KNYSNA NEWS - There once was a girl named Poppaea who shared her heart with an elephant named Mashudu…
While this might sound like the first line of a fairy tale, this is a true story playing off at the Knysna Elephant Park just outside Plettenberg Bay.
While this might sound like the first line of a fairy tale, this is a true story playing off at the Knysna Elephant Park just outside Plettenberg Bay.
Poppaea Aldridge is a young girl from England whose birthday is on August 30. She decided that instead of gifts for her eighth birthday, she would like her friends and family to donate funds in aid of elephant research and conservation.
She first visited the park with her family four years ago, and from the moment she was introduced to young bull Mashudu, both their lives changed. “Poppeae was four and Mashudu was five; the connection was immediate,” said park research director Dr Debbie Young.
Mashudu is a young elephant who had been orphaned through hunting activities and had found a new home at the Knysna Elephant Park several years ago.
From their first meeting Poppaea’s life began to centre around all things elephant. She has also since been back to visit the park on three more occasions.
“I've left Mashudu with a little piece of my heart because I know he will look after it until I see him again,” the young girl upon her return to England after her most recent visit to the park earlier this year.
And it has not only just been visits, Poppaea has been actively involved in bolstering elephant conservation efforts.
Young said since Poppaea’s first visit, the African Elephant Research Unit (Aeru) had been established at the park. The nonprofit research trust focuses on combining research and welfare, with its primary goal being the improvement of captive elephant management at facilities throughout South Africa.
One of the ways in which Aeru was involved with elephant welfare was through its enrichment programme. “And so, Poppaea became a sponsor of the elephant toy programme. The funds donated by Poppeae and her friends would allow Aeru to give the elephants new and interesting foods, build enrichment devices that encouraged investigation and play, and sometimes, just made life fun,” Young said.
She added that Poppaea’s funds had also allowed them to build and contribute different enrichments designed specifically for Aeru research projects and students, allowing them to gain important insight into elephant behaviour and welfare.
“And so, it has become tradition for ‘the elephant girl’ and her family to journey to the park every year to visit Mashudu and his pachyderm family. And each year the family bring treats for the elephants, which Poppaea, her sister Eliana and the Aeru crew hide away in the overnight elephant camp. We then stand back and wait to watch the elephants’ delight when they find a whole water melon or a whole pumpkin in the piles of straw or branches.”
Every year Poppaea also brings another donation to add to Aeru’s initiatives. Her donation programme is now in its third year and she has donated almost R13 000 to the Aeru programme.
“In this world of greed, ambivalence and self-absorption, I feel so grateful to have a presence like Poppaea in our park and Aeru family. Barely contained in her teeny body, her spirited, loving and generous personality shines out unashamedly and affects everybody who comes into contact with her.”
Young added that the elephants and all who work at the park had been affected by this “elephant girl”. “And I know, for certain, that my life, and that of young Mashudu, will never be the same.”
And her generosity continues: her mother Chrissie said that for her birthday Poppaea had insisted that instead of gifts she would rather have her friends donate money “to give to the elephants”.
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