Day 138

There is something special I need to tell you. We have adopted an elephant, from the Jabulani herd of African elephants!! Her name is Piza, and she is only three, or four, years old.

This is Piza. She is the second daughter of Tokwe, the matriarch of this herd. She is fairly shy, we are told, but is very intelligent, and helpful to the rest of the herd.

Ivan has been watching this herd of elephants, on YouTube, because, in their herd, they adopted an albino female, named Khanyisa.

This is Khanyisa. You can see the scar on the side of her mouth, it is the same on the other side. The ear has been cut, as well, by a snare, in which she was found. She is an albino, and, in this photo, is only a few months old, and, is about two and a half feet tall.

Khanyisa, born at the end of the year twenty nineteen, was “injured”, by a snare, that cut about one third of her right ear off, and, slit her mouth open, very much like the “Joker”, so it looked like she had a huge smile. As she was so young, and, without a herd to look after her, she was almost dead when the people of the Orphanage of South Africa, found her, brought her into the Orphanage, and, began the process of healing her wounds, and, introducing her to her, hopefully, new “family”.

The matriarch of the herd, Tokwe, has, over the years, adopted several elephants into her herd. In fact, Jabulani, himself, was found, as an infant elephant, stuck in a silt mud “swamp”, dying of dehydration, after his herd left him to die. He was the beginning of the Jabulani “herd”.

This is Tokwe, the matriarch of the tribe. She is an amazing elephant, as she has taken in several infant elephants, orphaned from other herds. And, yes, she is still alive
A recent photo of Jabulani, the chief of the herd, and the reason this orphanage was started.


The Jabulani herd is something special, a unique and close-knit family that originates with a little elephant orphan called Jabulani, who arrived at HESC (Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre) in 1997, and the original herd of hand-reared elephants rescued from Zimbabwe, where they were to be culled during the country’s land reformation process, in 2002.

If you want to see, and, understand more about this amazing family of elephants, go to YouTube, and search for Injured albino elephant Kyanisha. They took her in, after her surgeries, and, she is growing a little bit every day.

I hope you will take a moment, watch the videos available, and, send your love their way. Until then, keep happy, keep healthy, keep safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and keep your loved ones protected.