National Park of the Month - Addo Elephant National Park

The original section of the park was founded in 1931,[1] in part due to the efforts of Sydney Skaife, in order to provide a sanctuary for the eleven remaining elephants in the area. The park has proved to be very successful and currently houses more than 450 elephants and a large number of other mammals.

Expansion
The original park has subsequently been expanded to include the Woody Cape Nature Reserve that extends from the Sundays River mouth towards Alexandria and a marine reserve, which includes St. Croix Island and Bird Island, an important breeding habitat for gannets and penguins, not to mention a large variety of other marine life. Bird Island is home to the world's largest breeding colony of gannets - about 120,000 birds - and also hosts the second largest breeding colony of African penguins, the largest breeding colony being St Croix island. This forms part of the plan to expand the 1,640 km² Addo National Elephant Park into a 3,600 km² Greater Addo Elephant National Park.

The expansion has meant not only that the park contains five of South Africa's seven major vegetation zones (biomes) but also that it is probably the only park in the world to house the so-called "Big 7" (elephant, rhinoceros, lion, buffalo, leopard, whale and great white shark) in their natural habitat.

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Elephant Sanctuary - Hartebeestpoort

The Elephant Sanctuary provides a safe haven for our elephants and offers a unique platform for guest education and interaction.

All our programs are guest and elephant driven, which means the most important part of our operation is to ensure happy elephants and satisfied guests. The close encounter with elephants you experience at The Elephant Sanctuary truly is one of a kind.

All our elephants are African Elephants (Loxodonta Africana) whose trust we’ve gained through our unique reward based training. We believe in forming bonds between humans and elephants. To this end, all our elephants are exercised and stimulated daily, which provides a firm foundation for trust.

The Elephant Sanctuary is a family orientated operation catering for both young and old. We focus on education through interaction, so you will not only learn a lot about elephants, but also get to touch, feel, feed, walk trunk-in-hand and even ride these magnificent animals. Elephants are highly intelligent and delightful – when meeting them you will discover that each one has a different character, personality and temperament.

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City of the Month - Pretoria

Pretoria - The Capital of South Africa. Pretoria is a city located in the northern part of Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is one of the country's three capital cities, serving as the executive (administrative) and de facto national capital; the others are Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein, the judicial capital. Pretoria is contained within the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality as one of several constituent former administrations (among which also Centurion and Soshanguve). Pretoria itself is sometimes incorrectly referred to as "Tshwane" in a controversial proposed name change, the status of which is still being decided as of 2011.

The city's original name was Pretoria Philadelphia ("Pretoria of brotherly love"). It gave its name to the Pax Praetoriana, referring to the country's relative stability.

Pretoria in South Africa is popularly known as The Jacaranda City.

The Southern Transvaal Ndebele occupied the river valley, which was to become the location of the city of Pretoria, by around 1600.[3]

During the difaqane in Natal, another band of refugees arrived in this area under the leadership of Mzilikazi. However, they were forced to abandon their villages in their flight from a regiment of Zulu raiders in 1832.

Pretoria itself was founded in 1855 by Marthinus Pretorius, a leader of the Voortrekkers, who named it after his father Andries Pretorius. The elder Pretorius had become a national hero of the Voortrekkers after his victory over the Zulus in the Battle of Blood River. Andries Pretorius also negotiated the Sand River Convention (1852), in which Britain acknowledged the independence of the Transvaal. It became the capital of the South African Republic (ZAR) on 1 May 1860. The founding of Pretoria as the capital of the South African Republic can be seen as marking the end of the Boers' settlement movements of the Great Trek.

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