News, Timeline

Sibuya Game Reserve Joins our GWRP

May 13, 2024

Excitedly, we’re researching a new elephant population on Sibuya Game Reserve in the Eastern Cape Province. Many thanks to the Conservation & Volunteer team at Sibuya, who have gone out of their way to assist us with kicking off our fieldwork by showing us the reserve, and where the elephants’ favourite spots are.

The data we are collecting here will contribute greatly towards our Greater Welfare Research Project, supported by Humane World for Animals.

Within our first week, we were discovering, at first glance, never-before-seen behaviours and are looking forward to starting to decipher the unique behavioural culture of this population. Since commencing our Greater Welfare Research Project in 2019, each of our research elephant populations we’re studying have displayed different behaviours as a way of communicating with one another and the humans they encounter.

We are bringing a remarkable chapter of a successful rewilding story to a close

2025 marks the 10th anniversary of our incredible story of the rewilded African elephant on !Khamab Kalahari reserve. We will be celebrating this success story by removing the GPS collars

New project: Understanding elephant well-being in National Parks in South Africa

We begin our study looking at the interactions between tourists and elephants in National parks in an effort to understand the rise in reported incidences of human elephant conflict instances.

ERT presents at the PAWS (Performing Animal Welfare Society) conference in Los Angeles

The conference provided an opportunity to highlight some valuable findings that we have noted over the last 5 years of studying these elephants, reiterating elephants don't thrive in captivity and

Publication: ERT continues to debunk misconceptions regarding elephants in captivity

Publication on our research on the welfare of Rewilded Elephants in South Africa. The study explores how elephants’ behavioural repertoires and frequencies change throughout a reintegration operation in comparison to

Publication: Rewilding-proof of success!

Our study on the movement patterns of two rewilded herds has continued to amaze us. This study underpins the potential of captive elephants to successfully adapt to a free-living

Our first volunteers

ERT’s team is flourishing with remarkable individuals who are instrumental in advancing our research objectives and beyond. Its been a delight having our first field volunteers, Freya and Immy, form

Study of epigenetics of African elephants.

With the support of Humane World for Animals, we are collaborating to understand the effect of large impact events on the epigenetics (the study of how the environment and lifestyle

New calves, new beginnings

Since 2021, the Reintegrated herd on !Khamab Kalahari Reserve welcomed one new calf in 2021 and the Wild herd was blessed with two new calves in 2023. These two herds

GPS collared study animals continue to give us insight into elephant movements

Throughout the course of 2022-2023, we have collared seven elephants and continue to monitor them. Movement patterns of elephants on fenced reserves forms an essential part of our long-term research

Harry and Layla got new accessories.

We were privileged enough to replace Harry and Layla’s collars on Mount Camdeboo with the generous support from Humane World for Animals. This was a very important operation as we