Daily Tribune
Since 1975, one of Africa’s largest elephant species, which can stand 13 feet tall, had not been seen in its known habitat in Angola’s highlands.
The remoteness and vastness of the highlands the size of England — and the Angolan civil war prevented people from going to where the elephants that are revered by the Nkangala people were last seen.
In 2016, South African explorer Steve Boyes embarked on a mission to find the elephant. Boyes’s expedition team set up 180 camera traps, motion, acoustic and heat sensors, and flew over the area in a helicopter, CNN reported.
After seven years, a camera trap captured nighttime images of a female elephant.
In 2024, Boyes hired master trackers from Angola and Namibia to find the elephant. More than a month later, Boyes and a tracker named Xui finally encountered a 12-foot-tall elephant that he snapped with his smartphone.
With the long-hidden or ghost elephants of Angola found, their DNA was collected and analyzed to reveal that they are distinct from all other elephant populations.
Meanwhile, another wild animal was found at the Port of New York and New Jersey, USA last month.
The two-year-old male fox (Vulpes vulpes) stowed away on a cargo ship that departed from Southampton, England on 4 February and arrived in New York on 18 February, where it was spotted by US Customs and Border Protection officers, NBC News reports.
The stowaway was turned over to the Bronx Zoo the following day, where it is undergoing tests and will remain until a permanent home can be found.
