Secrets of Addo come to light
A visit to the Addo Elephant National Park is almost a rite of passage for those growing up in Nelson Mandela Bay.
For children, Addo is the quintessential learning experience.but though the park might be on residents’ doorstep, there is still so much they might not know.
Addo’s elephant population, for example, possesses its own regional dialect which differs markedly from herds in other parts of the country.
Locals also might not be aware that there are a small number of brown hyenas — the world’s rarest hyena species — traversing the plains.
From a historical standpoint, many might have overlooked what a job it was for then park warden Graham Armstrong to contain the elephants in the 1940s, eventually succeeding by building a fence made of poles, wire, lift cables and “obsolete steel tram tracks uprooted from the streets of Port Elizabeth”.
It is these fascinating aspects, spectacular worlds within the greater Addo ecosystem, that Wilderness-based author Mitch Reardon, 75, has sought to bring to the fore in his latest book, Shaping Addo: The Story of a South African National Park.
His newest offering is outstanding both for its prose and meticulous research.
Drawing extensively from interviews with experts like former Addo conservation manager John Adendorff and a range of ecologists, as well as undertaking his own field work, he brings to life the intricacies of the park beyond what is seen in the travel brochures.
In one passage, Reardon describes coming across two young elephant bulls engaged in a “boisterous sparring match” which his presence interrupted. “At one point, one of the bulls was pushed backwards by his rival directly towards my vehicle.
“Suddenly the bull doing the pushing stopped and called to his opponent, who immediately glanced back over his shoulder and saw me, whereupon the two shuffled off to one side and continued their tussle.
“I was astonished how explicit the message was ... he reacted as surely as if his opponent had said, ‘Watch out! There’s a vehicle right behind you’.”
Reardon said in conservation circles, Addo was recognised as an outstanding success and a lot of credit should go to Adendorff and his team of “crack” rangers.
“When Sanparks was unable to come up with the money for the elephant translocation [from southern Addo to the northern Darlington Area in 2010], John, using his own initiative and good contacts, contacted an NGO and they arranged the entire operation between themselves.
“Nothing in Addo should be taken for granted — it’s all the result of hard work, good leadership and cutting edge knowhow.”
Reardon has devoted a lot of space in the book to Addo’s history, since it plays a huge role in understanding the park and how it came to be.
“The Eastern Cape is a crucible for our species’ development. So much happened here over thousands of years, going back to before Homo sapiens to Homo erectus.
“It’s also the history of colonialism in the Eastern Cape, which started a long time before the arrival of the Europeans,” he said.
“A lot of people don’t know that, or maybe don’t want to know that.
“Even the San displaced someone before them. They were a group known as proto-bushmen, and they in turn very likely displaced Homo erectus.
“The Bushmen were displaced by the Khoekhoen.
“Interestingly, the Khoekhoen are an early people who left Africa for Asia, and then many, many years later, returned to Africa, bringing fattailed sheep with them.
“Intriguingly, DNA analysis has shown that their nearest relatives are Eurasian.
“The Nguni branch of the Bantu [today’s Xhosa] displaced the Khoekhoen as they slowly migrated south then west, more or less at the same time as Dutch settlers were displacing the Khoekhoen and Bushmen as they migrated north and east.
“Eventually, of course, the Boers, the Brits and the Xhosa met and fought in the Eastern Cape, but that’s relatively modern history.”
Having written extensively about the Kruger National Park, Reardon was asked what he believed the similarities — and differences — were between the two parks.
“They are uniquely South African but also uniquely different in their own ways; in other words, different habitat types that often support different animal species.”
Drawing extensively from interviews with experts and a range of ecologists, as well as his field work, Reardon brings to life the intricacies of the park