Stichting DOEN adopted an elephant in Malawi.
They gave her the name "Poentja".

Poentja is a female elephant (a cow) and she was collared on 9 August 2004 in the Nyika Peace Park. She is approximately 25 or 26 years old and her shoulder height is 2,49 meter.

Poentja has got one child, a 5 year old girl-elephant. Poentja and her daughter live in a herd of ten elephants, of which four adult cows, two sub adults (11-15 yrs), two juveniles (5-10 yrs) and four calves (between 1-4yrs).

Nyika Peace Park

The elephants (Poentja, Good Star, Aali Ajali and Kaka Mkubwa) in Vwaza Marsh Wildlife reserve located in the Nyika Peace Park are quite adventurous and cover large distances. Poentja and Good Star even crossed over to Zambia and roamed through the Lundazi Forest Reserve. The other two elephants came close to crossing the border, but remained within the Malawi reserve.

Lotje and Humphrey live on the plateau of the Nyika Peace Park (Nyika National Park). They both travel extensively however Humphrey covers larger distances although still remains happily within the park.

Poentja spends most of her time in the central southern section of the park. However during November last year she left this area and moved to the western boundary of the park before crossing the international boundary, roaming 2km outside the reserve and into Zambia’s Lundazi Forest Reserve of Zambia.
Good Star and her family also went to Zambia briefly. However now, she, like the other three elephants and their families, is frequenting the southern boundary of the reserve.
Aali Ajali and her family spend a lot of time in Poentja’s company. However, though she wandered towards Zambia, she stopped just short of the international boundary, before returning to the southern boundary of the reserve.
Kaka Mkubwa is more of a loner than the others, but he too is currently foraging in close proximity to the other three elephants and their families. Perhaps the grass is sweeter in the south at the moment.

Humphrey and Lotje are very rarely in the same place at the same time, though Humphrey has been known to travel with Lotje and her family at times.

Of the two, Lotje has come closest to wandering across the boundary into Zambia than Humphrey in the past two months.

Very exciting news of late is that there are reports of two new calves in Lotje’s family! See the Photo Gallery...

Poentja lives in the Nyika Peace Park. This is the first Peace Park not linked to South Africa and it combines different parks in Malawi and Zambia.

Poentja was collared on the border of Malawi and Zambia, northwest of the regional Malawian capital, Mzuzu. Read more...

Hilde Neijssel and Lisette van Klaveren from Stichting DOEN are the lucky ones who had the chance to go to Malawi and visit ‘their’ elephant. This safari took place in the last week of October 2004.

During their trip they visited the Nyika Peace Park where they've tried to find Poentja with the latest tracking systems.

<%If Session("idUser") <> "" Then%> Track and Trace <%Else %> If you are one of the sponsors of Poentja, you can Track and Trace her and other adopted elephants here!

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GoodFund has raised over €276,000 for the Peace Parks Foundation. Thanks to the help of everyone who adopted an elephant they can use these funds for many purposes concerning the development of transfrontier conservation areas. With these funds, the economic development, conservation of biodiversity and regional peace and stability are supported. Read more about the funds allocated to the Nyika Peace Park...