Ode to Kruger's super-tusker

MEMORIAL: 'ROCKSTAR' DUKE WHO HAD HIS OWN FACEBOOK PAGE GETS A STATUE

- Elize Parker

An installation and statue dedicated to the legacy of the legendary Kruger National Park super-tusker, Duke, can now become a key destination in the park.

This is all thanks to a 13-year-old dream of regional ranger Neels van Wyk and a team of avid Duke fans.

When you meet Van Wyk, you immediately recognise how much respect and esteem he has for Duke, one of the few super-tuskers of the park. Van Wyk's dream is to honour Duke's legacy with a reconstruction of his skeleton and mounting it as an exhibition in the park.

Now, thanks to a resolution passed by the park's management team, Van Wyk's tireless work, Stop Poaching Endangered African Rhino (Spear), artist Dawie Fourie and other roleplayers, this dream will come true.

Duke, named after Thom Duke, an early 20th-century Lower Sabie ranger, early in his life showed he might be an emerging super-tusker. Such elephants have the DNA to develop extra-long tusks weighing 45kg each.

Duke's tusks each weighed more than 70kg. His left tusk measured 144cm from the skull and his right 133cm.

Duke was such a rockstar in the world of wildlife, he even had his own Facebook page on which you could post photographs taken of him in the park.

Van Wyk first saw the elephant in 1995, when he was based at Lower Sabie doing his practical year towards a diploma in nature conservation.