ADDO ELEPHANT NATIONAL PARK

national park in Eastern province, South Africa. It has an area of 208 square miles (540 square km) and consists of two sections connected by a corridor. The southern part of the park lies in the Sundays River valley south of the Suurberg Range, north of Port Elizabeth, and was established as Addo Elephant National Park in 1931. It is largely covered with dense, impenetrable evergreen scrub and preserves a band of about 200 elephants, remnant of a great herd that roamed the area before an extermination campaign was started by landowners in 1919. It is also the habitat of scarce Cape buffalo, several species of transplanted antelope, black rhinoceroses from Kenya, and numerous small birds, mammals, and reptiles. The northern part of the park consists of deep ravines and rounded hills in the Winterhoek Mountains and was originally established in 1985 as Zuurberg National Park. It is located 7 miles (12 km) north of the original Addo Elephant National Park, with which it was amalgamated in 1995, thereby increasing the amount of land available for elephant and black rhinoceros conservation. Headquarters are at Port Elizabeth.