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For Addo History, you might wanna have a look at this book:
The Addo Elephants - Book - ISBN 0869530119

wildtuinman: Here's your Answer to P.J. :

Major Philip Jacobus (Jan) Pretorius (1877–1945), a descendant of Boer hero Andries Pretorius (1798–1853).

Found on this page:
http://www.koedoe.co.za/index.php/koedoe/article/view/880/1132
look down under the heading: The Early 20TH Century

Are the elephants differant too kruger. To me they seem smaller. Are they the same as i see that some of the elephants came from kruger or did all of them come from Kruger?

Hi

This much I know - only a handful came from Kruger to broaden the gene pool.
Addo elephants are different and from interbreeding over many years there are distinct signs, like the lack of tusks and generally much smaller tusks. All the ellies with reasonable tusks are Kruger imports. They are also on average smaller that their Kruger family.

When we visited Addo last year, we were told four/five Kruger Bulls were brought in (one of them Skukuza, was killed this year by another bull).

The female Addo Ellies stopped growing tusks (interbreeding from the original 11 apparently was the cause), but with the new genes they are growing again.

I can stand corrected to these details!

Rangers recently found the skeleton and tusks of an elephant bull and after a bit of investigation and checking with the elephant researchers, realised it was the remains of Gaatjies.

Gaatjies was the oldest elephant bull in the park (born 1954) and one of the biggest Addo tuskers. He was the most dominant bull in the Park for over 20 years and would therefore be the father of many of the younger elephants in the Park today.

We believe he died of natural causes (old age).

Well at least he was able to have a full and 'natural' life...wasn't it great that such a big creature could live so long. Hopefully many of his youngsters will be able to enjoy such a long life as well.

He for sure was a beautiful animal, it is proof that there are Tuskers in Addo.

All part of the renewal process.

Now many can be on the lookout for emerging tuskers in Addo, carrying his genes.

This is extremely saddening news.

Yes, we can go on about teh whole cycle of life etc. But Gaatjies was a doyen of the park.

May he rest in peace, hopefully he is unching on some spekboom in the sky

Hi guys,

Can someone help to ID this elephant. Spotted right hand side of the grassland near the old gate in the middle of the park. This was taken in 2009. Wanted to upload this backin 2009 but lost the SD card and images. Lucky I found a few pics on a friends card who was with me at the time. Apologies for the old pics.

When we approached the Elephant it was laying on it's side. Looked like it was fast asleep or dying.
At first I thought it was sleeping so sat and watched then after 15min I got worried and though it was dying,as far as I know elephants don't lay down for so long. so made some noise, to see if he was sleeping or dying, clapped hands and nothing happened. His breathing was very shallow and not much chest movement. So I thought he was about to die. I opened and slammed the car door and then he quickly jumped up and looked very much alive. So I figured he was sleeping. Upon returning to the park in 2010 just 500m from where I saw this sighting I see there is an elephant skeleton. Wondering if its the same elephant.

Any help to ID this elephant will be great. Is he still alive or was this one of his final moments.

Please see theimages at the links below.

1. http://twitpic.com/67560t
2. http://twitpic.com/6755l4