CONCERN FOR MOPANE AT THE JOHANNESBURG ZOO

CONCERN FOR MOPANE AT THE JOHANNESBURG ZOO

Environmental Lawyers, Cullinan and Associates, are acting for the EMS Foundation, Animal Law Reform South Africa and Chief Stephen Fritz a member of the South African Peninsula Khoi Council, in their bid to have the three Elephants presently in captivity the Johannesburg Zoo released for rehabilitation and reintegration into a large, natural, protected environment. The Elephants are named as Lammie, Ramadiba and Mopane.

This groundbreaking legal case asks the High Court in Gauteng, to recognise that Elephants are highly intelligent, socially complex and sentient animals and whose confinement in the Johannesburg Zoo is deeply adverse to their wellbeing, as well as being in contravention of the environmental right in the Constitution and applicable animal protection, welfare and environmental laws.

The applicants have brought the case in their interests, in the public interest and the in the interests of the Elephants, as sentient beings who are unable to institute legal proceedings themselves.

Further to the ongoing legal matter, on the 17th March 2025, Cullinan and Associates sent a Letter of Concern to Moodie and Robertson, the lawyers acting for Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo and others. The purpose of the letter was to place on the record the renewed concern about the safety and wellbeing of the Elephants at the Johannesburg Zoo.

The EMS Foundation, and their representatives, have monitored Lammie since the death of Kinkel in September 2018 and Ramadiba and Mopane since their arrival from Inkwenkwezi Game Reserve in Chintsa in the Eastern Cape in June 2019.

The letter addresses the particular concern of the applicants relating to the risk of physical injury to Mopane and the risk of danger to the safety of visitors who may have been in vicinity of the elephant enclosure.

Mopane was recorded, whilst waiting for the food to be delivered to the enclosure, trying to reach some long grass in the gulley below the enclosure. Ramadiba and Lammie were agitated and moving around directly behind Mopane, they could easily have bumped into her whilst she was precariously balancing over the gulley. If Mopane had fallen into the gulley she would have sustained serious injuries. It has been recorded in a scientific journal that Lammie had been pushed by Kinkel into the moat at the Johannesburg Zoo on numerous occasions.

Mopane was also recorded on another occasion standing on her hind legs and reaching over the enclosure fencing in an attempt to find food. Her trunk was outside of the enclosure, and any visitor to the Zoo could have touched her trunk and therefore been at risk.

Moodie and Robertson responded on the 1st April 2025, by expressly denying that there is any danger to the elephants health, welfare, physical safety or wellbeing to any extent whatsoever. Moreover, they specifically deny that Mopane was ever at risk of any physical injury or that Mopane has presented any danger to the safety to any visitors at the Johannesburg Zoo.

The EMS Foundation is committed to being totally transparent, videos of Mopane have been published on EMS Foundation Facebook Page.