The idea was first kicked off by Noah.  He saved the animals and put them
gently back where they belonged.  (Pity he included the mosquitoes.)  Nowadays,
any effort to re-introduce wild animals to where they were before is usually
called a Noah project.

The Addo Elephant National Park has just completed a Noah project –
bringing more than 100 buffalo into the park. This is not as simple as it
sounds.  South Africa’s buffalo are under high threat – bovine TB has cut
swathes through buffalo populations all over the country and it is illegal to
move or introduce the animals into a new area until they have undergone months –
if not years – of tests for the disease.  These new buffalo are in the pink, and
not only will populate the new areas of the park but will create new populations
of disease-free animals to counter the losses in other parks.

Keeping the buffalo company are 80 red hartebeest, 40 Burchell’s zebra
and more than 20 eland – the largest antelope in the world.  The eland, of
course, was a sacred animal to the Bushmen, and it is easy to see why.  With
their stately bearing and abundance of meat, they are Christmas-on-the-hoof for
the hunter-gatherer. 

The new area of the park has also been treated to 17km of roads so that
visitors can have better access. The newly constructed roads are named after
people who were instrumental in the development of the park:  Vukani loop is
named after Steve Trollope, the park’s first manager nicknamed ‘Vukani’ (which
means op-en-wakker in Afrikaans), while the Harvey loop is named after the
Harvey family who protected the last 16 elephants on their farm before the park
was proclaimed and the ellies were allowed some peace.  Congratulations to the
park management for commemorating people who had input into the park, instead of
trying to ingratiate themselves with some flavour-of-the-month politician.