African Elephants
Scientific name: Loxodonta africana
The African elephant is the largest animal walking on earth. Found in 37 African countries, they are majestic creatures, easily distinguished by their large ears and trunk.
The African elephant has two family members – the savanna (or bush) elephant and the forest elephant. The savanna elephant lives in the open plains of Africa, whilst the forest elephant lives in the huge rainforests of Africa.
Conservation At Noah's Ark Zoo Farm
When the bull has been kicked out of the herd, the safest and smartest thing for him to do is to latch onto the safety and security of a bachelor group, which in the wild presents itself as a large group of loosely associated males of different ages, sizes and therefore different levels of dominancy. The dominant bulls in the group are responsible for teaching the younger members of the group everything that they need to learn about being a big, successful, dominant, potential breeding bull in the future. As time goes on, the young bull in question will develop socially, mentally, behaviourally and of course physically, as he gets more dominant he will start to move up the ranks and start to teach younger bulls the same things he has been taught.
In captivity it is exactly the same with the exception that the bull finds it hard to fully move away from the herd, so the zoo and EEP will step in and organise a transfer to another collection, which is when a collection like Noah's Ark Zoo Farm will step in as an ideal home, being a bull facility. Long term, the bulls at Noah's Ark Zoo Farm's bull facility will move off the other collections in the UK, Europe and potentially further afield that hold breeding facilities with viable cows, and hopefully have lots of success contributing to the African elephant breeding programme.
