"It's a Pink Elephant!"

Sighted in the Kruger National Park, South Africa on 16-Mar-2012
When I was back in South Africa on a holiday to visit family and friends, we spent a week in the Kruger National Park. Growing up as a child we used to go to the Kruger National Park at least once a year. One of my fondest memories of my childhood in South Africa was going to the Kruger. Our family experienced some truly incredible sightings in the Kruger, however this particular sighting of a pink baby elephant was by far my most unique sighting.

I was in the car with my mum, dad, aunt and uncle, we had just finished having lunch at the Lower Sabi Campsite. It was just after midday on a very hot summer day, which tends to be the least productive time for animal spotting as they all tend to take cover under the shade of trees. Fortunately for us this heard of elephants had just finished drinking from the Sabi River and decided to cross the road, heading for the shade.

I remember we had already driven passed the herd, but for some reason I had an urge to turn around look back at the road behind us. To my surprise, there it was, a baby pink elephant, immediately I cried out, "It's a pink elephant!". My father stopped the car and everyone turned around to see what I was going on about. At first we thought we were seeing things as none of us had seen anything like it before. I quickly reached for my phone and captured the shot just before the baby mingled in with the rest of the heard and could not be clearly seen again.

After we returned home from the trip I went online to find out if our sighting we unique or whether it is a common occurrence. The only article that I could find of any substance was written by Science Reporter for the BBC, Rebecca Morelle back in March 2009. The sighting the pink elephant featured in the BBC article was captured by wildlife cameraman Mike Holding while filming for a BBC wildlife programme. The baby elephant that day was spotted among a herd of approximately eighty elephants in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. I have included the photo from the article below for comparison with the one that I took.

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These pink elephants are in fact albino elephants. Unfortunately, the chances of survival of these baby pink elephants is very low as it is expected that the lack of skin pigment is likely to cause skin problems. It is also believed that these young elephants may suffer from blindness due to their eyes sensitivity to the harsh African sun. To this day I do not know what happened to the baby pink elephant that we saw that day. Whether it is still alive today or not, it is a special photo that I will always cherish and a moment I will never forget.