Elephant Hapoor Junior killed by his brother

On Tuesday, 6 March 2012 a Pumba field guide noted loud screams being made by an elephant. Upon arriving at the scene, he discovered a severely injured Hapoor Junior who had been attacked by Nick, his brother, another dominant bull. Nick showed no remorse towards him, as he asserted his dominance on Hapoor Junior by continually mounting him. Suffering severe injuries, the conservation management team watched in sadness as a piece of Eastern Cape history took its last breath.

Relocated to diminish fighting

Hapoor Junior was born in the Addo Elephant National Park in 1954 but relocated to Pumba in 2005, when Addo decided to relocate twelve big bulls to private reserves in the Eastern Cape, to diminish the competition and fighting amongst the bulls. Hapoor Junior at the time had been the dominating bull in Addo for 26 years, during which time he had killed eight other bulls who had challenged his dominance.

During the relocation programme Pumba purchased four of the twelve bulls to be relocated one of which was the iconic Hapoor Junior who at that stage was 51 years old. The other bulls were his 38 year old younger brother Derek, 21 year old Nick and 19 year old Koos. All the bulls settled into Pumba very well, with Hapoor Junior immediately imposing his dominance on the new herd of 14 elephants. In 2007, tragedy struck when Derek challenged Hapoor Junior's dominance which resulted in his death.

In 2011 it was noted that Nick was becoming a more opposing feature regarding Hapoor Junior's dominance, with skirmishes between the two breaking out once in a while, though with Hapoor Junior getting the upper hand.