A confused elephant whose parents were culled by ivory hunters has been adopted by a herd of buffalo (Picture: Caters)

Lumbering across the savannah, Nzhou is the queen of the herd – but it’s not the one you’d think.

Instead of keeping pace with a majestic procession of elephants, the 46-year-old towers over a group of buffalo.

She was accepted by the horned herd on the Imire Black Rhino and Wildlife Conservation area after her parents were culled by ivory hunters in the 1970s.

Judy Travers, one of the owners of the Zimbabwe wildlife park, said: ‘Nzhou is the matriarch of the entire farm but she chooses to spend her time with the buffalo.


‘We have tried to reintroduce her to the elephant herd on the farm but she’s really happy where she is.



‘She’s very nurturing towards calves and their mums, but can put her big foot down towards the mature bulls.’

The conservation area protects animals that are hunted in the wild.

Elephants roam alongside black rhinos on 4,000ha (10,000 acres) of land.