Early in the morning, Brave Tshuma and Brighton Bhunu who were on night duty saw that there was a wild elephant at the interaction zone and quickly informed ZEN Project Manager, Jos Danckwerts. After observing the interaction, Brave, Brighton and Jos opened the bomas and released the ZEN herd into the bush. There was great excitement from the whole herd, with lots of rumbling and trumpeting as they sensed the nearby presence of wild elephants! The whole herd rushed into the forest, out of sight and approached the big wild bull and it’s two large companions whilst the handlers and rangers slowly followed the herd from a safe distance.

The elephants were mingling and interacting with the bulls showing great delight. The biggest bull then crossed the road where the team were able to observe him. Matabele then approached the bull and soon after that followed him into the forest. The rest of the herd slowly returned to the handlers after about an hour and continued with their day feeding in the forest. Matabele was nowhere to be seen as he started moving into the thick forest in the company of his new companions.

As Matabele is wearing a satellite tracking collar, the team were able to track and monitor his movements. He moved relatively quickly out of Panda Masuie Forest into the neighbouring Zambezi National Park. He spent the day along the Kalisosa Vlei under some big trees. Later in the afternoon he began to move quickly along the teak forest ridge and further North into a stand of Mopane woodland, he moved approximately 7km. There was a huge group of elephants, more than 100, that were sighted near to the road that the ZEN team coming from Victoria Falls observed. Matabele was with this herd but further into the bush and so not seen as it was getting dark. Later in the evening he began to move back up the ridge into the forest. Very early in the morning he began to move back Southwards in the company of many wild elephants. All of his movements were eagerly monitored by the team throughout.