A new African savanna elephant has been welcomed at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, with officials saying he’ll play an important role in educating park attendees and mentoring a younger male elephant in the already established herd.
Sdudla was rescued from being culled in Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, in 2003 due to severe drought and limited resources, zoo officials said. He was brought to the United States that year, and has since sired four calves.
He was placed with the herd’s eight other African savanna elephants in the Safari Park’s new Elephant Valley habitat, which opened earlier this year, after being housed at the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa, Fla. The transfer earlier this week was coordinated through the Association of Zoos and Aquariums Species Survival program, a captive breeding program that seeks to grow and maintain a genetically diverse North American population of elephants.
African elephant herds are typically made up of females and young males, officials said. Once the males reach adolescence, they are sent out from their group and may join a bachelor group to continue to learn and grow from.
“Adult bulls migrate between matriarch groups for the opportunity to breed,” said Lauren Ripple, a coordinator with the AZA. “We replicate this in zoos.”
Ripple said that due to the number of calves Sdudla has already sired, he appears to be a natural genetic suitor for the already established female herd.
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He will also play an important role in educating 7-year-old male elephant Zuli, a behavior that is found similarly in the wild.
“Working with the Safari Park herd increases knowledge and understanding of African savanna elephants to better treat and protect their counterparts in their native habitat,” zoo officials said.
According to the World Wildlife Foundation, African savanna elephants are classified as endangered. Due to the illegal ivory trade and elephant poaching, there are only about 400,000 elephants remaining in the wild.
The species lives in herds in 23 different countries, but the largest populations are in Botswana, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya, Namibia, Zambia and South Africa, according to the foundation.
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Staff writer Karen Kucher contributed to this report.
