Today is International Elephant Day and a wonderful opportunity to also celebrate the birthday of Yossi the Elephant, the largest of all the elephants living in zoos in the world, who celebrated his 47th birthday yesterday.
This is truly a real reason to party!
Yossi is a very special elephant and in fact the first elephant born on safari, a few months after the place was officially opened to visitors.
Yossi was born on 11/08/74 to mother Bhatti, who is still on safari, and father Timbo, who has already passed away.
The 60-year-old Bhatti is now considered the oldest of all African elephants living in zoos in Europe.
This is definitely a family of peaks.
In the early years, Yossi was the smallest elephant in the herd, but over time it grew and developed and became larger in size - in fact it is the largest elephant in the zoo and rises to a height of 3.80 meters and weighs seven tons.
Facts that brought quite a bit of pride to the first safari in Israel.
Yossi the Elephant celebrates his 47th birthday with snacks // Photo: Safari Spokeswoman
Yossi's celebration included many preparations by his caregivers - decorating the yard with casuarina tree branches, and arranging vegetables, fruits, leaves, sugar cane, and carobs from which the caretakers created the number 47. Maintain his health.
This party took place exactly the day before International Elephant Day which is celebrated today around the world which aims to raise awareness of the plight of elephants in the wild.
Even today, every quarter of an hour, an elephant is hunted in the wild for the use of their needles made of ivory - a very expensive material that is traded mainly in Asia and is used to make instruments, piano keys and jewelry.
The ivory industry, considered one of the most prosperous industries in the world along with the trade in rhinos and other animal parts, is
launching into other horrific industries and is the fourth largest organized crime in the world after the drug, arms and human trafficking.
They are all intertwined and any purchase of jewelry, furniture or an elephant needle sculpture, contributes and aids in all these evil industries.
Yossi the elephant receives a refrigerator shower from his therapist // Photo: Gideon Markowitz,
Elephants are not only the largest mammals on land, they also have the largest brain of all terrestrial mammals.
They are smart, sensitive and empathetic to their friends - traits we often attribute to ourselves and our immediate family members, apes.
It is possible that this resemblance between man and elephant is what makes us like them so much.
It is impossible to imagine this world without them!
For it will be a much less complete world.
The question "what will the world look like without elephants" is indeed a critical question.
For ecologically, elephants are a "key species" in the system in which they live.
In this case, Yossi is not only a symbol of beauty and power - since his adulthood he has produced 35 offspring, including 21 children, 11 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren and he holds a European record in reproduction.
Zoos serve as breeding nuclei for animals that are in danger of extinction in the wild and Yossi certainly contributed a lot to the breeding nucleus of the elephants.
Today due to the painful reality and overcrowding in nature reserves where there are a large number of elephants, far beyond the carrying capacity of the area, it is of great importance to move elephants to zoos so as not to cause environmental damage.
In the past, to prevent damage, more than once they had to solve the problem by killing elephants.
We hope that the situation will improve as the awareness goes up and wish Yossi a lot of good luck, because not every day it is possible to celebrate an elephant's birthday in Leo!
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