any You Tube clips with her talking to elephants, but I did see pictures of her communicating with them along with an article and she talked about their incredible wisdom and compassion for humans and what they have to teach us. Which I think each of us in our “hooman” herd (as Jan would say) already understand. I know I wouldn’t have survived this dark time without them and I know many of you have expressed the same. There is a full documentary clip on You Tube about her, but I started first with this shorter clip with just the black leopard. I can’t send it as a link but if you cut and paste this into You Tube it should show up: “The incredible story of how leopard Diabolo became Spirit – Anna Breytenbach, “animal communicator”. Warm trunk hellos to all of you!

Marula, I have seen some photos of wild elephants–usually males, I think–actually “standing” on their hind legs reaching as high as they could for fruit on trees, with nothing to balance against! Big adult ellies, this is. Let me see if… Yes, Google (or whatever) “photos of wild elephants on their hind legs,” I just did this to see if I could tell you. I’ve bookmarked it for myself to look at all the “images” later. You will be astonished. I think that not all elephants could do this, it must require an awesome sense of balance. And it might only be the bulls because of how their haunch and hind-leg muscles develop, both from pushing and sparring with other bulls and from learning how to carry most of their own weight on their hind legs when they are mating with females. Zuli could only sort of bounce–he’d be actually standing on his hind legs for a couple of seconds–but it was still so precious to see him! Talk about “cute!” And so happy with his new accomplishment. I love how proud they are of themselves when they successfully learn something new. There was such a touching example of this at Sheldrick’s a couple of years ago. The youngsters eventually learn (with great differences as to what age they are, it must depend on their dexterity) to hold their milk bottles with their own trunks. (They get milk for many years although not as much per feeding once they get old enough.) One of the calves was very upset with the Keeper when he held her bottle for her to drink and finally I think he had a hunch what it might be, and put the milk bottle down. And she reached down and picked it up herself, as she’d seen some of the others doing. She must have been practicing somehow with “wild” things the same general size and shape. She wanted him to see her “new trick” and praise her for being so smart! And after that, the Keepers always put her bottles down on the ground for her as they did for the others who knew how to hold them. It would have been cute enough that she had learned to do it, but it was so touching that she wanted to SHOW him.

Elephant communication is very complex, you’re right about that! I just read recently that even the way they touch each other with their ears, tails, feet, bodies, etc.–not just their trunks and tusks–has meaning! And things they do with “body language” in terms of how they stand, hold their head, and so on. Plus the language that we can hear and the one we can’t. And some people are sure that some elephants have what we call “ESP”/telepathy, too. I’m sure they would talk to us if they could shape their tongues to make the words, but they can’t because of the way the tongue is attached. (Although there’s an Asian ele who is supposed to have formed some words by using his trunk to shape his tongue–there were a couple of videos on YouTube about it, and I think some written stuff. His name is Koshik and I think “Koshik speaks Korean” will get you the links.)

Oh yes, we should celebrate “The Queen.” I’m glad you read the blog, it adds so much to the pictures.

Esampu, Msholo and Umngani must have at least known each other before they were captured/rescued because they lived on the same reserve. I know when Mabu left and Msholo moved in with the ladies (he’d been around awhile but separate, of course), they were all happy. I didn’t know until it gradually unfolded later, that he and Umngani had a special relationship, but here is what I wrote in my journal that day: “Msholo joined the herd. Much trunk-greeting and caressing by everyone–Umngani even stroked his face and curled her trunk near [or around?] one of his tusks…” He, she, Umoya, and Swazi all came from the same place. Also they had all–these four and the others here and at Lowry–been together for several months waiting to come to the US. I love the relationship between Msholo and Umngani; I really hate to think they’ll be separated at some point, at least for awhile, if he goes to another Park or Zoo on the Species Survival Plan business. (By the way, that’s “neat” about the Kate Spade necklace. Naturally I had to look-up to see what her designs look like.)

Didn’t have a chance to watch much today but I did see “the boys” with Msholo, and also Luti pestering Umngani. Whenever I glimpsed the calves, they were separate and with their mothers–or wandering alone between adults. They still look so small when you see them crossing a long stretch of “empty space” in the yards, but both of them are certainly very determined about where they want to go! I thought Nisa was headstrong but these two are worse than she was.

I’ve continued to catch some great moments of the “family” of Mama U, Msholo, and Kaia – it’s SO sweet. I wonder if Msholo and Mama U are related in some way, they have such a great relationship.
I do think Msholo is back in musth – I saw some flirtatious behavior with him and one of the younger females. It’d be great to have a little M’sholo!
Thought of our herd today while taking our engagement photos, I wore a Kate Spade elephant necklace for it!

The discussion between Lana and Jan had this week interested me so much, which were about things happend in years before that I’ve never heard of- about Swazi, Musi and the Crocodile Drills!? So it got me look into the older posts and I was hoping that I was able to discover something new for me.
So, I set the date and time travelled back to the past. In another word, I just clicked the news “Elephant Calf Named Mkhaya” released on Oct. 23, 2018. Very convenient these days. And I read all 68 comments from the bottom to top. And look what I’ve found!!! Very interesting indeed….

CONTENTS

* What happened to Kami and Emanti right after they became orphans. Who took them in and how they were like back then.

* 10/26 How Emanti coped and got through the tragedy and what M’sholo meant to him and what made the relationship so special. ( This is the most touching one. I didn’t know about this in such a detail and moved me so much.)

* 10/29, 11/5 Where Swazi’s unreasonable behavior has come from. ( Having read this Lana’s posts, it did explain and her behavior is now understandable and forgivable,too. Also, it reminded me that no matter how peaceful they look now, all of the adults are the survivors of the traumatic tragedy. I must not forget that. )

* The crocodile drills and the bee hive incident(2012) !?

* Three ladies in Mommy’s role

* Playful Khosi

* Baby Nisa and Neepo

* The strory about Khosi and Kami, once upon a time when they were cute little girls

* 11/2 Blog Monitor’s note was related to the feeding session that helped me finding the answer. the stories of the crocodile drills and the bee incident did also help me get into the conclusion.
((During the feeding session, the ellie are moved to the desired area followed by “Positive Reinforcement Training”. I understand it now that in the session, the keepers and ellies practice the various trainings. The reasons they do this are to help building their relationship and trust between them, as well as for “the drill” in order to face unwanted incident/emergency—the bee incident or to move a sick ele to the desired place (Emanti’s tusk operations or him moved to the private back holding) etc. The ellies and the care team need to practice these so that they can react to many different situations and act sufficiently to “times”. That’s why the feeding time schedule keeps changing every week or so and the same thing applies to to toys, food, landscapes, changing a keeper to interact to one ele. The reason why the care team makes things more complicated for themselves is that because they don’t want the ellies to fall into the same habit. If they did so, they wouldn’t be able to follow anything but the same old routine. As much as it is difficult for them though they make things work tremendously well and does look easy, too -all that is because of the bond of trust they have within each other. ))

All these contents do look familiar to you, don’t they? Yes, of course!! Because they are all linked to the topics we discussed all this week! Can you believe it? I’m still ecstatic that I found them. I’m going to read them again to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Well, it won’t take that long. Imagine to give a go at our current posts reading from the bottom tot top…😝wow, we have over 350 now. But I will give it a try soon because I’m positively sure that I’ll bump into something new!

How amazing it is to find the all answers from the older posts!! Thanks to Lana, Jan, Northern California, East Coast, Paula, Poppy and Blog Monitor for the insightful discussions, I honestly think your all comments should be made into a book! You all are the KEY of WISDOM that opens to my new chapter!!!🗝✨ Thank you very much.

It’s absolutely worth reading for a person who is so keen to learn about our ellies background that is yet mystery to you.
You’ve come to the right place…

Remember to set the date on Oct. 23, 2018. and the destination spot is “Elephant Calf Named Mkhaya”.
Good luck 😉!!!

Linda, I’m glad that you foumd one. It must’ve been like finding a needle in a haystack. I’m rereading some of older posts(years back) too and how amazing it is that often I find the the new information or wisdom which are so new to me and helpful. Thank you for mentioning it. 😊

Wow, Lana, you took me back! I recall seeing just a couple times, Ndula hoovering, when Musi and Msholo were sparring. Your probably right about her being a Mom and worrying if someone would get hurt, as accidents happen. I only hope someday Fresno Chaffee Zoo has a better cam where Musi is, as I would like to see and check in on him. Thinking about it now I just checked youtube to see if the cam was better, and ran into a video that they received two female Elephants from the Dallas Zoo, last October. They hope to grow the herd, however, there wasn’t any word if they were wild Ellies, or they had been born in captivity. I’m happy Musi will have a bigger family. One of the females is a Mom, so they hope she will step up as Matriarch. That would be wonderful.

Lana, it was cute to hear about the, Sheltie, tapping it’s feet. I took my Sheltie, “sheep herding” one time and it’s amazing to see how my “lap dog,” who had never laid his eyes on a real sheep, went into the ring and knew just what too do! I was to say the least, dumbfounded!! Insticts run deep in animals, I think as humans, we haven’t grasped that in some instances. They know! Maybe this is why, Swazi, does the things she does, like the croccodile drills, because it’s, “in her.” You really have to think about it. Just as her eyesight is not as good as it should be, she instinctively makes the move to protect herself when something startles her. If only we could tap her mind and capture her thoughts along with her memory, of the days in Swaziland, can you imagine what we would learn! She obvioulsy has some memories that aren’t pleasant, at least we think so, as she is so protective of her food.

Marula, loved your share on Zuli going under the, “big umbrella.” I caught a little of it, but was happy to hear the rest of the story.

Esampu, about Swazi “giving Kaia a whack with her trunk for no reason at all.” I’ve seen this before, she nearly knocked Neepo over once. I’ve thought about it and I THINK it’s probably that they come up on her poor-eyesight side and startle her and she just reacts instantly and instinctively and swats at “the threat” before her brain registers who/what it is that “sneaked up on her.” I don’t know. She’s awfully grouchy sometimes, but still… I prefer to believe it’s basically accidental, and that she realizes in time to “pull her punch” so she doesn’t do any lasting damage (or the calf she swats would probably go flying through the air like a soccer ball, given her size and strength).

Jan, I love the “hoomans” business! What fun to “play puppies.” Shelties are such lovely little dogs, I saw a darling puppy doing that thing they do with “patting” with their front paws–the owner told me it’s instinctive, part of their herding genes. Just too precious to see, practical or not… As for my being “matriarch,” I’m not sure I’m anywhere near worthy of that–I probably qualify age-wise, but wisdom-wise? Thank you (all of you who say that) in any case. It touches my heart.

I’m so happy that you remember the “crocodile drills” Swazi used to have. I wonder if she still does it. I hardly saw any of the pool parties last year OR the year before, and am hoping to make up for lost time this year. They’re always wonderful and now with not one, but two babies? Oh my. As for the Luti/Musi business, Musi was doing that when Neepo was less than a year old (2011 or 2012) and I believe he had just started doing it, though I could be wrong. He would have been about 8 years old? And Luti has just barely turned 9, so he started at about the same age.

Darn, missed the enrichment part of the day, though I did see some branches and things. And I wonder what was going on with Umngani and Kami? When I tuned in around suppertime (EDT), things were quite peaceful with everyone as far as I could tell. Some wonderful time with Ndula, Zuli, and Khosi. I guess it was raining off and on, it was muddy and some of the ellies were partly wet. Anyway, Zuli was between his mother’s front legs, mostly underneath her, while she ate and he tackled chewing hay very determinedly. Then Khosi joined them and he went to her eagerly and squeezed underneath HER, again with his head reaching out between her front legs so that he could eat too. He was SO happy, he had that baby-elephant smile, just adorable. Of course Khosi was in Seventh Heaven too, nothing she likes more than pretending to be Mommy. She would touch him sometimes and he would reach up to her sometimes–and stole a mouthful or two of pre-chewed hay from her, too. They were just companionable like that for a long time, all three in harmony, Zuli thrilled to be cuddled by his favorite half-sister. Then Khosi finally decided to leave, and Zuli started after her, he didn’t want her to “abandon” him. She stopped, and she must have told him to go back or Ndula called to him, but he didn’t want to. She made him turn around and used her trunk to scoop his backside and push him towards Ndula. Ndula reached to him and wanted him to nurse, which he did, for several minutes (he was hungrier than he thought!)–and Khosi eventually just slipped away. Ndula set off towards the hill and Zuli went with her happily enough. She stopped several times to let him nurse some more, so I think maybe she felt he had been overdue for his milk. Luti was a “fat” baby (I wasn’t the only one who thought so) and I see signs of that with Zuli, too, a nice round healthy little body. She’s a very good mother. I remember her worrying sometimes about Musi when he’d spar with Msholo, like a human mother standing there wringing her hands for fear something would go wrong and he’d accidentally get hurt. She never interfered and I doubt Msholo would have slipped-up and done any damage, but you could just sense her anxiety as she hovered around nearby. Even though he was a big boy, he was still her baby.

Trunk-up hello to Northern California. Some good vids on Instagram of the mud-baths, but I hope you’re seeing a little of this stuff “live” from time to time, something to keep you on course and shine for you like the North Star in the dark hours.

Jan, a big “trunk hello”to you, too !!
I was away for the whole day( SDZSP time), I couldn’t tune in. So nice to find you here and gave us the wonderful relay of “what’s happening in the elephant valley?” News !!!, which was SO COOL 😎.
And I was so flattered to hear your sweet compliment, which was actually much sweeter than Honey 🐻❤️🍯. It made me ticklish, too. Thank you.

Yes, It’s very strange that Luti’s been so determinedly bothering Umngani lately, brought everyone’s attention. I noticed that the keepers schedule has changed for the pool season. There are more “all in one time” or “the gate opened all afternoon and night” than before so that everyone can enjoy the pool and what the visitors want to see, too. But it is certainly not helping Umngani. I feel for her. That was maybe why she shoved Kaia a little with her tusk because she’s been stressed out??? Many speciations that one…

Lana, Happy belated first day of spring!!!
“It was ME visited your garden yesterday! Didn’t you hear me saying, hello? ‘Cause the snow drops were SO beeautiful!!
Yummy yummy in my tummy 🐝”~

I love gardening. I try to make mine as bee friendly as possible. And I have snow drops too, which flower in July here to let me know the spring is right around the corner. I think too it’s so beautiful that translates hummingbirds “Kiss-flower” in Portuguese. Because that’s what they do! The person who gave its name must be a poet.
It’s same as flowers that I prefer to call them in poetic term like Fox gloves, Forget-me-not, Baby’s-breath and so on.

When it started raining heavily (3/20) and after seeing Zuli went under the big umbrella, Ndula, I decided to head out for gardening to enjoy the last bit of summer and said a farewell. Yesterday was March (Autumn ) equinox, which our summer was officially over. So I completely lost the SHOW!! I enjoyed reading yours, giggling and I was able to revisit the afternoon that our ellies had so much fun! – muddy and wet!! Thank you. I think I started to see more fun side of Khosi now. You might say young Khosi was always like that:)) One thing so sure is that she LOVES mud/ dust bathing and digging a hole more than anybody. She forgets being “lady Khosi” and became like a kid, which I love to see.

I really appreciate with your wisdom sharing, which kindly taught me how elephants cope when they fall ill and then, react for their best well-beings. (I remember you said before that one wild ele had tusk injuries and she/he put mud all over it to ease the pain. Poor ele, it wouldn’t be much of a help. Also, wild elephants knows where to find the medicinal plants, which are taught by elderly eles and pass down the knowledge to generation to generation.) It’s so heartbreaking to witness Emanti’s gone through like that he’s lost his weight and looks frail. I don’t know…it might be just me over reacting. Maybe I’m too naive for a sick person. But your wisdom was a assurance for me. As long as he knows what’s the best for him to do right now, which is to “take it easy”. I’ll be more patient for him.
But I wonder whether or not still he gets the special nutrients from the care team to help his time-consuming recovering…..Meanwhile, at least it’s great to see everyone is treating him well and even Luti’s being so nice to him, sharing a feed box with him or I often see Emanti, standing right next to M’sholo for comfort.

It appears there is cardboard boxe in the east yard, on the hill, up from the pool. I checked the dates and couldn’t find a date for today to celebrate. Maybe, the Keepers were surprising the Ellies with some enrichment. At this moment our beautiful Emanti is checking it out, and decided to browse from the grass there.

Msholo, is on the top step, gingerly drinking water from the pool and Mama U and Khosi are there eating, possibly from the enrichment box Mama U carried over there. It looks like now, Msholo has his own box. Kaia is playing around the huge log. So it’s girls with the “Big Guy,” as Emanti continues to feast on some fresh grass on the incline of the hill.

It looks very peaceful. However, I have no doubt, judging from some video’s on youtube, the crows can be heard “calling” in the background.

Lana, I caught the lovely time with Mama U, Msholo and Kaia all eating together. It was so lovely and calm. I know elephants don’t really mate for life, but I love the idea of the two of them being “married.”

I did also catch Swazi giving Kaia a whack with her trunk for no reason at all. Maybe little Kaia was trying to eat some of Swazi’s hay off camera, I’m not sure. But Kaia scooted away quick and moved away. She almost slid down the hill with her little feet, it was so slippery!

Agree that early morning, before the grounds open is a great time to watch the cam. I do sometimes feel antsy for them when the snacks haven’t arrived yet and they’re all crowding around the area where the keepers enter. I don’t like waiting for my breakfast, either! I will say that sometimes the young males have a very gross habit they do in the early mornings. It involves eating poop. I only ever see it in the AM and sometimes at night. I guess they get really hungry!

Blog Monitor

I am wondering if you could kindly ask the elephant care team once again how Emanti is doing right NOW after he’s back from “the Club Med” and how he is seen from the professional point of view, by any chance that you encounter them next time or contact them, please?

Because we noticed that he still seems to be a little off time to time. Just the other day (3/18), I saw him taken to the back area, separated from the herd and didn’t return for a couple of hours. I assume that he went to see the vet and his care team for a health checkups. That incident made me quite worried…So if you could get some information from them I would be most grateful.

Also,please pass on our great appreciation to them. I’d like them to know that we clearly acknowledge their devotion to the ellies through the Cam everyday. Therefore, I have grown to love them very much with the ellies.

And a big thanks to the cam operators tremendous work for letting us see our ellies in such a long hours of determination to capture the moments for the world to share. The SDZSP ellies are our passing and definitely fulfilling our life. The cam operators are the one making things happen!!

Last but not least, Blog Monitor!!! Thank you so much for letting us meet HERE and creating the “SAFE ZONE” FOR us! I really do appreciate what you do, responding to us and all. Especially when you have to go through such a high volume of comments now days within your other hectic schedules.
Because of YOU, the enthusiastic ellies fans like us, who mostly live far far away(BTW, I’m in New Zealand.) , are able to get together and share precious moments each day. It’s truly working well for me and many others- certainly encouraging me to focus in the positive side of life to live a little -like our ellies! 🐘🐘🐘
So once again, thank You very much.😊

Gawa,
So do I! I take as a good sign when a fantail or hedgehog visit my garden. But I think hummingbirds or whit-tailed deer for Lana sounds SO special to me.

Just to add up some info to Blog monitor’s note, which you might want to know…

When I noticed Emanti’s disappearance on 2/16, Blog monitor quikcly responded to us and explained what exactly had happened on 2/23. After that, l felt like it was forever until he showed up on both 2/27 and later 3/5 for only 5 minutes during the feeding time. He was able to meet Umngani’s kids. They welcomed him so affectionately.

3/6 -He came back again only the morning (but the big progress from the previous one) to join the bulls herd. How exciting the boys were!!! The reunion was so touching to see that everyone caressed him and did lots of sparring with him tenderly.

3/10 -He joined the bulls herd back again but this time spent whole night there!, then very next day he was united to the whole herd. He just made it by Gadze’s Birthday.

As you can see, he was back in and out of the back holding many times, carefully being monitored by the care team who were super extra cautious about him. So that they did have many outings test before his final release.

As I said before, the only assurance I had was the piece of information that Blog monitor gave us-“He’s in the Club Med😁” eased me so much to know that he was in a good hands and especially his bestie, Mac visited him so often. So I was so grateful that Blog monitor did tell us that.

So it’s not so long ago at all that we got him back from his long stay at the Club Med for 22 days!! to be exact.
I think he still seems to be quite off time to time and fragile to me. He looked so happy and excited to see everyone and interacted with them a lot. Now, 10 days later, he settled in and everything’s been back to normal again. As for that, I noticed more that he’s not 100% back -laidback and fun Emanti himself that we know of. And other ellies surely feel that way, too. Swazi caressing and Luti being so gentle towards him prove that. He’s much quieter and less sociable than before, don’t you think? So that reason, I’m still worried about him….and that’s what Lana and I were discussing that the other day.

Esampu,
It’s very interesting to hear from you what the guide said about – there was the competition of babysitting duty between the girls in order to stay at the higher rank of the hierarchy. But I’d like to believe so that they’d have done it more instinctively than intentionally and simply they do it just because it’s so fun to be around the cutest babies!!! How can they not to resist them??😍

Just to add some color to the Kaia/Zuli discussion … I remember the guide telling us on the “Elephant & Friends” Tour that the older girls were more interested in sitting for Zuli because Ndula is higher on the social hierarchy, so they need to remain on her good side.

I have noticed that some of the older girls really want the babies to nurse from them – they have such strong maternal instincts! It’s so great the girls have role models and are learning to parent — too often animals in zoos have to be hand-raised because the moms have had no examples to learn from. Our SD herd is so lucky they get to live in a social structure that’s pretty close to what they would experience in the wild.

I wish we could learn what has been or is still wrong with Emanti. Did I miss an explanation published somewhere? Does anyone know for certain? I already worry about his emotional well-being and now find myself worrying about his overall health.
Meant to mention that I loved the discussions about Kaia’s personality versus Zuli’s. She certainly is a little Miss Independent, which I love, and we call Zuli “The Mayor” b/c he’s always walking around visiting with the others and imagine him saying (with his trunk touches) things like, “Hey, Gadze! How’s it going?” “Hiya, M’Sholo, mind if I stand right here by you for a bit?” or “I’ll catch ya later, Neepo!” “I love you so much, Khosi!” Zuli is just so lovable and sweet!
Marula – the hummingbirds are such a delight for us especially coming from the Midwest (Chicago, to be exact) where we never saw or had them in our backyards. They seem like little magical spirits (except when they are being territorial and fighting!) and we always take it as a good sign when we hear and then spot them out and about during hikes or when exploring new parts of the Bay Area.
Lana – I asked Nusu about Sonje and he said he did remember seeing a video where a keeper was asked if he had a favorite orphan and he described one just as you did but we couldn’t remember the name h or in which video it was. We’ll keep looking!

Blog Monitor’s note: I was able to give some information back on February 23, but it’s easy to miss things like that when there’s as many comments coming in as there are here! The Elephant Team noticed Emanti was a little off behaviorally and that he had that tired look in his eyes, so they separated him to make sure he got lots of liquids and had a sure heat source for the very cold nights we’d been having. They worked closely with our veterinary staff to supply important medical samples to determine what ailed him and to treat him. During that time, because he’s the low man on the social ladder, they kept him separated at night to make sure he had warmth, and brought his buddy Luti in to visit every so often (and the keepers gave him lots of extra attention). It worked, and he’s back with the herd…happy ending!

A big thanks to Lana and Gawa for talking about the ele books that now introduceing me to look into them. I noted all of books you two have mentioned and I look forward to read them in the near future. Thank you very much.

Yours were up while I was typing…
Lana, how sweet of you now, sharing the beautiful and mythical dawn with me again!!! 💕while I’m fast asleep 💤 then. Oh,🥺❤️I wish I could see Emanti dance, the beautiful dance probably would make me cry.
Mac and Gadze are so tender towards him, even Luti. This morning about 7:30 at the lower yard* (east yard) everyone was having fun at the dirt-pile near the small fountain. Neepo and Gadze were rolling around and Kaia and girls were digging and dust-bathing,too. But Emanti was standing, keeping some space from then. It was so beautiful to see affectionate Swazi, right next to him caressing him, her while trunk completely pressed at Emanti’s backside for a couple minutes. Both of them didn’t move, motionless. It must’ve been a communication there, probably using very low frequency sounds, completely in private between them…After that Emanti slowly walked towards them closer with encouragement from Swazi, but not participating. Then Gadze noticed him, inviting with lots caresses.

Still me speaking about Emanti , yesterday morning(3/18) he was taken to the back area(the private back holding or small holding area) separated from the rest for a few hours. I presume he was seen by the vet and care team. When he returned, first he was kept for a while inside of the main gate closed between the two yard, sandwiching him like cage( the place where you said that he had his tusks procedure done) in front of all the herd watching. The keeper gave him lots of treats while she was checking his feet and body. Then, he was released to be with his worrying herd. Emanti didn’t join play the pool party either.😔 Even Neepo seems bigger than he is now, I think. maybe I’m wrong, hope so…

I see the keeper everyday making sure that he gets hand fed during the feeding session at 1:00pm , though today was 2:00pm??? And the main gate still remains open, so everyone is mingling together. I guess I saw the waterhole/pool was filling up some fresh water a short while ago in front of the big audience. So to let everyone enjoy the bathing later? Today’s feeding schedule is running differently than usual that I lost the plot. When is the next feeding session and will the gate remain open until tomorrow morning?? If so, I hope Luti won’t bother Umngani much…as he did quite a lot yesterday.
Anyways I hope they enjoy another pool party today💦to freshen up and feel free, Umangani needs that right now.

Gawa, you’re lucky to have Nusu to “vet” the books for you! I’ve gotten a few unwelcome shocks over the years (and not only with ele books, just about anything to do with wildlife). “An Elephant’s Life” is a good book; I have “Beyond Words,” too, I’d read some of the elephant part in his “column” on-line and of course re-read them as soon as I got my hands on the book–haven’t read the other sections yet about wolves and dolphins, both of which also are long-standing interests of mine–I got side-tracked and didn’t get back to it.

No, my sweet Sonje isn’t the elephant that “poses,” although she does seem to sometimes, doesn’t she? She is such a gentle and loving girl, so good and patient and playful with the babies in spite of her handicap. It’s one of the elephants at Ithumba. I may be able to track down the video but I’m dubious about it now that the whole website is rearranged (not always for the better, in my opinion). It may not even have been at their site.

Marula, it WAS so good to be able to feel I was sharing the pool party with you, just sort of on a time-lag (you here on Earth and me somewhere “out there” past Jupiter!) and especially after the other incidents with babies and water. Maybe I had “thought waves” from you about the business of looking at the ellies at dawn; I haven’t done it for awhile although I used to do it often. What I “discovered” this morning, before sun-up there, was Mac, Luti, and dear Emanti standing quietly with each other near the “corral.” Emanti was lifting his trunk and moving it around in different patterns, and I remembered–it’s been a long time since I’d seen this–that he (or one of the others, but I’m pretty sure it was he) used to sometimes do what I called a “trunk dance,” for lack of a better description. He would move his trunk around as if in time to slow music, almost in repeating patterns–not just sniffing the air, this was more deliberate, as if he were responding to some inner sight or sound. I’d forgotten all about it until I saw him this morning. He didn’t do it all that often, even back when I was watching the cam a lot more than I can now… After awhile Mac came a few steps so he was closer to Emanti, and touched him several times in different places with his trunk, and then ambled away over to the pile of logs and root-ball. You could almost hear him saying, “I’m going to leave now but I’ll be right over here.” Emanti stayed where he was for a minute and then walked off-camera. All the others seem to be very aware of his not being in the best health and solicitous, sympathetic, and especially gentle with him. They would be, of course, elephants are so sensitive, but it still is so touching to see them so careful. Even Luti, who’s really not as much of a bad-boy as we label him because of his pestering Umngani.

Later, Zuli was playing with a small branch. He kept picking it up, tossing it onto his head and neck, trying to balance it there. It stayed a few seconds, once a bit longer even, but of course the minute he moved, it would fall off again. That didn’t seem to discourage him from trying again and again. Finally Ndula moved off and he abandoned the stick to follow her.

BIG thank you to esampu for the heads up about the videos on YouTube of the elephant’s pool puddle party! (And congrats on your upcoming nuptials and hope you have a beautiful day for the celebration of your love and love of elephants!)
What fun to watch Kaia not being able to contain her excitement at all as she splish-splashed around! It was also very cool to get to hear Zuli’s much quieter vocalizations b/c of course, no one is as loud as our Ms Mkhaya, of the almond-shaped eyes! (that’s how I tell them apart too – her beautiful eyes)
Today I was happy to see Ndula must have been inspired by Umngani’s shower and dusting technique b/c she sure as heck was doing the exact same thing you described about an hour ago.

BTW, we are also in the SF Bay Area and while we don’t have anywhere near the beautiful fauna some of y’all have or miss, we do love and feed our neighborhood hummingbirds off our glass-doored balcony so we watch them as much as possible when they are perched, fighting or just buzzing around. We also keep plenty of those straw hanging plant basket liners so our cute little songster birds (we need to get a California bird book!) have plenty of straw to build their nests so they spend a lot of time singing from our balcony to attract a mate and also claim their turf. 🙂

I wholeheartedly agree with Lana that elephant books are not for the faint of heart (the Elephant Whisperer absolutely got me) and now usually ask Nusu to read them first so he can warn me which parts I will want to skip. A gentler book I can recommend, which you might even find in the library or used on Amazon, is titled, “An Elephant’s Life.” It’s a large book of mostly photographs but with a good amount of writing about the scenes in the photographs and some stories of the elephants the author observed. We really enjoyed it. Nusu is currently reading “Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel” by Carl Safina and there is quite a bit about elephants in it so far and there are even elephants on the cover.

I definitely believe that elephants get crushes on their keepers or carers as some of you also noted and the beauty that poses I believe is Sonje at Sheldrick’s Umani Springs location and rightly so b/c she is at least as stunning as Mama U.

One last thing for today and then I better get back to work….like Lana, Linda, your “tussling gob of gray” had me laughing out loud because I watched a few scenes like that over the last few days and even took some video of them to share with Nusu. You can find more visitor or zoo images and video of the babies and herd on Instagram or Twitter by doing a search on this: #sdzsafaripark or visit: https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/sdzsafaripark/

Belated Happy St Pats to all and here’s to another puddle party happening soon! p.s. Marula – I printed out your ellie descriptions and now I have the feeding schedules next to them! thank you!

Esampu, thank you so much! I loved that and will rewatch it many times. I also found Part 1, but Part 2 was the best. 🙂 I was so happy that someone had video of it, having missed it “live.” It was just as Marula described it, but Kaia was even more crazy with joy than I’d imagined. All that splashing as she ran back and forth! Too adorable. Khosi also used to love the water when she was younger–probably she still does, though maybe now that she’s older she’s not as exuberant. (I haven’t seen a pool party in ages.) She would even go in all by herself. She was the first ele that I ever saw throw herself up-and-backwards like a whale breaching, though I’ve seen a few (“ours” and wild ones) since then. Nothing radiates joy so wonderfully as a happy elephant playing.

“Trunk hello” to Marula! I saw the ellies right at dawn this morning for a few minutes (couldn’t stay, had to run errands). Ndula and Zuli and Umngani and Kaia, were on the hill in the upper yard, “with” each other but in-in-their-own-space. It was very peaceful; Kaia was browsing on the lawn near her mother, Zuli was nursing. Ndula led him off downhill after he finished and they joined some others down there. It was still too dark to see well, but I’m pretty sure it was the Swazi family–a smallish ele who had to be Nisa, and definitely Swazi herself at the “waterhole/fountain.” I think there were one or two others drifting around, probably Mac for one. I love to catch them early like that (already mid-morning here in the East) but don’t often have the chance. It’s particularly wonderful when the sun comes up and the light is golden-coppery on everything, the elephants look majestic and magical–like you said with Umngani and her dust-bath.

Just found a great video on YouTube a guest took yesterday! It features the babies splashing around the pool and lots of trumpeting. Search for “Baby Elephants Play Time Pt. 2 – San Diego Zoo Safari Park” on YouTube – I’m pretty sure I can’t post any links here. Enjoy 🙂

Marula, that was such a beautiful description of Umngani having her dust-bath… So you did see that YouTube video–I think it’s a wonderful example of how most mother elephants are with their babies, like the one I told you about at Djuma Dam, who took the baby around by land instead of trying to force him/her to swim across.

I can believe it was 81F in Escondido, having lived in southern California for three years; here in NY we had 1/2″ of snow last night and a wind-chill in the teens! (We did have an incredible, unseasonable 70 on Friday but very windy.) I missed all that fun this noontime, but I could see it all clearly in my mind’s eye from your wonderful description. Hah!–so that naughty Kaia DID “half-drown” poor Zuli! I’m so glad the babies had such a great time. I did see everyone late in the afternoon and there was more harmony among them than I’ve seen for awhile. Kaia and Zuli were rolling around in the dust for a little while with Kami (I think) refereeing and encouraging them to take it easy by caressing them with her trunk when they got too rowdy. She has always been very good at that–distracting the overexcited babies without using any kind of discipline. She used to lie down and lure the boys into playing climb-on with her if they were play-fighting with more fight than play. I do hope we’ll see some video posted of today’s puddle-party!

You know, Kaia may really have “a crush” on one of the Keepers. At Sheldrick’s, all the Keepers rotate caring for the babies, every day, so that all the Keepers have a day with every baby, and every baby a day with each Keeper, and so on throughout the months and years. There is always a Keeper with each orphaned baby, 24 hours a day; they sleep in the stable and they will even lie down with the baby if it has bad dreams; the baby can reach to touch the Keeper in his bed at any time, and of course they feed the babies milk throughout the night too. You would think the babies would love all the Keepers equally. They do love them all, very much, but usually each baby has a favorite one even so. (Although there is one long-time Keeper who is everyone’s favorite, along with whoever else they “chose.”) So it’s perfectly logical that our SD ellies have favorites, for whatever reasons–just as people do.

Yes, I saw Kaia spending a lot of time (for her) with her mother, late this afternoon, in the small amount of time I was watching. Umngani seemed “like her old self” as I remember her, not all dithered by stress the way she’d been lately. I sure hope that continues–she is such an incredibly sweet ele and normally such an excellent mother (obviously, when she took on Kami and Emanti).

I hope you’ll like Lawrence Anthony’s book. I’ll wait until you see how you deal with the sad bits before I suggest anything else. There are some older books that are still considered “classics” about elephants despite their age. Most of the newer ones are big expensive things with lots of photos but not a lot of detailed information about elephant life or anecdotes about things they do. We need someone like Joyce Poole (Elephant Voices) to do a new book! But I suppose she just puts all that in the website now. The Internet and Kindle and all are superb, but I still like a real book in my hands… Thank you for the new timetable for the feedings! By the way, re: time, I found a great site that has an easy time-conversion chart for US/New York to New Zealand. 🙂 You just slide the pointer, no “add X hours to GMT” stuff! So I’ll know what time it is there without wracking my brain; I’m so bad with numbers. I can do the California time conversion easily since I’ve been doing it all my life, but NZ is more complicated for sure!

Esampu, that is super news! both the wedding and the elephant cake-toppers! And I’m sure Msholo will be thrilled to be invited. But he may want to bring Umngani with him, are you prepared for that?! 🙂 By the way, I have a neat elephant-shaped cookie cutter but I can’t bring myself to eat an elephant, even a butter-cookie one, so it’s just “fun to look at.” Or, hmm, maybe I can make some elephant ornaments with white Play-Dough or something and color them with markers…

Thanks to everyone for their note-taking! I keep up with the cam daily, but never with this level of detail, I really appreciate all the added insight.
I haven’t been keeping up with comments either as I’ve been planning my wedding – we’re honoring our love of elephants by having elephant cake-toppers! We also plan on inviting Msholo (our favorite elephant in the herd). I’ll make sure to have enough hay for him.

My dearest matriarch, Lana
🥳 Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you, too!!
I’m sorry that I took loooong time to respond. I was away behind the posts up to date when I awoke up yesterday morning and after that I went into a bit of hibernation myself just like the chipmunks 🐿 in your neighborhood. Now waking up fresher than ever, I shall join our herd!
First of all, thank you very much for explaining about Luti and Umangani, your wisdom reminded me that elephants do raise their children TOGETHER- co-parenting. So perhaps Umangani really has her motherly feeling towards Luti, which is very difficult to understand and yes, it does look very “soap opera” to US. But it shows how forgiving and empathetic elephants all are. They teach us a lot.

Yes, I have seen the YouTube video before!!! And the ele was SO tiny and the look of his tail was!! I was cheering him as he was trying to cross it over. We missed the best bit but surely it stacked to my mind. So when I saw Kaia and Zuli trying to cross over the paddle stream( failed ), it reminded the tiny baby.
Speaking of this same topic, I hope you were watching ellies enjoyed the little bathing in the water hole just passed 12pm today.(3/17) Were they celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, too? When I first tuned in the early morning, the water was running, just about finishing to fill up the water hole. So I was hoping that might be some water action later. The keeper didn’t make one as a pool. It was more like a huge paddle. They did it intentionally so that the babies could have some fun as well. Can you believe it’s 81 degrees today in Escondido!? Everyone gathered along and started drinking and splashing themselves. Soon later, one by one went into the pool. Lana, we didn’t have to worry about Kaia and Zuli at all. They were crazy, having the best day ever!! M’sholo and Umngani went in together splashing water to babies creating the encouraging atmosphere for them. They kept going in back and forth and did mud bathing, then went back in again. They are running across right and left off the screen and came back from the left to right out of site again!!! What a great fun they were having surrounded by supervisors. You guessed it right!! Kaia did pushed him down and he fell over and splashed himself hard🤣. They all started there over 20 minutes and the best part them all? KAIA was continued playing in the water herself after they were all gone and she was the last one to leave!!! Meanwhile, Khosi the babysitter was patiently with her watching by the side. She looked so happy, muddy and wet, the best kid in the herd!!
If you all missed the moment, that’s ok. One of the keeper was taking some photos and video, so if we were lucky 🍀, we’ll see that in the Instagram later.
After they had the afternoon group separation, Umngani and Kaia were again moved in to the small holding and I saw one of the keeper was giving her a good wash with a stick brush. He was brushing her head, back of her ears and so on.

Gawa, I bet that was the Keeper Evan who Kaia has a crush-on”😍??

Jan, today the group combinations were the Bulls herd // the Female herd // Umngani and Kaia at the small holding. Msholo is teaching the boys how to be a gentle and cool bull😎

Northern California, Luti was separated from the herd, kept alone at the small holding until the second feeding time @ 10:15am then finally joined the rest of the herd and spent only 3 hours and separated back again into the Bulls herd. Oh, life is unfair at the moment for poor Luti. I feel some sympathy for him.now. On the other hand, Umanagani and Kaia were having fabulous time today! Luti didn’t even annoy her, either when they were at the same yard.

⏰I think they changed the first feeding session from 8:00am to *7:40am*And they are not hand feeding. A couple of keepers come and throw veggies behind the Stonehenge cave. And the herd notices and rushes there. Whoever separated from the herd since yesterday join the other group as one and 20mins later about 8:00am the herd is called again to come to the wall for the hand feeding this time in order to do the group separation. This couple of days, the herd was a bit confused by the changed schedule, so did I. Especially, for Swazi and Umangani today, didn’t know where they were supposed to be. I guess the keepers are trying to go as the summer schedule now. Or whatever the reason it is, they do work from really early morning- 😓 hard work.
But they must be loving their job. Yesterday, I saw one keeper walking the corridor and he picked a long stem leaf from the bush, then put it into his mouth with the long stem hanging out. He was doing exactly what ellies do, putting a twig in their mouth. Then, He walked off, saying hi to the ellies.
Has he become like one since he spends so much time with ellies everyday?

Lana, I ordered “Lawrence Anthony”book yesterday and thanks for the heads up. I think I’ll be able to handle the saddest part as well since I‘ve got the best matriarch with me now who always guides me to the right path. I have to wait for the fortnight though because it’ll be shipped from UK. But that’s ok because books.google let’s me have sneak peeks up to the chapter 20. 😁 It’s going to be my birthday present from ME by the time I get one. I can’t wait. It’s going to be my first and not the last elephant book ever!!!

💖Northern California
You made me SO happy that I found you here yesterday morning when I was still in bed. Right after that, you and Lana had some conversation, too. It was like we are doing “Trunk Hellos” together! What a perfect morning that was to start a day.
In fact, I fell asleep 😴 after I read both of your wonderful comments feeling completely fulfilled though woke up late I missed a lot of the ellies actions yesterday and couldn’t write you back soon enough. Sorry. I was catching up some sleep because I’ve been waking up quite early these days to see ellies as already know and I’ve been neglecting my dark under eyes circles for such a long time. But most of the time, waking up early doesn’t affect me anything. I’m a early bird myself and go to bed really early about 9 or even 8:30pm sometimes just like kids. Yes, just to keep myself up with the ellies and my human friends here. But I don’t know I felt really sleepy yesterday maybe I was in a weekend mood? Just like Kaia and Zuli today, I saw them taking a nap several times on their own. Kaia laid down in front of the cave in the morning, the cam was not so close, she integrated into the ground and disappeared. I thought she went off the screen when I looked away. Ten minutes later, three chatty aunties came along where she was before. I looked closer, there she was! She was still sleeping and looked a bit agitated because they all caressing her. So the nap time was over.

Your wildlife story is absolutely wonderful as Lana and Jan’s. It’s very interesting to hear that the wild habitats are so different from one another depends on where you live in the states. It shows how big your country is. My wild life surrounding is nothing like yours after hearing the amazing stories… I’m so jealous😙. I made the photo album, called -Northern California, the land of beautiful soul. Sounds cheesy? That’s ok, Because it’s true to me. My heart ached so much to hear that you had to leave. But I don’t need to tell you because you already know that-they are all YOURS and will be. They belong to your beautiful soul, no matter where you are.

I will make sure that I post many moments as I can capture and keep an eye on Mama U and Kaia for you. So you don’t feel being left out. As a matter of fact that you never are because you’re always with us just as right now. I’m thinking of you. I know that the timelines between SD and San Francisco are the same but I’ve set up your time anyway, along with Lana, Jan, SDZSP and mine in my phone because I wanted to. I check up everyone’s time very frequently so I do think about you all lots.❤️ And Gawa, too of course😉

After hearing about Umangani and Orphans Kami and Emanti from Lana, I look at her so differently now with more respect and admiration. Just another day, she was standing alone enjoying dust-spraying herself in the late afternoon, while Kaia had been looked after by Khosi somewhere. She was glowing amber honey like colour by the exquisitely delicate Californian sunset. It made me gasp and I was lost in the moment. The dust even looked so beautiful to me, disappearing from her into the air.

Northern California, Umngani was a wonderful affectionate mother with Neepo when he was tiny, and still with her older two as well. I too feel that the first couple of weeks with all the Luti commotion and Umngani so agitated that she didn’t even want the babysitters near, are why Kaia is so self-reliant most of the time. She may also just be more independent by nature, and it was enhanced by those early weeks. I loved reading about her and Zuli playing–Zuli for once in the mood to play and not sleep!–and about Zuli and Msholo. Msholo is wonderful with the babies, he always has been. He seems–with all the babies and the females–to exude a sense of calmness along with his strength; I’m sure Umngani feels very protected by him when she is with him, and have seen her seek his company many times back when it was Musi who was pestering her all the time.

Yes, regarding courage and elephant books. This is why I posted the “caution.” So many have wonderful things to read but also they all seem to have incidents that shatter your heart when you read them. Anyone struggling to maintain emotional balance in bad times is best to “give it a miss” until things are better. And yes, regarding the terrible 60’s-80’s. I had stopped reading about elephants, watching documentaries, all that–like you, I just couldn’t bear it. As I said in some earlier post, I got back into it in 2011, when it sort of crept up on me and I made the decision to “deal with the bad stuff.” There turned out to be more “bad stuff” than I had anticipated, and some “emotional devastation” along the way with fosterlings that didn’t survive for one reason or another, but most of “my” babies (ages 2 through 8) are doing well, knock on wood, although Shukuru has her health problems (but doing better at the new reintro center). Sympathize about your no-income situation; been there and it’s like being in some alternate universe that overlaps “the real world” in some areas but is another place entirely in others. Even though I haven’t adopted any of the SD ellies, I usually make a small donation every month, because of the cam, although you can’t designate it for that purpose, at least not with an on-line donation. But SD and SD Global are doing good work in so many ways, it’s okay in the end I guess. 🙂 Just seems a little unfair…

Marula, we were talking about baby ellies crossing water. I tracked down a YouTube video, taken by a tourist, of a very tiny baby (just about newborn judging from his “finger-in-a-light-socket” tail-hairs still sticking out instead of draping as they do later) who was afraid to cross a ditch. The mother was endlessly patient with him/her. Other family members were involved briefly in trying to coax the baby, too. It’s a very good video–I had seen it before–except that (the world is so perverse sometimes) the tourist lost the crucial moment when the baby DID cross. One minute the on-going drama, then it seemed the camera slipped and we saw the inside of the car, and when it went back to the ellies, the baby and mother were on the road on “this” side of the ditch! Arrgh! So what the actual crossing was like and how it unfolded, we will never know. But it’s definitely worth watching. The title to Google (or whatever search you use) is “Too Cute. This baby elephant is trying to cross the stream.”

Linda, “tussling gob of gray” had me laughing out loud! That is exactly how it looks when those two are wrestling and rolling all over the ground, little feet and trunks waving everywhere, impossible to tell what belongs to whom!

marula – thank you so much for the insider info on the differences between the 2 babies. i did notice kaia’s big eyes, so beautiful they’re hard to miss, and i will watch for the other identifying marks. when they’re together they are often speeding along or are a tussling gob of gray, i cannot tell one from the other! but your tips will definitely help. and lana, thanx for the shout out! to everyone else, i’m learning a lot from your observations, i appreciate your sharing. p.s. i have deliberately kept myself off social media (except occasionally twitter, don’t need to register) as i already spend too much time on the computer…! i leave the ellies on all day on my smartphone so i can check in whenever so i’m forcing myself to limit my other screen time or else i’d never get anything done. p.p.s. extra kudos to the cam volunteers and the blog monitor, without you no one would be able to enjoy the enrichment that the ellies provide to our lives; y’all make a difference…

Marula, thank you. I don’t think I’m all that special!–but it gives me much happiness to know that I’ve brightened your life a little. You brighten mine as well, that’s for certain, with your enthusiasm and empathy and eagerness to learn more about everything, not just ellies, and your lovely “stories” about our ellies.

Yes, I’ve read “The Elephant Whisperer” about three times! I guess it’s one of the most popular ele books–it’s a wonderful and incredible story, how he built his relationship with the herd and how THEY built theirs with him (it was “a two-way street” in every way). I will warn you that there are sad parts–there are sad things in ALL elephant books, inevitably–but the good things are truly worth enduring the sad ones. It’s an extraordinary story and the fact that it hasn’t really ended even with his death is perhaps the most inspiring thing of all. The ellies are mentioned in his other two books, very briefly in “Babylon’s Ark” where they are waiting for him when he comes home at last (don’t read that book, it’s about the Baghdad Zoo in the Gulf War and it will tear your heart out in spite of what he accomplished) and again briefly in his third book which is mostly about rhinos. Also, Lawrence Anthony’s wife just published a book that tells some of the things from her viewpoint, although her major theme was the rhinos. I’m going to have a look at my “inventory” of elephant books and I’ll recommend a few–but the same “caution,” there will be sad events. I’ll get back to you about that in awhile, probably not today. Others may recommend things before I get to it! (But remember, that caution is true for all ele books, in my experience, and since I’ve read over a hundred of them… No, no, what makes you think I’m obsessed with elephants?! 🙂 I do this with many things that I’m interested in.)

Yes, the wild ellies are surrounded by constant danger. I suggested a few years ago (it was relevant to things that we were discussing in the blog about the ellies and the pool) that they were cautious about the babies even going close to the water when tiny because in the wild they would have to worry about crocodiles in some places. Also, every so often Swazi would “pitch a fit” (I’m sure she must have called out loud though of course we can’t hear) and come tearing out of the water with all the others that were playing in there tearing right out after her. I believed, and still do, that it was a “crocodile drill,” like we have fire-drills, practice for the real thing so everyone knew what to do and to do it FAST. I was watching one of the webcams in Africa–I think Tau Lodge though forget now–and had my heart in my throat with fear, because there was a herd with babies and youngsters at that waterhole and from the cam location you could actually see a crocodile cruising in the shallows! There were usually several crocs on the sandbanks and I’m sure that the ele herds who came through the area were well aware of that. The youngsters (not the babies) came to the water but not into it, and I suspect it was a section of the waterhole where the crocodile couldn’t get close enough to lunge without exposing himself and being seen. This reminds me, Wellie (of Mfuwe Lodge) got grabbed by a crocodile in a marsh-y place, and his little trunk was bleeding; the photographer worried about him until he saw him again safe-and-sound in the next “mango season.” That incident was in the documentary film when Smithsonian showed it. I really wish that program was available on DVD; I keep hoping, but so far no joy.

Oh, that was very interesting about Umngani and Luti while the fence was between them! The same sort of thing went on with Musi sometimes. Remember, she knew these boys as babies and undoubtedly loved them as “children.” She understands their problem and is sympathetic to them so long as they aren’t driving her crazy with their persistence. So she wants him (them) to know that she still loves them even though she can’t tolerate that behavior, I think. It’s very touching to see these sort of interactions. Poor Luti, I’m sympathetic to him too, but NOT when he’s pestering and bullying her! Yes, they do lead complicated lives–we sometimes joke about it being a regular “soap-opera” at the Park. And even those of us who have been watching for years are still in-the-dark about so much that goes on with “our ellies,” if only because we don’t see a lot of it–our own personal time to view is limited, or it’s nighttime, or the cam is focused in one area on one group while all kinds of things are going-on in another area with another family or group or individual. Sometimes I wish I were one of the crows there and I could perch somewhere above and watch it all, and flap down closer to check-out anything that caught my interest.

Marula, wow, that your Naturalist observation skills are astounding! I am amazed at the information you have gathered and also your intuitive insights. Especially because you have been able to gather so much information in such a short time and all through a video cam and not on-site. I am in awe of your abilities, you buzzy bee! 🙂 Thank you so much for sharing. And Lana, our matriarch, thank you for the on-going sharing of elephant wisdom and stories that you’ve gathered over the years. I am so grateful to you and Marula for sending me “trunk hellos”. I’ve been enjoying reading all of your sharings back and forth as well as Gawa and Jan’s posts. It was also really enjoyable getting to know each of you a little more (Marula, Lana and Jan) by reading about where you live and the beautiful wildlife around you. Before my daughter got sick and we had to move to town almost 3 years ago, we used to live up on our gorgeous piece of land surrounded by wilderness (about 2 1/2 hrs north of San Francisco) and we have pretty similar wildlife to what Jan described where she lives even though she is in the Midwest (though no chipmunks where we live unfortunately–I just love those little guys), plus jackrabbits and quail. We occasionally have a bear, bobcat or mountain lion come through as well, peregrine falcons that nest on a large sacred rock on our land (unless the ravens chase them away) and one summer a mother otter and her two babies who stayed until they had caught and eaten all the catfish out of our pond! During the winter, we usually have a few immature bald eagles that stay until the weather warms up and then they head north. My daughter and I miss our land and our animals so intensely it aches (we have 3 cats, 1 bunny and a semi-feral cashmere goat that wandered onto our land and adopted us).
Thank you Marula about your assurances about Mama U and Kaia. Yes, I have often seen them separated out into the separate yard and Kaia nursing happily. It makes me a little sad because they are missing out on herd bonding time but I’m glad that they are both safe and eating peacefully away from Luti. I’m wondering if being separated so much is why Kaia is so over the top enthusiastic about pestering Zuli all the time? It seems like he is the only ellie that I notice Kaia touches and cuddles with (and climbs all over and pins down!). Nisa and Khosi will gentle guide or touch her sometimes, but I don’t notice Kaia reaching up to everyone to cuddle and touch them. Zuli on the other hand, reaches up touches, rubs against and cuddles with the majority of the herd. Marula, thank you for telling us the difference you’ve noticed in the babies. I had noticed the size and that Kaia has inherited her mother’s beauty with her big, almond-shaped expressive eyes but I hadn[t noticed the other differences so I shall look for those now.
Lana, I haven’t yet had a chance to look at video with Mabu playing with calves but I got to watch Wonky Tusk leading her herd through the lodge to the ancestral mango tree which was so amazing! I loved the one clip that showed Wellie and some other youngsters all laying on the grass beneath the mango tree having a peaceful, restful nap where they knew they were completely safe from all predators and bellies were full of mangoes and leaves. So adorable.
When Zuli and Kaia are together, they seem to be thoroughly enjoying exploring and being rowdy together–except for the times Zuli’s trying to take a nap and then it’s just Kaia being rowdy on top of him! I notice Zuli though still likes to climb on or mount Kaia so he gives it back too. They are just so fun and hilarious to watch together. I can’t wait for the pool parties! I only discovered our ellie herd a few days before Zuli was born so I never really got to see any super rowdy water fun. Thank you to everyone for all your descriptions past and present and to the cam operator who has been doing the most amazing camera work lately! Happy watching and loving ellies to all!

Marula, I loved “The Great Mystery”! — that’s fabulous information (and so much work, wow, I and others surely appreciate it) about the ellies’ schedule! Thank you so much! Now I have to study it more closely and try to remember it and/or make a little chart. It’s great to know all that! And it should help me judge which times of day I should “target” when I’m able, too. I wanted to answer you sooner, but too much going on here today (3/15).

That was so interesting about the babies and the puddles. I’d seen a video with a baby who was reluctant to cross water in a ditch by the side of the road, yet seen other babies go right into “deep” water. I know that wild orphans who are rescued from water or mud situations are very wary of water afterwards for a long time (months, even years); I’m thinking that the average baby’s reactions must depend on how young they were when they first encountered puddles, streams, etc., and under what circumstances (stressful or playful or whatever). Long ago on one of the live-cam Djuma game drives (they used to be like a real “safari,” not like what National Geographic does now) we saw a baby ele with his herd that was afraid to cross the small river leading into the waterhole there. He tried but couldn’t get himself past the depth of just below his tummy. His mother had gone ahead expecting him to follow; when she saw that he wasn’t (he probably called the “lost baby” cry to her, even though he was with part of the herd), she left her older calf to continue alone and went back to him. She tried to coax him but although he did try, he wouldn’t go any deeper. She finally–with several of the others in the herd who hadn’t crossed yet and stayed with her companionably–led him along the shore of the waterhole and they crossed over by the road that ran on top of the dam. He was just drooping with unhappiness, either at failing to do what he “should” do or simply emotionally worn out. I knew only a little about ellies and thought he must have had a bad experience that traumatized him. I still think it may have been that, but also he may just have been younger than I realized at the time. Or not well, or very tired. Because when they all stopped for a dust-bath on the other side, his mother had to help him get up afterwards. Whatever the reason, the guide/presenter said it was the first time he’d ever seen an elephant afraid of water.

Yes, I kept a journal from Sept. 2011 to Oct. 2014. Then a series of things prevented me from continuing properly and I got so far behind that I just gave up and only took screen-prints (and those rarely). I was going to try to start over again when Zuli was born but discovered I can’t keep up with it. From Aug. 2012 to Oct. 2014, I had been typing things from my scribbled and/or shorthand notes into a “Word” document on the computer, and using screen-prints to illustrate what I was describing. Okay at first but then circumstances made it too complicated and time-consuming for me to continue. I think it’s wonderful that you’re doing a journal and even more wonderful that you’re drawing pictures for yours. I may try again myself one of these days but if so, just handwritten and maybe some thumbnail sketches either from life or from screen-prints…

Was indeed very relieved that the mix-and-match with the various families is so well worked-out, and especially that the mamas and babies are given some “alone” time separate from each other, where the babies can nurse in peace, when Kaia and Zuli aren’t constantly pestering each other to play–although it seems like Kaia is the usual instigator!

Linda, hello and welcome! Marula’s given you the best tips about ID-ing the two babies. I’m not always sure which one I’m seeing but usually I can tell from these differences. It’ll be more obvious as they get older, luckily for us.

Lana, remember what I told you that I was investigating something🔎? And I promised you that I would share it with you about 5 days ago. Well, your question (3/10) got me to start looking into my journal and I was hoping that something could be the answer for you. Back then, you were wondering what impact the daylight saving has on our ellies and the zoo animals-“feeding time” and whether or not human time confuses them etc. Soon after that, it was very good timing that you and Gawa were interestingly talking about how elephants remember things, relating to Wonky Tusk and Thule Thul herd’s story.

Now, I’d like to share with you all what I’ve discovered so far. The title is – “The great mystery of SDZSP elephants”. It’s finally out! It might look gibberish to you first, but please bare with me to the end..I’ll get to the point to the answer for many of your wonderings. So here we go.

I started to record what time and how many the feed session/s during the day and how they are moved between the yards, who goes where and whom with and so on since 1/21/19. I tried to find what they eat as much as I possible from the cam though it was tricky. So I left my questions to Gawa. Thank you! Why am I doing all this, you may ask? It’s simply the curiosity thing. I know, weird?

The records from 1/21-3/3
⏰the first feeding time was around 8:30am on weekdays. The Weekends and heavy rainy days, the time was about 9am. This is the time when ellies get to move the first in the morning to the different yard and when the keeper’s day begins.
This move was temporarily made mainly for the cleaning purposes. So normally all ellies were moved into one yard.
✏️The time changes about 10 or 15 mins before/after depends on a day but each moves is coordinately done between the keepers and well trained ellies.

⏰the second move was about 10:30am all ellies were moved to the other side of the yard. This applies the same on the weekends, but not relevant on rainy days and when visitors come on the corridor.
Again, the second move was temporary only for clearing and topping up food. The team makes meticulous job on that and very quickly done.

⏰the third feeding time and the move was made between 1- 2 pm.
✏️You get to see the keepers do hand feeding ellies from the buckets, also do some trick training as welll as the body checks. Also mums and M’sholo get some meds then. 📎And this was the time when the keepers SEPARATED into various ways and moved them into each yards. But they all joined together because the gate remained open later on most of the days.

⏰the forth feeding time was about 3pm. Hey sheets was sometimes thrown for the herd and the keepers throw veggies to ellies on the other side. This is quick jobs, soon you see ellies start searching foods and wander around a bit.
Note: I used to see the gate remained open later and during the night, but hardly any now.

The records from 3/4 to 3/15 today
📍the daily schedule of feeding sessions were all changed exactly 7 days before the Daylight Saving.
And I noticed all 14 ellies used to get together for “ 4-5 hours” each day after the first move until the third one was made which was during the mid Feb. to the beginning of March. Even seen all day together sometimes before that. But since Luti’s pestering escalated so much that the keepers try to do their best to separate Luti and Umngani. Since the last 5 days or so, the amount of time they get together each day is about 3-4 hrs max. In a few days during the week, they are completely separated cleverly using these FOUR sections – The west, east, pen closure and the small holdings+barn. So less fussy days for Umangani.

⏰the first move was/ still is 8am. Some ellies are hand fed on hold in order to make the transfer easy for the keepers.
The some are moved to the other side and some goes to the pen closure separated during the cleaning. Especially for between Umngani and Luti // baby and its mum to the other set( Kaia and Zuli are separated sometimes) so that mum can properly nurse her baby.

⏰the second feeding time is around 11am.
✏️This is the time when the keepers do hand feeding on certain ellies like mums, M’sholo to get some meds, a few ellies to practice some tricks and get their body checked up. The rest go food searching which are thrown on the ground.

⏰the third feeding time is around 3 pm. This time the keeper throw veggies and hey sheets to them as afternoons snack.
📎the gate is always closed now they don’t get to move around duri the day and night.
Because of the keepers made the special schedule, Umngani seems more relaxed than she had been agitated before. Luti is still chasing her around whenever he sees her.

⏰the forth time is at 3 pm normal the buckets of veggies are thrown and sometimes hey sheets, too.
✏️These feeding times run as a rule but sometimes they are mended when the visitors /V.I.P come ( like today) and rainy days, too.
Today’s combination: the rest of the herd at the west and east yard. The main gate remains open and will be until tomorrow 8 am. // Umngani and Kaia at the small holding separated from the rest until tomorrow.

Nowadays, from the first in the morning, the whole herd is dissected into 2 or 3 groups like these below;

[1] the boys only herd at the west // the ladies + babies herd at the east yard
[2]the team Ndula + M’sholo at the west // the theam Swazi+Kami and Emanti at the east // Umangani and Kaia in the small holding
[3]the team Umangani at the west // the Swazi + Kami and Emanti at the east // Ndula, Luti and Zuli at the pen closure + the small holding
[4] the team Swazi, Luti, Kami and Emanti at the west // the team Umangani, Nudla, Zuli and M’sholo at the east
[5]the team Umangani at the west // the team Swazi, the the team Ndula, Msholo, Kami and Emanti at the east.
[6]the team Nudla and M’sholo // the rest at the east
[7]the main gate remains open, Umngani and Kaia separated from everyone at the small holding area // the rest the both access to the east and west yard (*** this is the new combination for me to record which was made when the VIP came today, I think she was the relative of one of the Keeper. She got the special treat of meeting M’sholo, Mamas and babies so close when these ellies were called by the small holding and the visitor and her baby with the keepers inside the holding, hand fed them. Later on Mama U and Kaia went in there and M’sholo, Ndula and Zuli went off to the west yard.

As you can see, the care team has come up with many combinations you can think of and there might be even more-just like puzzle 🧩s. The hat’s down to their efforts.

That’s the end of my recording. Okay, I’ll get into the conclusions now…

Northern California, ( shouting out a big “trunk hello” to you, too. I miss you lots😘 ) as you have the elephant soul and hard working Mama yourself , I know that you’ve been worried about Mama U for a long time. But I can tell you this, she’s been under the careful watch by the keepers and making sure that she doesn’t get stressed as much as she used to be. Just like today, she and Kaia often gets the private space during the day and night sometimes. So don’t you worry😊 and Gawa, please kindly ask one of the keeper about Luti and Mama U’s matter and the future plan as Northern California has asked you about which we all would like to know.

Jan, this was your question, requested to Gawa – about the bulls herd what Curtis once mentioned about. According to my journal since 1/21 to now, there is “the strictly boys only club” exits, which is very often practiced now days, 2 or 3 times a week at least. But M’sholo moves in and out since he is the “Bachelor” to all females.😉 I’m very curious, too about what the future plan holds for the bulls herd.

Lana, as you can see, babies are often separated during the day and night so that mum can nurse her baby properly. Which is very relieving for us, isn’t it? And baby ele can take his/hers naps 💤 once and for all. I used to record what time Zuli took his nap. That was always around 12:30 am (as long as the cam caught one for me). I think it was according to his body clock🕰 and it was interesting to see when the day of Daylight Saving started, he took his nap at about 13:30pm. It was still at 12:30 pm to his clock. We are never be able to see that since the pattern was completely broken by YOU – KNOW – WHO😅

Gawa and Lana, I think there is some similarities to Wonky Tusk and Thula Thula herd. Swazi always leads her herd to the wall where you can see the steps at the east yard and stays there with her herd about 1 hour before the first feed time everyday. That’s how they start their day to wait for their keepers to appear. She definitely knows or feel the time. It seems that applies to everyone except babies. Even teenage boys stick together to come there and don’t move. No eles are seen at the Stonehenge cave area at the east yard at this time and the same thing applies to ellies who wait at the west yard, too. They go to the far end where is the closest area that can be visible to their keepers. I think that was why the care team changed the schedule time well ahead of the Daylight Saving started to practice to see how it would go to both the keepers and ellies. I know ellies are such an early bird so it wouldn’t be any problem for them, but poor keepers who lost their sleep by 1 hour.

I hope these informations interest you as much as did to me and backed up some of your questions a bit. Not so cray cray😜 for you. What I got out of this from keeping the journal is many interesting results and discovery, plus the dark circles under my eyes….🧛‍♀️+🧟‍♀️=Me.
I will be keeping my ellies journal and share with you time to time if something is up.
So this is the end of the story – “ The great Mystery of SDZSP elephants”. I hope you liked it. Thanks for reading.

📖🕵️‍♀️By Sherlock Holmes’s the other friend.( I’m not John H.Watson)

I can’t wait to see our ellies take the big plunge into the pool. It will be my first time EVER to watch ellies actually swim on live. Built-in snorkel!!🤣good one, Lana! It’s really special that your JOURNAL lets us time travel exact when that happend -this time was baby Neepo’s swimming lesson. I felt warmth inside that he conquered the fear with a bit of push from Mama U and his sisters and the best ending was that he enjoyed it very much 🎉. I’m super excited that I’ll get to see everything myself this time with you guys! The fear of water just reminded me that when just after Mama U crossed over a very narrow but long paddle, which looked like a stream, Kaia stopped and put her foot onto it to see how deep it was. Her foot didn’t even touched the water. She stood still for a couple seconds, thinking what to do next. She looked so hesitant and cautious because her trunk was curled into her mouth. Mama U kept going and didn’t wait for her( didn’t notice because that happened behind her.) Whar Kaia did next was she took a big U turn and walked away from the paddle, then joined her mum. Hours later, when Kaia and Zuli went to the same paddle, Zuli did exactly what Kaia did. Both of them avoided to cross over. This all happened about two weeks ago after the long rain. I wonder if it still stops them to go forward….just a puddle.
But one thing I’m sure of is that she will half-drown Zuli this summer!! Oh yes, most definitely.

Lana, what cheers me most is that you’ve been keeping the ellie’s Journal yourself. -Me too!! I’m really happy to hear that I’ve been doing what you’ve been doing, too. Mine is of course very new one though. I started from just two months ago. Mine started with only small notes and doodlings to now I write down all the incident that captured my heart, draw everyone (Zuli and Kaia are the hardest because they don’t keep still:( but my favorites to draw;)) and a bit of everything. It’s just started to form as a “journal” should be. As I was revisiting the past today, my journal started to tell me something, the patterns and such. It’s kind of late, so I’ll meet you here again tomorrow 😉and share with you. Again, it was so lovely to read yours. Thank you. I shall dream about our ellies swimming tonight⭐️

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you that the keeper makes sure that Emanti is hand fed veggie, enrichments and most of all he gets checked up on the feed session.This didn’t happen before because all teenage boys, except Mac don’t always get hand fed, they just pick up food, thrown on the ground. And as for Emanti, this is disadvantage. So just let you know that he was looked after by the keeper and well fed throughout the day. No one took his feed box away, nor showed him some dominant behavior. What stands out most is that Luti has been so careful around him since Emant came back. He plays him a lot and share his food with him as if he is protecting his younger brother. I see Luti and Emanti (Mac came along, too) together a lot today even after the sunset. They were together sparring among others. Though, he looked so small standing next to healthy big Luti.

Gawa, thanks for the compliment. It was nice of you. I’m glad😊so is🐝.
And the conversation topics you had with Lana was intriguing. I’ve got lots to study now and catch up to your knowledges. busy busy…

Regarding the questions you’re kindly taking with you to your adventurous trip in April, here’s one from me, please.
I’m interested in what SDZSP ellies eat…

Q1:What sorts of plant leaves/shrubs or tree branches are SDZSP ellies are given?-apart from acacia tree leaves (someone’s mentioned that before.) which is the origin of Africa and bamboos (from what I’ve seen). Are there any other selections? Also ellies are sometimes given some tropical leaves as well. I wonder what they are…
Plus, are ellies occasionally given some fruits, too? if so, what kinds of fruits do they like ? as “mangos” are Wonky Tusk and her herd’s and “watermelons ” are Musi’s (the keeper gave watermelons to him during his transferring trip. ) and I know the veggie selections which the keepers bring them in their buckets – lettuces, carrots, celeries and courgettes. I’ve seen Kaia took her first bite on a lettuce leaf before which is on SDZSP insta video. Hear the sound of it when she bites- adorable!!

Q3: When the keeper do hand feeding in the morning, they give some medicine/supplements only to Msholo and adult females. Is it for the reproductive purpose for ladies and what is for him?
Thank you. That’s all from me.

Thanks for the share with your “Zuli and Kaia” moment yesterday. I loved that. Anything to do with these babies are always sweet treats for us and you want “more please”, right?
Here is another one from me at the different time yesterday morning. Emanti was eating from a feed box. When Zuli approached him. He stopped eating and went to Zuli (a lot of them just ignore him when it comes to food involved. ) and the next, Emanti raised his foot and put it right over the little one and sandwiched him between his legs!! Zuli became hysterical! SO happy about what his idle just did!!! Zuli was wiggling his body (giggling?)and his ears flaring. I could see his overwhelming emotion throughout his entire body. Following by that, of course they did truk-bumping together. I so did “screenshot” them. These are the full course of my favourite things. 😋

As I am typing right now, I see Emanti at the fountain drinking some water and Zuli right next to him, trunk-bumping. Oh, Zuli just gave him a loooong “smooch”.

Gawa, I think that elephants must mark things in some way time-wise. I know of at least two things–possibly three–two I read about and one I THINK I saw at SDZSP. These really obvious things were all in connection with deaths, I’m sorry to say, but I’m equally sure that ellies are aware of “happy” anniversaries as well, it’s just not as obvious to see. Also there’s apt to be some confusion in dates by a day or days, due to ellies being on “nature time” and people using the “leap year” thing, I suspect. The two I read about: One was the amazing business of Lawrence Anthony’s herd of ellies coming to the lodge several years in a row after his death, on the anniversary of that (amazing enough that they came when he died, they were living totally wild by then); the other was something that happened at The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee (and not only was the elephant grieving on that day a year later, but one of the other ellies picked up her own food and carried it over to her to share and sympathize). The questionable third thing was here at the Park when Lungile was still in residence. She was clearly very distressed, streaming temporin; Umngani and Khosi were comforting her, touching and “hugging” and reassuring her, separately or together. She looked SO sad, although some of that is because she didn’t really have tusks which I always think makes an ele look “sad,” the shape of the face is so different. This comforting went on for a long time, with Lungile just standing there. Finally she began to move around a little, and eventually Umngani and Khosi moved a little away from her–but not too far. It turned out that this was within days of the time her calf had died, several years before. (I can describe this incident so clearly because it’s in my journal that I used to keep.) But generally speaking, Lungile was happy being “auntie” to the calves, and sometimes she’d even spar a little with the older boys. I miss her; I almost never have a chance to watch the Reid Park cam. She was such a sweet ele.

It stands to reason that if they remember/mark-time with sad things, they surely will do so with happy ones as well. Just because they don’t make a commotion and dance around, doesn’t mean they aren’t well aware of remembered joys–and for certain the birth of a baby is a very “big deal” with ellies! And we know they have incredibly good memories. So yes, I think they must celebrate birthdays and probably a lot of other things as well. Maybe they mark actual years sort of like Native Americans and other cultures: “The Year of the Many Mango Fruits,” “The Year of No Rain,” etc. for ellies in the wild. I love to speculate about what elephants think, what their “culture” is really like and if we will ever know. The ethologists learn more and more about elephants all the time, so perhaps someday, between research in the wild and interactions in places like the Park, people will learn enough elephant-language. I think the ellies already know a lot of human language and would probably talk to us if they could shape their tongues around words. Which reminds me, Gawa, did you happen to read the Keepers Diary with the day that one of the Keepers was telling the orphans a story as if they were his children, and all the ellies stood around listening to him? I’m pretty sure that was at Umani Springs, about a year ago or so.

I was lucky enough to see Kaia and Zuli tearing around like whirling-dervishes this afternoon. She won’t let that poor boy catch his breath, most of the time. She did finally persuade him to play–and they were all over the place on the hill, using the logs as part of their game, charging at each other and chasing each other and climbing on each other until they finally got tired of it. I was exhausted just watching them! Ndula and Umngani were right nearby the whole time, eating and probably heaving sighs of relief that they had a moment or two of peace while the little dynamos amused each other. For sure they don’t worry any more about Kaia being too fragile for Zuli to “attack!”–more like worrying if Zuli will survive Kaia’s attentions!

Marula, you’re right–I haven’t seen Kaia napping for a long time. I’m sure she must, but I bet it’s what we call “cat naps,” only a few minutes at a time, before she’s recharged her energy-level and racing off to look for mischief to get into! She was dashing around earlier, I don’t know why–maybe trying to find someone to pester or maybe she’d been playing and was headed for her mother to refuel on milk! It’s just so priceless to see those two babies playing, especially if they’re flaring their ears–is there anything cuter than a baby African elephant’s ears? Well, maybe their tiny trunks… but I love the ears, they are so very large (no doubt to make the baby look bigger and more fierce) and so very emotionally expressive.

Lana, yours came up while I was typing again:)) It seemed like you, Jan and I were writing at each other about the same time, criss-crossing. Thanks you for explaining the whole story to us from the beginning. Now, I understand what exactly happened and how Emanti dealt with himself from his mother’s loss, I probably would prefer of hearing others outcasted him than the truth-it was HIM that isolated himself. Only so little baby did that sort of thing makes me feel torn apart. I find it so unbelievable that so little one can already be capable of expressing whatever his/hers emotions. So it was Umngani that took them both by the wings…Wow, what a great story it was to end, she’s a beautiful lady with a beautiful heart. Looking after FIVE children all at once!?, she is the super Mum. I don’t think there would be many cases like that even in the wild nor zoo. The training these children like ducklings must’ve been a rare sight. And now I know where Khosi’s motherly nature is coming from. That’s Umngani’s gene for sure.

Thank you so much for backing up our questions and vague
memories. You’re helping us lots and you’ve been so kind.
I loved watching Wellie fell asleep so much. He was just like Zuli.(I don’t see Kaia sleeping much than him.)

Thanks for the “Bee Happy” comment which was SO sweet of you. It made me 😊. And yes, we all are busy buzzy bees 🐝, aren’t we?

Thank you, Lana! I know I had read it was Mama U who stepped up to be mother to Kami and Emanti, but wasn’t totally sure. Thanks for letting us know. I believe I started watching the cam when Nisa was several months old. I do remember her being a busy little girl and then, out of no-where, her plopping down to nap. No matter what she was doing or where she was at. Even in Swazi’s hay pile, it made no difference. I do recall Emanti by himself a lot. He was distant from all the others, and I felt, and thought, the other Ellies were treating him as a outcast/blacksheep, until I was learning about Elephants and discovered, he may have been greiving and it was the way he dealt with it.

I’m at work, so have to run, but was so excited to read this Lana.

Happy Birthday, Gadze!!!

Happy Birthday to Ingadze!

Jan, regarding Swazi’s family and Emanti and Kami: From the time of Umoya’s death until Nisa was born, Umngani was “mother” to the two little orphans and she did a really good job of it. You would see her with a “train” of elephant calves following her around the yard or eating beside her: Khosi, Ingadze, Neepo (who was less than a year old), Kami, and Emanti. I would see her comforting them, resting her trunk on their backs, sometimes even caressing/massaging their necks-shoulders-back while they stood under her chin backed against her chest. It was easier for Kami to cope because she could share babysitting with Khosi–both for Neepo and for Emanti (who was only about 1 1/2 years old at first). Emanti was grieving hard, he didn’t even want to play with poor Neepo most of the time; he would wander by himself along the outskirts of the yards, searching for scattered treats/pellets that the others had overlooked as a way to distract himself. I read later that orphaned wild babies at Sheldrick’s sometimes grieve for many months in this “want to be alone” sort of way, but even before I read that, anyone could see from his body-language that this was not a happy baby. He did indeed take months to stop shoving Neepo away when Neepo would try to lure him to play. When Qinisa was born, the Keepers arranged things so that she and Emanti were now in Swazi’s “family domain,” which worked out well enough except that she wasn’t as attentive and affectionate as Umngani had been. But by that time, Kami was enthralled (as was Khosi–they had to work out a schedule for who would take care of the baby when) with Nisa, and Emanti was playing with the boys again, so it wasn’t as crucial. However, us old-timers want everybody to know–and we say it whenever this comes up–that it was Umngani who was the foster-mother to Kami and Emanti for a little under a year.

Yes, Nisa always wanted to be “one of the boys.” Occasionally one of them–usually Neepo, who was the youngest–would indulge her in a short pushing game. He was so sweet with her–sometimes he would pretend she’d won, that she was “the bigger elephant,” and she would be SO happy. Most of the time the boys were like: “This is no place for GIRLS!” I recall at least one time when she was so desperate to join in that she kept getting between the two boys (forget which two, way long ago now) whenever they stepped apart for a few seconds. They were always careful of her, she never got hurt despite her recklessness. Neither, however, did they let her actually play with them. She would be SO crestfallen and wander off all droopy-looking. Really hard to be a little sister with (I think I counted this right) five older brothers/half-brothers!

Marula, BEE happy! 🙂 Maybe they’ll have a party for Ingadze, but probably even if they do, most of us won’t be viewing at the right time, alas. But he’ll be happy with his treats and the others will enjoy their share of treats and any new “toys” (like boxes and bags filled with fancy food) to play with. They just love to “collapse” boxes and wave streamers around!

Marula, glad you had a chance to watch, “Wonky Tusks.” When I watched it, (well I have several times) I’m amazed at the similarities with Wonky’s herd and ours. Though I shouldn’t have, but I think as humans, we tend forget an animal living in captivity still retains their wild instincts. I was also thrilled to see, our herd acts like wild Elephants, which is SDZSP’s goal, to let them be …. Elephants, and live like Elephants as much as “humanly” possible.

Marula, when I started watching the cam, Kami and Emanti were still very young and you could always find them with Swazi and her family. They kept their distance though. When she moved from place to place in the yard, they followed ….. behind. At that time there weren’t enrichment boxes so they always fed from the ground. I recall seeing Kami, s-t-r-e-t-c-h-ing to eat from the pile of hay Swazi and little Nisa were eating from. Emanti usually was with Mac eating, not too far from Swazi, as you know how Swazi is with her food. She allowed Nisa to eat from the pile as Nisa was still months old when I discovered the cam. Sometimes Mac would eat with Mom and sister, and Emanti was always close by. As a general rule, Kami and Emanti were often with Swazi. I understand, it wasn’t always Swazi who took up being, “Auntie,” to the orphanes and maybe someone else can share more about that. So that said, I see why Emanti and Mac were sparring, they have always been buddies, though, it’s wonderful the two were able to be together, that makes me happy. It’s a beautiful thing to picture, the three of them.

Nisa? She has always thought she could play with the big boys and she has tried so hard to be one of the boys. I found it so amusing to read your share about her playing with Mac and Emanti. It’s sweet to know, those three had, “family” time.

Emanti is my favorite boy and Kami, my girl. I know we shouldn’t have favorites, but maybe I should have said, they’ve captured my heart more. I have a weekness for orphanes as all our dogs have always been rescues.

Lana, loved your story about Khosi and the, “food bowl.” 😊

This will post as the 12th, I think, but it’s still the 11th.

Marula, it’s wonderful to read all the things you see on the cam! Thank you so much for sharing and for telling the stories so well. I only watch off-and-on and I miss so much… You’ll be stunned (in a good way) when you see the Wonky Tusk video… It is indeed amazing that we’re able to communicate all the way across the world “at the same time” despite all the artificial divisions of hemispheres, seasons, and of course clocks! I think this is one of the best things about the Internet, that people who will never travel very far in person can visit so many places and meet so many very special people (and animals)–it’s like being given a whole new universe. And the information you can research is awe-inspiring.

Oh my, I can just see Nisa trunk-bumping Emanti affectionately while they eat. And it’s good to hear that the Keepers are separating Luti and Umngani as much as possible. They’ve always been good about mix-and-matching the families to give a different “dynamic” to the groups and how they relate to each other. As for the effort the Team puts into the enrichment–landscape, new toys, etc.–I have always been in awe of their ingenuity and enthusiasm. I read some things on line and in books about the variety of ways to interest and stimulate “zoo” animals nowadays, and I am so impressed with the fact that they do this, such a big difference from the past. I enjoyed reading what you wrote about that so very much! Usually all the enrichment things seem to be set up, etc., when I’m not watching. I see the stuff but it’s already in place.

Also, the ellies find games to amuse themselves, as you’ve seen. I want to share two incidents of that from the past. (1) Khosi was eating from a hanging food-ball, and decided to make it more challenging for herself. It was hanging at the back of the small “holding” (I call it, don’t know the name) yard where there are some bars and a gate to the area beyond. Instead of just reaching in for the hay, after awhile she began twining her trunk around through the bars to get to it that way, from different angles too, even though it was harder to reach! (2) Luti was playing with a tub–some kind of heavy-duty plastic or suchlike, I presume. He would put it through the fence (at that same “holding” area) and try to reach it over the highest bar of the fence; he couldn’t get a grip. He thought about it for a few seconds and then reached through the lower bar and pulled it through that way. He was still messing around with it when the cam operator decided to “go elsewhere.” Oh, and I remember a time when they had disc-shaped food-puzzles, the ele had to roll the disc like a wheel to get the contents (not hay, as I recall, maybe pellets or something like that) to fall out, there was no other way; wonder why they discontinued those, maybe some safety hazard for some reason. (They are very alert to that possibility with “toys” at the Park.) Also one time baby Nisa couldn’t get anyone to play with her–though she sure tried!–and invented a game of climbing the muddy hill even though she kept sliding backwards! Our ellies have certainly got a lot of imagination, and the Keepers work so hard to help keep them entertained; no wonder the ellies love them.

Jan, the pleasure is absolutely all mine!!! Thanks for sharing your most darling friends in your neighborhood.
I got lost in your overwhelmingly beautiful place in the blink of an eye only from reading. The wildlife you and Lana both have is just astonishing. I wish I could see with my own eyes and take it all in and breathe in. The air and water must be pristine as well. Wow, so you’re from Chicago, I watched the news a month ago-the blizzard and the buildings looked so grey and icy. I couldn’t believe what I saw and the temperature!! You must be longing the spring to come soon. I needed to look up numbers of wild animals you mentioned to see what they look like. Oh my, they all look adorable!! even coyotes, too. They’ve got a very spiritual look (poor pets though.) The deer herd you talked about was insanely powerful and thrilling! They’re such an magnificent creatures. I read about your magical story over and over as if the book was so compelling and you couldn’t put down. So thank you very very much!! I’d love to meet your lovely but smelly friends-“Striped Kitties” , just politely taking a little distance so. Now I have a photo album in my phone, which says “Jan’smMythical Woods in Chicago”, right next to Lana’s.
I loved to hear about Nisa and the mule deer incident. I was just as surprised for me to see them on the cam at the first time to find out that ellies co-live with deers, too!? Later I was happy to see rabbits 🐇 as well cheerfully hopping in the yards between, probably looking for some leftovers that the keepers dropped.
So now I know that you and Lana co-live with deers as well just like SDZSP ellies do.
I really appreciate you sharing with us -the precious memoirs that you cherish in your heart. You and Lana must have been sharing so many beautiful, sometimes sad stories about them over the years. I truly love that you guys let me experience that too. I could easily visualise that by hearing.
Thank you for the YouTube videos, I will watch them later this evening alter I watched our ellies. Did you realise that our cam operator worked until about 7pm(Ellies time) yesterday!!?? Normally the cam stops moving after 5pm, so I was so happy that he/she did so that I could follow them a little bit longer while the outside was much lighter. A big thank you to the operator!!

Yes, Emanti was finally back yesterday and spent the whole night with boys at the west yard which was the first time event for him since his long separation. I guess his “Med Club” is finally over!? He looked a bit cautious at first as Jan said, but soon he was old Emanti back again. Luti seemed really excited to have, sparring and sparring all morning as far as the cam showed. Did you notice Mac was held at east yard with his mum among the ladies yesterday and throughout the night. I guess he is the easiest teenage boy to handle by the keepers without making a fuss and even putting only him in the lady herd, no one complains I guess because he is the matriarch’s son after all-the prince. In the morning, This morning I enjoyed watching him just simply eating and wandering about. And I’m so delighted to see that he’s got his strength back to normal and he can have so much fun between the boys. And later he was standing at the right side of Msholo, looking just like Dad and his Son. I don’t know but they together made me cry. Now at 11am, the two herds were united as one. Soon or later, the cam was gravitated to the two little happy munchkins who always melt my heart. And now I am completely glued at them. What should I do?
I still can’t spot Emanti yet…Can you? It seems like the main gate remains open…Well, I’ll continue watching and tell you what I see. So stay tuned!!!

Question: What do you call the Path( kind of U turn looking but not visible on the cam) which connects the west yard and the east pen closure+the barn, then through the east yard. Some ellies are sometimes held there, sandwiched between Mum and a her baby at the smallest yard+ barn and the rest of the herd at the west yard in to the three sections for example. Do you know where I’m talking about? The opening bar fences attached here and there look like a maze to me but work so conveniently for the keepers. I just want to know what exactly you call it so that everyone is at the same page when I talk about it next time. Thanks😄

I fell behind in the posts … again. I’ve been watching the cam sporadically during the last week as I’ve had Doctors appointments and work. (I have a nasty ear infection). I read all the posts and thank you so much, everyone, for each share about our herd and yourselves!

If I would fly, New Zealand is one place I would love to visit, so hearing about your country is a treat for me, Marula. I live 30 miles southwest of Chicago, Illinois in the USA. I think Lana and I have the same wildlife, except the Bears, thank goodness! We have pretty much the same weather, and we have had a brutal winter that I’m sure has been a struggle for wildlife. But the Skunks seem fine as I have smelled them on and off now that it’s beginning to warm up. (We nickname them, “Striped Kitties.”) We have, White Tail Deer and one day while walking my dog in the woods we had a herd of about 25 cross our path running! It was beautiful, yet it stunned me as you can imagine how breathtaking and majestic these graceful animals are, and to be so close! I feed the birds and Squirrels and the Chipmunks come too, although they hibernate in the winter. We have the Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds during the summer and lots of beautiful Butterflies. There have been Eagle sightings in our area as well. People are careful with leaving their dogs in their yards as we have Coyotes, and they have sadly captured pets in hunting for food. We have Fox, Opossums, Raccoons, Hawks, Beavers, Woodchucks, Bats, Moles, River Otters, Rabbits, Voles and of course mice! I live in a small hilly town surrounded by woodlands and wildlife. In the mornings, we wake up to the birds singing and go to sleep with the Coyotes’ song. We are on Central Time and as best as I can tell, you’re about 19 hours ahead of my time, Marula. I am 2 hours ahead of SDZSP, Ellie time. Daylight Saving Time is here and it’s exciting as it means, more daylight to watch our Ellies!

I saw Emanti this morning as the Keepers moved the boys to the west yard. He seemed a bit reserved, unless because it was Gadze, near an enrichment box, he was just being cautious.

There’s a lot to catch up on. Regarding Luti and his loooooong time Nursing. I remember when we all wondered if Ndula would ever call off nursing Luti. I recall him having to crouch down to nurse. There are some, “first times,” I cherish in my mind and hold mental photo’s off. Like the first time, I saw Nisa, stretch to receive a treat from a Keeper. It had been raining and the Keeper was wearing her rain gear bottoms. The first time I saw Nisa charge at Mule Deer, and she was serious about it! I laughed out loud as the Deer was bigger than her. She was a tomboy and wasn’t afraid of anything.

Lana, you brought me back to the day when the Keepers had Emanti between the gates and were doctoring him. They were patient and Emanti was so good about it. It almost brought tears to my eyes as you knew it had to be uncomfortable for him, yet the trust was there, and Emanti didn’t walk away, he allowed the Keepers do what had to be done to make him better.

Gawa, congratulations on your visit to SDZSP! We are looking forward to all you have to share and maybe some pictures!? I assume you’ll be doing Roar and Snore next to our Ellies? We have to know what day you’ll be there so we can tune in and hopefully see what you’re seeing. Maybe wave at the cam, although we may not catch that. The question I’d like to know the answer of is, will there be a Bachelor herd someday? I think it was in a past blog, where Curtis mentioned, they “may” start a bachelor herd because of all the boys being born. It was a mere mention, but maybe it was something the park is thinking of now. I know Musi is out on loan, but don’t know for how long. If he were to return, there may be a plan in place. As best I know, Musi hasn’t fathered a calf, which if he did, it would be wonderful, because Ndula was pregnant when she came to SDZSP. I believe the father is unknown and he was conceived in the wild which is why they sent him to Fresno Chaffe Zoo as there was a female there that had been wild, not born in captivity, so the calf would be of wild genetics had they mated. Sadly I think she has passed away. I don’t know that the Elephant Exhibit can expand where they’re at as the Tiger exhibit at the head of our Ellies and the Giraffes is at the foot. Don’t think it’s possible to expand west, but maybe east.

I have truly enjoyed reading all the past posts. I appreciate everyone’s updates and all that you shared. I agree we are so fortunate to have this wonderful blog, cam, cam operators, monitors, and the best Elephant Keeper Team anywhere! If one of us misses something, the other will share it, it doesn’t get any better than that.

While watching our Herd, on youtube is better than any treat one could see, may I suggest two videos on youtube some of you may enjoy. I believe I learned of them here. In youtube, google, “Wonky Tusks.” It’s a beautiful story about a matriarch that brings her family to the Mfuwe Lodge in, Zambia, well I should say, they walk right through the lodge. No one gets hurt and not a single thing is destroyed. There’s a few different video’s and stories, it will melt your heart. Then, look for “Apples in the tent.” There will see just how gentle a BIG bull is. You will get to see how massive a bull is, compared to a human and how gentle Elephants are around them.

I was finally able to see Kaia and Zuli playing a little while this afternoon–haven’t been tuning in at the right times lately. Well, I should say, Kaia playing and Zuli trying to take a nap! Silly Zuli, as if she’d leave him in peace to sleep. Here she came and started clambering all over him; I bet he was groggy and wondering what-the-heck? He finally got out from under her and she walked off a little way–either she wanted him to follow, or he’d told her “no!” But next thing I knew, they were at it again, roll-and-tumble and climb-on. Poor Zuli! He managed to extricate himself and headed off away from her, but she was hurrying after him as they went out of cam-range! I think they’d better get their nap-times synchronized or Zuli is going to become very grouchy. Ndula just went on eating, ignoring it all, so I guess it’s not a real problem or she’d have taken steps to break-it-up. Maybe he’d been sleeping longer than I thought, before Tropical Storm Kaia arrived!

Marula, I’m glad you like the wildlife we have here. As regards the ellies and the Keepers at the Park–they do have to be careful with their affection in some ways, I’m sure, but elephants are so intelligent and curious, even in the wild some will come to trust certain humans if given the chance, and actually seek contact with them. Using the word “contact” reminds me, the “protected contact” system that zoos and parks and sanctuaries use now is SO much better in all ways than the old system. The elephants now have the choice to come, stay, go, etc. when they themselves want to. (Just mentioned the incident with one of the babies and a Keeper this past week, how she wanted to play but then was tired of it and left–both the playing and the leaving were on her terms, nothing was forced on her.) I have absolutely no doubt that our ellies love their Keepers. They would love the attention and interaction even if there were no treats involved, the treats are just happy extras to look forward to. You can tell how they feel just by watching them when they have to have their feet taken care of or whatever health things have to be done for them–unless it’s something painful, they’re willing participants. Sometimes even when it’s painful; they don’t like it but they allow it, like poor little Emanti when they had to “irrigate” his infected tusks with medicine. (I’ve probably mentioned this in the past sometime recently?) It was not fun for him at all, and the Keeper and the vet were very sensitive to how they handled it and treated him, giving him breaks every minute or two and encouraging him with patting and certainly talking soothingly to him, telling him it was okay and he was a brave boy and all that, I imagine. I was very impressed at the time with both Emanti and the humans. Also that this was done where we could see it, though not close-up; I would guess because it was less upsetting for him to have the other ellies nearby than to be taken off to the barn. (The others may have been calling encouragement to him, too, it wouldn’t surprise me.) They did it in the area between the gates to upper and lower yards. From things I’ve read, and seen in a couple of documentaries, ellies very clearly understand when you’re trying to help them, even if it hurts–though I think that probably only applies to humans they already know and trust.

Not to worry about mistakes. I’m hopeless with numbers, in fact I said Ingadze was about 3 or 4 when I first saw him and that was wrong, it was 2011 and he was only a bit over 2 years old! Plus, even though I have the calves’ birthdays written down, I have to check the information underneath the cam-window before I dare to post a date since I’m always afraid I made a mistake copying/recopying them in my yearly minder! (I have the same problem with my foster-orphans at Sheldrick’s, and I’m not too great about the people in my life, either.)

It’s still March 9 here. And tonight we change over to Daylight time so 2:00 a.m. becomes 3:00, and so on. I am not a fan of time changes! And meanwhile the “animals” in our life are sensibly still on Nature Time, which confuses the issue even more! I wonder what they do at the Park and Zoo about feeding times, etc.–it’s not so relevant with the ellies, maybe, since they eat constantly day and night, but how about lions and tigers and polar bears? Maybe they stagger feedings every-day-a-different-time, or various times throughout the day, just as a matter of course to keep the animals “sharp” and not confined to a human schedule like zoos did in the old days. Maybe one of our blog readers and/or writers might know? Or maybe the Monitor could find out about that for us when back on duty?

Marula, before I talk about ellies I will answer your comments about where I live. Yes, the alpha female that I call “Big Doe” (it seems presumptuous of me to give wild deer names; they are so “themselves,” if you can untangle what I mean) has had two fawns last spring and they all came often; they are still with her and her older daughter “Small Doe” now, but will leave in late Spring when/if she has new babies. We do have bears, one was seen here a year ago, and last summer my brother had a family of three on his “deck”–he just opened the door partway and told them sternly “You have to go now,” and they considered the matter and went! Of course they don’t understand the words, but like most creatures they do get the emotional meaning. Yes, ruby-throated hummingbirds. And we have darling little striped ground-squirrels called chipmunks.

I’ve thought a lot about the SD ellies being “captive.” In one way it disturbs me; in another, I am thinking like this: If I were a mother elephant, I would rather have my children in captivity (in a place like SDZSP, that is, or even larger would be better) and know that they were safe, than living in terror daily of poaching, human-wildlife conflict, drought conditions, and the occasional really-determined lions. To me, the fact that the SD herd has maintained their wild behaviors and, even more important, taught those behaviors to their calves, shows that they are not losing their–what shall I call it–their “elephant culture,” so to speak. They have adapted incredibly to their changed lifestyle just in welding themselves into a herd, even if it has its glitches because the females aren’t related to each other. I would think that in some far future when Khosi or Kami is the matriarch, if the ellies have continued to preserve their “culture,” the herd will be even more like a normal one, with all the girls being half or full sisters. I think, too, that perhaps in that future, the Park will have a much larger area for them to roam.

I loved your “the truth is that life” quotation. It is indeed so true. Also the Anatole France “path.” Life is a kaleidoscope of emotions, some incredibly wonderful and some tragic and traumatic, but all the pieces are there and they do form their shifting patterns with different colors dominant at different times even if we can’t control how the pieces fall together from one “turn” to the next. They talk about elephants being a “keystone” species in Africa and I think maybe they’re a keystone species in the world itself, and their survival is far more important than most people realize, if only in terms of our humanity and empathy, but perhaps more ways that we can’t even imagine.

Ingadze’s birthday is the 13th–which will come a day earlier for you in NZ than us here in the US! 🙂 I can’t believe he’ll be 10 years old; he was only about 3 or 4 (somewhere between?) when I started watching the cam.

I’m glad you enjoy the quotations, etc. I’ll continue to add a few from time to time when they relate to the discussion. You do, too, I loved having some given to me.

Now I’ll see what’s going on at the Park… and think how it’s already Springtime in SD even though we’re still Winter. And is beautiful here, yes, hard though it is for both wildlife and people when we get below-zero (F) temps and sometimes one to two feet of snow. One of the first things I ever saw on a webcam was a giraffe in South Africa browsing on tree-leaves in a sunny green world while I had snow and ice and grey skies outside my window. (I lived in a tiny second-floor apartment in a town in Massachusetts at the time, feeling caged.) And, later on, jacaranda and other trees in flower at SDZSP while there weren’t even buds showing on our trees yet. And ellies having swimming parties! I can hardly wait for that again this year!

Marula, I live in the eastern US, in New York–far from the big city. No ocean but lots of lakes and brooks and rivers. Plenty of woods and fields and farms around here; I’m in a small town not far from a small city. There’s a lot of wildlife and many kinds of birds–everything from hummingbirds to hawks. I have white-tailed deer who come to my yard and my tiny woods every day, though I don’t always happen to be in the right place to see them. They aren’t even remotely tame but part of this family trusts me a little, and doesn’t run away when I step outside, which is wonderful. They like the mixture of food that I put out for the birds (and animals), and they occasionally raid my flower-gardens. I treasure their wildness, it is part of “who” they are to me. (Imagine living somewhere where you might see ellies in your “yard,” hopefully not trampling your food crops!) We’re just struggling through the last of winter here, not Spring yet. Hard times for the wildlife, even with a little human help occasionally.

What an experience you had with the fantail! I love the idea of the little dance they do, too. I see they are beautiful birds, and the silvereye is pretty also.

I lived in Southern California long ago for three years and even went to the SD Zoo once or twice; the Safari Park hadn’t even been thought-up then, let alone built! (Yes, LONG ago.) But I have an idea of the area and the climate and all which helps a bit with watching the ellies on the cam. Sad to say, I don’t even remember seeing an elephant at the Zoo, though must have seen them in passing; they were just large animals to me then, I was only in my teens and nobody knew much about ellies back in those days anyway. My parents didn’t approve of zoos except for SD (which was extremely progressive in their “moated” exhibits back when everyone else had little cages) and felt the same about circuses, but we loved all kinds of animals and watched all the wildlife documentaries on TV. Then when we did get interested in ellies, there were so many sad things about them that I just couldn’t bear it and stopped thinking about them. Live cams and a “National Geographic” article about Sheldrick’s turned all that around and I thought it was foolish to miss the joys just to avoid the heartaches, where elephants are concerned. Fortunately it’s mostly been joys here at the SDZSP ele cam; the heartaches are elsewhere (unavoidable sometimes with orphaned calves) and I have had them for sure, but I wouldn’t change my decision. There is a wonderful quotation written by Anatole France, probably it’s originally about pets but it applies to any living thing: “Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” I think all of us who love ellies, especially our dear SDZSP herd, understand exactly what that means. “Knowing” them and loving them changes you forever. We are so very lucky that we have this blog where others feel the same as we do about elephants; there’s not that many people in everyday life with whom you can discuss ellies! 🙂 And especially ellies that you all know by name as if they were friends and family. AND the Elephant Team and the Monitor to answer our questions, besides!

Incidentally, it’s almost half past 10:00 p.m. on March 8 here–7:30 p.m. March 8 in Escondido where the SDZSP is located. Come summertime it will still be daylight there when it’s nearly midnight here. I’m thinking it may be morning right now where you are? If so, that does indeed make it tricky to coordinate the times you can watch the cam.

I’ve hardly watched the cam for a couple of days and I am so grateful to everyone for the wonderful posts, especially about Emanti being back with the “herd.” I had one very brief glimpse of him with Mac one morning, so I did SEE him. Marula, I’m amazed at Luti giving Emanti an “advantage,” maybe he’s learning something from Msholo about being a more gentle bull–or just having some sympathy for his half-brother. And that must have been neat to see Ndula’s breath in the cold morning air! (So, New Zealand. I wondered where you were at. Read a lot of Antarctic stuff–historical and modern, mostly the former–so I remember it’s the “jumping off” point for boats and planes headed for the continent.)

Gawa, I’ll bet you and Nusu can hardly wait for your trip to the Park–and Roar’n’Snoar besides, wow! I’ll have to see if I have any special questions, thank you for asking us if we have any.

Northern California, so glad to hear from you. You will love the Mabu video, and probably want to watch it over and over again.

Now hopefully I’ll get a chance to watch the cam enough to have something worthwhile to share this weekend… And let’s not forget Ingadze’s birthday next week!

Gawa, hello to you, too! So nice to be in this “Ellies ♥️Forever Club”, that I get to meet a friend like you.What I love about this blog community so much is that works just like an elephant herd, giving empathy and courage, receiving some advice and wisdom from one another, when sharing the ellies story as along which I’m truely grateful for.
You’re more than welcome about the who’swho. I’m so happy 😊 to hear you liked it. And I’m super excited for you about the future trip to SDZSP!!!!!! And so look forward to hearing the inside stories as a great souvenir. It’s not so far away from now, isn’t it? so let the countdown begins! Oh, my…what do I have in mind to leave you with my questions about SD ellies? 🤔Let me think… By the way, it’s really awesome that you asked us. Thank you. Gawa, I can’t agree with you more since Kaia, looking the cutest as can be in front of the Keeper Evan. This is totally 😍 “crush on him”.
And the older YouTube video ( a big thanks to Lana) is helping me so much to understand about SD ellies, too. Watching “TrunkTalk” as well is like opening a box of presents, so exciting and a full of wonder.
It seems like Emanti’s taking a day off today from the excitement he had yesterday. I’m glad that the care team is very careful with his progress.
This early morning, I saw Ndula at the west yard, lifting her trunk up up in the sky, breathing deeply in and out several times through her trunk with white smoke came along, looking just like a chimney smoke in the cold air. Meanwhile, Zuli was trying so hard to reach her, putting his trunk as straight up high as possible. Is this her morning ritual? —so ZEN.

Yay, yay, yay, Emanti!! Marula, you’re descriptions bring me such joy. You’re writing is so poetic and insightful and you also have such a loving, elephant soul. Where do you live? I think you said something about the southern hemisphere? Thank you for all your sharing and description of the wonderful few hours that Emanti had playing. I adore him so much. Thank you always to Lana, East Coast and Jan for all your sharings–some brought me such joy and some brought me to tears, so touching. Dear Lana, I look forward to watching the Mabu video when I have a chance, and the Zuli Instagram share. Thank you to my ellie family. You are all so special. I am avidly reading all of your sharings. Thank you, thank you because I have such little time to watch the video cam. You all make my day.
PS: Jan, I would have loved to have seen Kaia chasing the crow. That must have been hilarious. She is such an independent, strong little character. (I also love crows and ravens).

Emanti joined the bulls herd just before the clock said 8:00 am in Escondido today. He greeted doing “ trunk hello” at everyone, putting his trunk into the other ele’s mouth. They’ve surely got lots of catching ups to do. Soon after the reunions, he’s got the warmest welcome by boys, doing “sparring session” all morning. M’sholo quietly let them play, using every space of the yard as possible. Later on , Emanti was seen very closely standing by M’sholo. It was the perfect morning of what I ‘ve been wanting to see.
It seemed like Emanti made back to his west yard holding when the feeding session was at 11:30 am. The care team has decided that he had enough excitement so called it a day for the precautions of just making sure that he gets plenty of rest for tomorrow.
How did you go on the first day back in the yard? – “Awesome!!! 👍”
Over three hours of playing sessions with other boys must’ve been exhausting. -“Me? Nah.” said by Emanti.
The Keeper Evan put up new video of Zuli just now. He is working out so hard just to be ready for long-waited sparring session with Emanti tomorrow. Go easy on him, Zuli, okay?😄

Dear Lana, thank you 😊 so much for answering my questions. It’s very thoughtful of you. Having watched three weeks old Zuli on video last night and compare the two babies now, running about is just SO remarkable to see. They’ve grown so much since then. I am happy to hear that Kaia and Zuli have started eating solids now since they passed their four months of age. I bet they’re exploring the tastes of fruits and veggies. I watched SDZ kid video once, showing when an ele went to see the dentist, he was given raisins as a special treat which must be like candy🍬 to them.
It’s fascinating to hear about the importance of mother’s milk and babies sometimes drink it until 5 years old or more!? I noticed how patient Ndula can be when it comes to Zuli nursing. He’ll be as big as Luti one day or even more, just looking at his chubby cheeks.I know SDZSP has been researching elephant mother’s milk thanks to Ndula and Umngani’s anticipations in order to help making a perfect milk formula for Reteti orphans. I follow Sheldrick’s elephants stories as heartbreaking as they are, like Mbegu, those little fighters amaze me and so inspiring to see their recovering. And I love to see them on the Instagram, too so as Reteti’s.
I wish I’d seen Kami and Emanti together play like that. But I can clearly visualize so from your telling and how amazing!!There must be hundreds of ways of use of their trumpets. Knowing that elephants have their imaginations, positive foresights and abilities to create the new game which make their world more fun to be in. That makes me wonder- there’s SOMETHING there that we can definitely learn from them.

I’m seeing now Emanti having a blast, sparring with every boys are just PRICELESS!! Todays is Emanti’s day and I’m as happy as can be!

The breaking news!!
The drumb rolls, please… we’d like to announce that our EMANTI is BACK!!!😭🎉
He’s looking absolutely superb. Welcome back ❤️

Lana, thank you very much for all the vids info. When I watched Mabu “playin’ with Papa” Feb.8, 2011 on YouTube (Google -“TrunkTalk”) l was totally mesmerized by it. This is definitely one of thing that “You have to see it to believe it!”, isn’t it? You were right about that. Much much recommend to anyone who hasn’t seen this one! And I watched three weeks old Zuli vid, too. It was so adorable to watch Zuli and his family bonded together very closely securing him was amazing. Then, Ndula, Khosi and Nisa made a tight formation and let Zuli be in the center and stood still. I was so emotionally touched by Khosi who was caressing him as if he were her own son.
Jan, just to hear your sighting, I could picture it perfectly. It must’ve been a quite show. Kaia is such a firecracker, isn’t she? So unpredictable sometimes. I can’t take my eyes off her.
Speaking of Kaia, there are new vids of Kaia uploaded by the keeper @SDZSafaripark Instagram. As it mentioned Kaia has started eating hay now. But to me having seen the video and trough everyday cam, she’ still doing only mouthing hay and spit it all out after. I don’t know.I wonder whether Zuli has already started eating solids now and so has Kaia. Does anyone know and tell me when about baby elephants start eating solid food and what is the average age for them to stop havingtheir mom’s milk? Thank you.

I just want to share the moment with you that I saw Emanti 3/5 11:30am in Escondido time. He was brought out the outings again during the feeding session just like the last time 2/27. It felt like it’s been a very long time. It was done during such a tight schedule and seemingly that was carefully planned out with a great team work of amongst the keepers. Since the day before yesterday, the herd was separated between bulls at the west and ladies at the east yard which was kept thought out yesterday. By the way, the comparison between these two herds was very different. At the west, Luti was sparring with M’sholo, Gadze looked so eagerly waiting for his turn. Other boys were here and there relaxed, minding their own business. At the east side, females all gathered up in one accordingly by their matriarch. It looked more coordinated .The keeper was running, trying to escort Emanti fast because they only had a good 5 minutes or so. All ladies were kept at the east yard pen closure at the time. So there was no ellies at the east yard. And soon the time was up and he went back to the west yard back holding. No matter how I feel that I wish to see him everyday, he shall take his baby steps to his full recovery until all the care team people feel positive about it. Until then….
He’s got a green hay patch on his back, looking as cheerful as ever and then, disappeared from the sight just like a nice breeze in the air.

Marula, that was a brilliant “who’s who” lesson!–it’s going to help me a lot to identify the boys. I’ve had a hard time with that since they got bigger than when I originally knew them, and I hadn’t been able to keep track of them regularly for a couple of years in-between when my eyesight was getting seriously bad. And so entertaining to read it besides. Thank you!

I was surfing around on YouTube last night and I found a great video taken by a visitor to the Park, that I don’t think anyone has mentioned seeing: Google “Enter Umzula-Zuli (Three Weeks Old)” – it’s dated 9/21/18 and runs about 8 minutes long.

Lizardwalk5, Mbegu and anyone who is interested in ID-ing SDZSP ellies,
As East Coast Elephant Fan mentioned, the ZOONOOZ blogs helped me a lot to learn the herd first and also great to know the meaning of their name in SiSwati with their personalities introduced and their birthdays which are mentioned just below
ELEPHANT CAM site. But I still found the phots here and there confusing to me from precisely distinguishing them. So I kept doing the observation for months and I’m finally confident that I can ID them all. So I thought I can share some tips with you…
I hope my way of ID-ing them could be a little adds-on to yours. Thanks😉
In the order of their bitrhdays: (I optted out M’sholo, Moms and babies from this)
Khosi — She has only right tusk. Her personality is very nurturing and often seen caressing babies a lot and (not so baby anymore) her brother Neepo,who is not so appreciative about it zsince he wants to act just as “big boy” as his older brother Gadze. She’s usually seen as a very calm and well behaved lady herself but She’s got her fun side, as well. At the training session with her keeper, this happened when they do the basket feeding. He threw his cap on the ground and she picked it up and passed it onto him. And also when the keeper asked her to twirl, he actually demonstrated her one. But she ignored it, so he ended up fiercely doing twirls three times himself. Then, she finally gave him an elegant pirouette. I bet Khosi , chuckling, purposely made him twirls so she could just watch Him do so. I cracked laughing myself watching him twirls. They do practice other fun tricks, if you pay attention with a bit of luck you can witness them. During the session, ellies get their body checked as well.
Phakamile— Kami’s tusks are very short. She may look a bit like Qinisa, if seen alone. But the size of their bodies are quite significant. Another tip is her face, look at her very wrinkly forehead which actually gives her sweet look. Yes, the word “wrinkly” is a compliment word for pachyderm family! She is a big sister of Emanti. And she surely acts as one, quite bossy around him. She loves to do sparring with him and you might see her sometime to take his feed box away with no hard feelings attached. Because at the end of the day, she gives him lots of caressing, looking out for her young brother. Keep watching her, she’s a full of character, very fun girl.
Ingadze — Has he taken after his mom, Umangani’s beautiful long tasks? Yes, I think so. He’s got undamaged long and evenly flare-out tusks which high density make them look distinctively white and stand out. Gadze likes to spend a lot of his time with his younger brother, Neepo. As well as M’sholo. Actually, everyone wants to hang out with the mighty giant. I mean who wouldn’t, right? Since Gadze has very similar built as Luti( still Luti is slightly bigger though), they’re quite a well matched sparring buddies, done all the time to see who is dominant one.
Luti—He is the biggest and strongest of all boys. His left tusk was trimmed a while ago. It looks more obviously shorter if seen from his left profile and compare to the other one, even from the front they are still visibly different and you’ll notice the trim. if it gets ever confusing, his body is a quite buff looking with his huge chest muscle and big rounded body, starting to look like his dad, Mabu who currently lives at Reid Park Zoo. He’s got a huge crash on Umangani. This young teenager doesn’t know how to act properly in front of the most beautiful lady at the Elephant valley. He acts obnoxiously which only stresses her out.
eMacembe—Mac’s both tusk ends were trimmed very recently.They now look so neatly trimmed across with such a clean straight cut so that you can even identify it from distance. I don’t know why they needed to trim short but because of that is not so hard to spot him or distinguish amongst boys either. Another tip is to have a good look around who is near him. Because he usually stays with his mama, Swazi and his baby sis, Qinisa. They always move around closely at the yard. Even the keeper feeds them 3 as one team and you can definitely say that Mac is mama’s boy. He’s relaxed and well behaved young lad.
Emanti— As you know already, the poor guy has got no tusks and the notch on his right ear. He’ very gentle and sweet nature. He’s famously known as “Zuli’s sparring partner” and has definitely stolen our hearts. Mac, Gadze and he get along really well, especially Mac is his bestie.
Inhlonipho— Neepo is the youngest and smallest of all boys, his tusks are both undamaged and flare-out like his brother and nearly a half length shorter than Gadze’s. His left tusk grows from a little up higher than the right one. So from the certain angle, his left tusk may look shorter, that’s why sometime it gets confusing over Luti, but technically speaking, the length of his tusks are fairly even. Neepo follows around his big brother all the time. So just compare the two of them together. Gadze is much larger than he is. The keepers often put Umngani, Khosi, Gadze, Neepo and Kaia together at the west yard and separate them from the rest of the herd at the east yard time to time in order to give Umangani a calm space just ease up the situation since Luti’s pestering behavior towards her. Boys and Khosi get into the defensive mode whenever that happens. The team Umngani works very seamlessly together. You can ignore this but just to look at the comparisons of their sizes, Kami and Neepo are the same. That’s why she enjoys sparring with him. Kami is a bit stronger? She won the game over a feed ball the other day. Neepo is smaller than Mac. Gadze is bigger than Mac. Sorry, confusing? It’s like this. Kami=Neepo , Neepo< Mac( = Emanti) < Gadze< Luti , Khosi= Luti. The scale is only relevant at the present time since they are growing so fast!
Qinisa– Nisa is the smallest in the bunch apart from babies. Her tusks are short and pointy which look very cute on her. She’s always with her mama,Swazi. If not she is on a busy babysitting duty. She plays really well with those handful babies, Zuli and Kaia who are not so easy to keep up with, even the cam operators think so? since they trot SO fast!! sometimes she get a little overwhelmed by the tough job. But most of the time, she is doing really well. Great job, Nisa.

Dear Jan and East Coast Elephant Fan, please correct me if I made mistakes with my ID-ing, thanks.😋
Lizardwalk5, I hope this will be a little helper to your catching-ups. If you are not unsure about my ID-ing, just feel free to ask me anytime. I’m more than happy to help.👍
Mbegu, I ‘m so excited for you and your daughter are going to SDZSP to see our ellies in person really soon. How cool is that!!! I really look forward to hearing the inside story as a souvenir for us when you get back from your trip, please.😉 I really enjoyed hearing the story of your last visit, very fascinating.

Lizardwalk5, you have indeed been gone awhile; it will take some time to catch up! Khosi now has only one tusk. Sad to say, she broke one several years ago and they couldn’t save the rest of it. She was very disconsolate–and probably very sore–for several days afterwards, poor little girl. She would reach to touch her remaining tusk as if to be sure it hadn’t vanished, too. So she’s the only female with one tusk, altho’ Ndula looks like she’s only got one, from certain angles, because they trim her “wonky” one periodically before she gets into trouble with it or it starts rubbing to irritate her too much, or so I guess. Yes, I love to watch the ellies carrying the cubes around, too. And when they tuck some hay or a branch of leaves between their tusk and their trunk and carry that around to snack on later.

Jan, it’s good to have you back, I’ve been wondering why we hadn’t heard from you for awhile. I wish your absence had been for happy reasons, not illnesses and sorrows. I’ll be happy to read your posts again! I told one of the new people that you could give them better tips for ID-ing the boys than I can, but now that’s a tricky thing, apparently they did something to Mac’s tusks according to one of the posts, so he may not look quite the same as you remember. I STILL can’t really tell anyone but Ingadze and Luti “for sure”–and sometimes Neepo.

Marula, nobody will ever be annoyed if you post lots of comments! There are always new things to share about our ellies and you tell your “stories” about them wonderfully. Plus I and others love to hear your good ideas about the elephants’ behavior, or read what you have to say with so much insight about things you’ve seen in our posts.

I saw this afternoon that Umngani was unusually restless again. Kaia kept wanting to nurse and her mother would let her do that for only a minute or less and then move on. This happened three or four times, but then Umngani settled down and Kaia had a nice long meal, so it was all okay in the end. Kaia certainly doesn’t look or act undernourished! And the Keepers are undoubtedly checking her health constantly. Actually I imagine ellies in the wild act that way a lot–they are constantly on the move foraging, and so a baby often only gets a lot of short meals instead of the long ones we see with domesticated animals. But I bet they normally end up with just as much milk in the end, whether it’s in little dabs or long guzzles. 🙂 Later Kaia was interacting with one of the Keepers while they were cleaning up the small yard–just a couple of minutes but so cute to see her putting her little trunk through the fence to touch the Keeper’s hand. She would reach and pull back, several times, teasingly–probably wanting the Keeper to come and really properly play with her in the yard. Zuli and Ndula came along a little while after that and she immediately set upon poor Zuli, who apparently wasn’t in the mood to play with her just then. She got the message after pestering him a bit and backed off to look for somewhere else to get into mischief. That girl is a little dynamo, SO much energy!

Jan, hello to you, too!! and thanks for your warm welcome. I’m so pleased to see you back here. As I am a big follower of yours along with Lana, Northern California’s and many other regulars. I always have enjoyed with all the ellie talks you guys were having and I’ve learnt so much from them. And very recently with a bit of courage and luck I jumped in and joined with you all. I am sincerely sorry for your family member’s sickness and your dearest pet passing. I’ve been in a dark place myself, too. My dad’s long time battle of incurable illness led me into a depression. Because I felt I was so hopeless. As Lana’s beautiful word- I was struggling to balance on the ledge with the abyss waiting below, I couldn’t pull myself together for a very long time to look up at the sky. SDZSP elephants are like the Southern Cross stars to me, shinimg in the dark night, guiding me as a compass and giving me some hope in my life. Having conversation with you all also have been “the safe zone ” I need and me posting and sharing ellie stories with you gives me a lot comfort. So please bare with me seen a lot here since you all might’ve noticed and if maybe a little annoyed?
Anyways, Jan. I hope you will get back on your track really soon and have you see here lots again and share your ellie story with us!! Please❤️Send you “an elephant trunk up” for the best luck ✨

it is funny to watch the ellies pick up the enrichment cubes and carry them around like portable lunch (snack) boxes. one of the younger ellies carried one up next to an adult (it is hard for me to id the ellies now as I’ve been away for a couple of years) seeming to want to share a meal but the adult walked away carrying its respective lunch box. wonder if the younger one felt miffed…

@Lana in the East, I also look forward to when the babies are able to play in the water. usually their first times, I get nervous about their being able to swim and getting dunked by the older youngsters but all in all it is great fun

Dear Lana, how kind of you to give me a reply at such a late night on the East Coast and shared me a various stories about ellies. I really loved your reading, regarding the subject of “watching and remembering”, also “the hierarchy” which was from a continued discussion between you and Northern California fan that I find it most intriguing.
It was the best bedtime story for me by the best storyteller.
And even more, I found your post again the very next morning as it was a X’mas present 🎁. I appreciate it so much that you did take your time to find the info and shared with me. Although, the actual info we were looking for was irrased on the SD site unfortunately but that’s ok, your effort trying to find them was more than enough gesture for me, “ a cherry on the cake”. So thanks. As your instructions, I found the video of baby Neepo and little Khosi. How cute and a tiny little thing was he! And little Khosi, wearing those silver tooth caps was so adorable carefully caressing her baby brother, just couldn’t take her eyes off him. I was so touched to see her doing so. Because just the other day, I watched her caressing Neepo at the same spot as the vid by the little fountain at the east yard. She just couldn’t help herself but he was trying to get away. I guess that in her eyes, he is always her baby brother forever. What I love about Khosi most is her nurturing ability. I can’t wait to see her become a mother one day.
And to top it all off, I watched 16 days old Kami at youtube video! She was so wobbly but bubbly, too. She was constantly followed by her fans of two bigger babies, I’m guessing that they were Khosi and Punga(?) the smaller one was a boy, trying to hop on poor Kami. It was a bit too much for her. Khosi was already at her age, caressing and nurturing the new born baby. And I did see a fun moment of Musi (?) on his belly, letting Punga and Khosi climb onto him, as well as beautiful Umoya nursing Kami which was rather sentimental to watch. Oh, yes, I watched “the pool party”, Mabu for the first time. Hes’s huge! and he’ got a very confident and distinctive presence about him. Right next to him there were Swazi and Mac. I was able to spot Ndula and Luti as well. So many of them were mingling.There is nothing more can excite elephants better than being in Water. Over all, I had a great time traveling to the past, still lingering nostalgia.
Back in 2019, I saw Kami sparring with Neepo in the late afternoon a few days ago over a feed ball and she won. I see her quite often spars with her brother, Emanti, too, as well as being a typical bossy sister around him, pushing his side and all is done mainly for over food. No hard feelings attached. On the other hand, I’ve seen her caressing him a lot. She surely does have her funny way of looking after her own brother. And one more thing I saw her being a little silly and mischief, too. As she approached Msholo and greeted him by her putting nose tip into his mouth. As soon as his trunk was away from the feed box (to greet her back in return), Kami stole it and trotted away, carrying the feed box with her. I thought what a bold and brave action to make against him. Even a gentle bull like him got very mad and chased after her, probably gave her scold. She was apologetically gave that back. Very cheeky indeed.
Lana, I was having a super blast, watching the vids over and over this weekend. Absolutely 100% satisfied!! Thank you you’re so awesome!!!😎

it is a lot of fun watching the 2 young ellies play. I imagine Zuli is the more aggressive one. though I honestly cannot tell them easily apart. I hope one day when Zuli is taking a nap that the little girl (I have to look up her name again) can get a proper mud/dust bath or nap on the hay, without being climbed upon by Zuli. but they both amuse me anyhow. to be so young and have such pride in one’s growing abilities. one morning I watched an energetic Zuli bopping Msholo on the trunk. and then he (Zuli) started to twirl his trunk around sideways (like a helicopter). he was in a great mood. Msholo was less impressed and walked away (presumably to get some peace).

Marula, you’re right about elephants learning and remembering. They watch the older ellies and adults and imitate them as best they can, even when they are tiny babies. There’s a great SD video made right after Neepo was born, I’ll try to find the title for you but it may take me awhile so please be patient. (And it’s very late here on the East Coast, although still 3/1, so I won’t be able to tackle it tonight.) He was newborn, I believe it was his very first day, but he was already trying to put his tiny trunk into one of the hay-boxes because he had seen the others doing it. Another beautiful thing on that video is young Khosi all thrilled with “the baby” and caressing him constantly as if she just couldn’t help herself, she was so full of love for him.

On that same subject of watching and learning, I read about a bull calf (maybe about 5 years old, I forget) who watched a couple of older calves sparring and play-fighting; he just stood nearby and watched them, seeing them using new-to-him techniques, and then later that day he used those new “tricks” when he was having a game with one of his friends–even though he had never actually used them before. I was so impressed by that–the intelligence and the planning for future use of what he had learned.

The whole hierarchy thing is quite remarkable, and once it is established, it works surprisingly well most of the time. They start when they’re small and by the time they’re adults, it’s established as to who is where on the “list.” It’s particularly important with the bull elephants, since most of the time it means that they don’t fight, even for mating rights–a bull already knows he can be “beaten” by another bull and there’s no need to “beat each other up.” (Of course all bets are off if you have two bulls that are in musth that are interested in the same “lady.” No common sense in musth bulls, although it seems that some of the really mature bulls have a certain amount of control over their emotions.) It interests me very much that the bulls enjoy sparring in play, even when they are clearly on different levels. And, like Msholo does with “the boys,” the dominant bull will often do things to make himself less intimidating to the smaller bull. Msholo used to lie down when he was playing with Musi, until he’d be ready to quit and then he’d stand up and casually prove his superior strength by pushing Musi backwards across the yard. Not hurting him, just being relentlessly stronger. It says a lot about elephants and their empathy (and reasoning power) that they are so kind and patient–as adults–in a situation where you’d expect them to just assert themselves without giving it a second thought. As youngsters, it varies. Luti has always been a bit of a bully, but I think that’s because of Musi’s influence when he was little, as you say, and of course he’s become the dominant male among “the boys,” he really is the strongest one of them. But I watch Ingadze or Mac playing with Emanti, and they are careful about the fact that he doesn’t have tusks to protect his face, from what I’ve seen. I am just always so happy to see them playing with him–and even more happy when I see him playing with Zuli! I hope he’ll be out with the others soon but I’m glad the Keepers are being careful with him while he gets his strength back.

Lana, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge to us and giving me the perfect answer to my questions 👍 which explained it all about Luti. (Sorry, the incident I witnessed actually happened 2/28 afternoon not 3/1.) I saw Luti again today just after midday, following after Umngani. But it didn’t look like an aggressive one to me, more like “ trying to get some attentions” kind of way. Kaia was relaxed around them this time, so were Khosi and Ndula very close by. Umngani presented her rear and let him put his trunk over it. ( now I know that’s one form of greeting, thanks to you) Having seen Luti ’s pesterings, I just took it as his way of showing, being madly in love with her. I didn’t know so well about Musi’ story. Now I see why Luti is like that. I imagine Little Luti must’ve had attentively absorbed everything his big brother did as his role model. In the contrary, Mac or Emanti for example, being brought up with a bull like Msholo and also constantly disciplined by ladies are well behaved bulls, as well as Gadze and Neepo had’ve seen the incident so many times that made them who they are now. I think elephants are highly intelligent and extremely observant, who learns and recalls everything since their early stages.That perfectly makes sense why Kaia acts the way she does or Umngani’s sensitiveness towards other elephants and even now I have empathy for Luti, too. The intricacy of the existence of hierarchy must be beyond our imagination. Every elephant has their roles in one’s herd, living carefully in a way as threads are woven so methodically. Once we start to see them in authropomorphic manner, we are able to discover a tiny bit of their mythical world that they only let you see. That’s why we all are magnetically and madly attracted to them. So, Lana, I’m 100% with you❤️

Northern California fan, I am deeply sorry to hear about your daughter’s illness. I can’t begin to imagine what it’s been like and how you and your daughter have been coping with the toughest time together. My heart goes out to you.
I think you are amazingly strong human being. Even the hardest time you’re in, you are thinking of others and making us feel so much loved by your every bit of words. And even more, I was ecstatic to find my name in your welcoming message, 😊 thank you very much. Yes!, being able to join ” ellie-loving family ” is so precious to me and watching those SDZSP elephants has become my important self healing session. We all share our story and give strength, wisdom and guidance to each other that all have become the essence of our heart. As watching the elephants closely, we want to understand their souls, so we look for any signs that we can relate to. Then, we feel them in every way. Elephants teach us Life.
I just loved it so much that you saying to Lana , ” You have an elephant soul .” It is so true. She’s given me the sympathy and wisdom that just lifted a heaviness on my shoulder. I think that is the best compliment you can give to a someone ever!! And how poignantly poetic is that! You definitely have one yourself, too.
How can I become a better person who contains an elephant soul? You are such an inspiration to me. I’m so glad I met you. Sending a big ” trunk hug ” ❤️ to you. Thank you.

Absolutely fascinating to hear about your theory: How Kaia developed her personality like that. And why Umngani leaves her baby to her aunties a lot more than Ndula does. I find it very interesting but sentimental at the same time after hearing the story behind it. I saw Luti had a go at Umngani again this afternoon 3/1, Gadze and Neepo tried to stop him, but he didn’t quit. Then, little Kaia nearby pushed her baby trunk against him. I didn’t know what the gesture was. Being protective of her mom? It kind of worked for a few second but not for long. Just when he was about to chase after her, Khosi stepped in and finally calmed him down.
Where is this Luti’s obsessive behavior coming from? And why?

Marula, what wonderful news about Emanti! And so exciting for you to see it all–and exciting for us to read it, you told it so beautifully. I loved the greeting with Umngani’s kids rushing over to see Emanti, that is so poignant. What a great idea the Keeper(s) had, to bring Emanti out for a little visit and a change of scenery. I’m so glad that he seemed to be looking so much better!

Mbegu, you are so fortunate to be able to visit the Park. I was fascinated to hear about Ndula and tiny Zuli. I have seen the mothers waken the babies when it was time to nurse, but I had not realized how “scheduled” it apparently is–at least in Ndula’s case. I did see her wake him up, more than once, on cam. I remember Umngani doing that with Neepo, too, and I’m sure Swazi must have done it with Qinisa although I don’t recall any particular incident. (My cam time is rather limited as a rule.) You’re welcome about the ID information. I think Jan or East Coast could probably tell you how to recognize which “boy” you’re seeing, better than I can, but two things that might help: Ingadze has rather long tusks that splay outwards, and Luti had the tip gone from one of his (though they may have tapered it now so that it’s not as obvious, I haven’t had a close look at him lately).

Now we shall hope to see our sweet Emanti back-in-the-action again soon. I am thankful the Team is being so careful with him. Elephants are surprisingly fragile in some ways, for such big sturdy-looking creatures, and Emanti’s being orphaned at such a young age (though unlike a wild orphan he was still with his family and also getting special food supplements) probably stressed his system so that he’s more prone to having health problems than the others. Just so grateful that he seems to be feeling better!

The Great news guys!!, I saw Emanti appeared on the cam at east yard this morning 2/27, SD time about 11AM.
It was HIM!! the one and only without any tusks.
His keeper brought him out there when the other elephants were all occupied with treats being given by their keepers, passing them from behind. Khosi, Gadze and Neepo being held at the small yard, noticed him quickly and ran toward the bar. They reached their trunks out high and touched their long lost friend, now the four trunks at a great unison. How affectionately they greet each other!! Though, it was only a brief moment. Soon later, his keeper called him and he ran across the west yard and back to his currently home, the west back holdings. His heart must’ve been pounding so fast from running and especially the overly driven of JOY he was just having there. His eyes were shining, too.✨
I’m so positively sure that it’s gonna be really soon that we get to see our “Happy Lad” back again!!!

Hi, everyone. There was a very playful moment among Kaia, Zuli and Qinisa this afternoon 2/26 , SD time 5 pm that I’d love to share with you all.😉

It was Nisa’s babysitting time for the both of babies. Of course two baby ellies together means “Play Time!”. It can be a bit chaotic for little her to handle sometimes. It started with their favorite trunk wrestling. It seemed that their pushing strength was very equally matched. Next, without taking a break, it shifted to the usual sight of Zuli throwing himself on top of Kaia and she was trying to let him go. Kaia was far from giving up. She made a quick sprint and gave him a big push from aside. Believe it or not, that knocked him right over. How does she become so strong? Then, she quickly threw herself to lock him down. Amazingly, she was able to hold him still for a few seconds. She won the wrestling match! I could tell she was loving the moment of triumph. Nisa gave him an assurance and helped him get back on his feet. After that, they were laying down and throwing their bodies on each other and at the same time using their feet like doing boxing. Nisa was here and there joined in by touching them with her trunk and foot as a referee.Yes, that sounds crazy, right? Wait for this. Because Kaia keenly asked for the next match again (and again). Zuli finally sought for a hide out, which was going underneath Nisa to have a rest. Obviously it was too narrow for him. So he face-dived to the ground first, then squeezed himself in. Nisa had to shift her body into an awkward position to let him out, looking confused by his unexpected move, too. But Zuli tried to stay in the safe zone for longer.
However, this playful moment was soon over by Nisa who decided to call it a day, breaking the two apart to quit. Suddenly, there was a quiet afternoon, again. The two babies gave a hug each other ( the tip of their nose into the other’s mouth ) and departed to the different directions for their Mom.
Having seen them play like that no wonder baby elephants take a nap a lot. Actually, I saw Zuli trying to take a nap a few times throughout the day but Kaia kept coming back to wake him up.
I think Zuli enjoys playing a match with Kaia even more now since he doesn’t need to hold him back anymore and no need to be so careful with her. Or perhaps he still acts so gently around her with his sweet-natured character and he lets her win a play time to time?? I bet he does!!! Anyways, I just can’t get enough of them.

Thanks to the cam operator for capturing the precious moments like today’s so that we can share it all together!!❤️

I just wanted to say thank you to all of your for your comments! I totally agree that this elephant webcam is a sort of savior for many of us who are going through things! They are so fun to watch. I am a long-time reader, first-time poster :). I have a question. How do you know which one is Emanti? Or what are his identifying marks? I can tell who the moms are, and Swazi nearly always has her children nearby, but I really get confused with all of the boys, (and also with Kami and Khosi for that matter). Thank you all again for your interesting comments!

Thank you Blog Monitor for the update about Emanti. I’ve been so worried about him. I’m sure with all the love and care he’s getting from his Keepers, he will be back to himself in no time. A big thank you to all involved in his care.