VI
EN
Addo Elephant National Park is a diverse wildlife conservation park located near the city of Port Elizabeth and is one of South Africa's 20 national parks. It is currently the third largest national park, after Kruger National Park and Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.
Initially established in 1931 by entomologist Sydney Skaife, the park aimed to create a sanctuary for the 11 elephants remaining in the area. Today, Addo Elephant Park has grown into a thriving sanctuary, caring for over 600 elephants and a large number of other mammals.
Later, the original park was expanded to include the Woody Cape nature reserve, stretching from the mouth of the Sundays River toward the Egyptian city of Alexandria, and a marine reserve encompassing St. Croix Island and Bird Island – two islands renowned as habitats for ospreys and penguins.
These marine areas are part of the Addo Elephant Park's expansion plan, which has been raised from its original area of 1,640 km² to 3,600 km².
This expansion not only helped the park set a record for containing five of South Africa's seven major plant communities, but it also became the only park in the world to simultaneously preserve seven of Africa's largest wildlife species (known as the Big 7). These seven largest wildlife species living in the wild in South Africa are elephants, rhinos, lions, buffalo, leopards, whales, and great white sharks.
