After an extensive survey, conducted by South African National Parks (SANParks), there is now conclusive proof that there is only one elephant roaming Knysna forest.

SANParks made use of camera-trap technology, set up to monitor the entire elephant range, and managed to snap the same single elephant a number of times.

That will come as sad news to many, with the female leading a lonely existence. Here’s News24:

“The cameras were all active for 15 months and during this time the same female elephant was identified in 140 capture events – always by herself. No other elephants were photographically captured,” said SANParks scientist Lizette Moolman.

Moolman added that the process also revealed more information about the standalone giant.

“She is about 45 years old and moves in the indigenous forest and fynbos areas on SANParks and neighbouring private land.”

72 cameras were deployed at 38 different locations, all of which were fastened to trees close to paths and routes thought to be used by the animals.

The evidence captured puts an end to the great mystique of herds roaming the forest. Business Day here:

“The brutal reality is there is no longer a population of Knysna elephants. All the mystique of the Knysna elephant is reduced to a single elephant left in rather tragic circumstances,” says [Graham Kerley from the Centre for African Conservation Ecology at Nelson Mandela University]. Female elephants are not meant to be alone — they spend their lives in family units of related adult females with their calves…

“Considering all these factors, the debate about how we have allowed this population to go functionally extinct and how to manage the last elephant is very emotional and very serious as she is a symbol of how we are treating biodiversity as a whole,” he says.

“It is a societal responsibility as we have forced these elephants, which are savanna elephants, into inhospitable forest habitats as a result of hundreds of years of hunting them and chasing them out of their natural habitat.”

Sheesh, this is all rather heartbreaking.

Kerley says that experts and conservationists are now trying to figure out what the correct course of action is from here. The female could live to be 65, which would mean another 20 years spent alone.

Options are limited:

“Managing her is a huge challenge because she is very shy and avoids humans,” Kerley says. “It is not viable to introduce savanna elephants from other populations — from Addo or Kruger — to the forest. This was tried with three young Kruger elephants in September 1994 and it failed. In less than a month, one died of stress-related pneumonia. The other two left the forest causing human-elephant conflict and they ultimately had to be moved to Shamwari Game Reserve…

“The option of capturing her and moving her somewhere else would be dangerous for her and we don’t know if it would even be of any value to her as she only knows the forest and she might not be able to settle into another area with other elephants,” says Kerley.

Wow, us humans really are the worst.

Any artificial insemination attempts would be too risky, and moving the elephant could well prove to be too traumatic.

I doubt we’ll learn any kind of lesson from this (why start now?), but it’s worth a shot. Kerley once more: