[imagesource:emsfoundation]

Everyone working on the years-long campaign to free Pretoria Zoo’s last elephant, Charlie, can heave a massive sigh of relief as the old animal is finally back in the wild after 43 years of captivity.

After a nerve-wracking four-hour trek from the Pretoria Zoo, Charlie the elephant has finally touched down at Shambala Private Reserve in Limpopo, his new stomping ground.

When Charlie was a two-year-old baby in 1984, he was captured from Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park and taken to Boswell Wilkie Circus in South Africa and trained to perform tricks. Then, in the early 2000s he was transferred to the National Zoo.

This makes Charlie the last elephant in South Africa’s only national zoo and the first to be released back into nature.

Image: EMS Foundation

This historic event is the result of years of negotiation between the South African government, the EMS Foundation and the Pro Elephant Network, Daily Maverick reports. These animal welfare groups have pushed for the elephant to be freed due to concern for his health.

Image: EMS Foundation

Charlie had a harrowing life in the zoo, watching three of his friends die prematurely, while also losing his daughter when she was less than a month old. In 2019, concerns were raised that the elephant was showing signs of distress common with animals in captivity.

According to Smaragda Louw, the director of Ban Animal Trading (BAT), keeping Charlie in solitary confinement in a barren enclosure with almost no shade and dirty water and with no enrichment is “nothing more than animal abuse for the sake of human entertainment”.

Animal welfare organisation Four Paws, which collaborated with EMS Foundation, said the elephant’s “retirement was an important milestone for elephant Charlie but also for better animal welfare in South Africa”, per BBC.

“Together with our partners, we have been working tirelessly to end the loneliness of Charlie to see him thrive in his new species appropriate home,” said Josef Pfabigan, Four Paws chief executive.

Image: EMS Foundation

Charlie’s new home is a massive 10,000-hectare reserve, teeming with elephants and famous for getting animals back into the wild where they belong. While there, Charlie will be closely monitored by veterinary and behavioural experts.

“Our dream is that at his own pace, Charlie will learn to be the elephant he was always meant to be, and that soon, he will meet up and integrate into the existing elephant community on Shambala,” EMS Foundation said.

Dr Amir Khalil, a veterinarian who led the transfer of the elephant, told the BBC that despite the residual effects of abuse in captivity, “there is always a chance of recovery”.

“We are convinced, that step by step he will get used to all these new experiences.”

[source:dailymaverick]