By Sunel Craythorne | Fundraising Administrator
It is our privilege to report back on Sunshine Khanyisa!
She is doing extremely well, and we couldn’t be prouder of her progress.
We recently celebrated Khanyisa’s one-tonne milestone and her fourth birthday – what an amazing journey of development it has been for her, having started at HERD as a tiny four-month-old calf who only weighed 124 kilograms in January 2020 when she was rescued. Now at over one tonne in weight, we will not be weighing Khanyisa anymore as our scale only tracks weight up to 1000 kilograms.
Watch these precious weigh-in moments with Khanyisa: https://youtu.be/yB15InZl_0c
We celebrated Khanyisa’s birthday at the end of September and took the occasion to honour the calf by sharing the first chapter of the children’s book we are writing about Khanyisa’s journey. Written for ages 10 and up, the book shares Khanyisa’s life with young readers to inspire homes and classrooms around the world. We hope to finish all the chapters soon and start the process of looking for publishers who share our vision for the book.
We also took a look back at Khanyisa’s special bond with two of her carers over the years – Reply (https://youtu.be/mkmqEbs_lK4) and Herman (https://youtu.be/-9qsJgYlezo). Her carers have been instrumental in the success of the calf’s rehabilitation and integration and so we had to shed some light on their journey with Khanyisa. We are indebted to them for their dedication to Meisiekind and to all our supporters for helping us raise this snare survivor with a new family of elephants around her.
Khanyisa continues to receive milk bottles during the day, in addition to apples, pellets, and sweet potatoes in the morning when she starts the day with a full breakfast. We are excited for the rains to slowly return to our reserve as summer nears, as the bush and waterholes need a lot of replenishing. This will help provide the elephants like Khanyisa with the grass and lush vegetation they love so much, and will enable us to start looking at weaning Khanyisa. It will be a long and slow process of reducing Khanyisa’s milk bottles, taking place over many months, so for now we continue to invest time and money in providing her with formula.
Watch some beautiful moments with Khanyisa and her herd at sunset on a recent walk home - https://youtu.be/VavEe7oMcxQ - as Khanyisa approaches Adine for extra-close greetings and rumbles.
Don’t forget to keep an eye on our social media platforms for daily updates and news.
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/HERDElephantOrphanageSouthAfrica
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HERDElephantsSA
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/herd_elephants/
Thank you for all your support towards Khanyisa’s journey.
Warms Regards
Adine and The HERD Team
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