The HERD (Hoedspruit Elephant Rehabilitation and Development) Trust celebrated a mammoth milestone this month when Khanyisa, the albino elephant, finally weighed in at one tonne.
When Khanyisa started her journey at HERD’s elephant orphanage in South Africa, she weighed 124kg, but quickly worked her way up.
There were moments in between that scared the orphanage, as she dropped weight with every bout of diarrhoea or illness.
“There’s little as terrifying as watching a young calf in your care become fragile and weak. But Khanyisa pulled through with the best team around her, with incredible help from our vets and experts. Her weight rose again, and her spirits would lift to show us she was a fighter,” HERD said.
“She has continued to grow quickly since graduating from the orphanage and joining the homestead full-time, adapting beautifully to this new stage. Now at over one tonne in weight, we don’t think we’ll be able to continue weighing her since our scale is meant to only read up to around 1 000kg,” the statement concluded.
As if there was not enough to celebrate, Khanyisa will enjoy her fourth birthday next month.
Watch HERD”s video of Khanyisa’s weigh-in journey below:
