Dan Koehl

Dan Koehl was born 28 October 1959 in Stockholm, Sweden, the fifth child of parents Gösta Albert Köhl (1916-1996), Swedish engineer and Margot Nordholm (1922-2006), sister to Italian-Swedish art historian, and author Alice Fallai Rasmussen. His grandfathers was Jules Albert Koehl, French-Swedish chef de cuisine from Strasbourg, Alsace and cousin to French planter and military officer Captain Edouard Dieffenbach (1897-1972) who co-founded a squad of meharist camel cavalry, the Free French Camel Corps (French: Corps de méharistes français libres), both born in the German Empire, and Birger Nordholm, Swedish-American founding director of the Swedish National Tourist Office in New York City. Through his maternal great-grandmother baroness Alice Brauner (1877-1944), and great-great-grandfather Carl Siegmund Friedrichs Lachs, a Bavarian-Swedish brewmaster active in Sweden and the United States, he is related to Charlotte Lachs (1867-1920), Swedish-American soprano singer and directress of the departments of vocal music at the Conservatory of Music at a number of US Universities,[7] and Charles Lachs (1879-1979), Swedish visual artist.[8] His fathers uncle was the Swedish Sea Captain and Commander John Nordlander commissioned by the shipping line Swedish American Line,[9] who crossed the Atlantic Ocean 532 times,[10][11] belonging to the Swedish family Nordlander of seafarers, with a number of Sea captains on the longest river in Sweden, Ångermanälven in Västernorrland County, Sweden. The Koehl family include Sea Captain and pirate hunter Ditmar Koel (1500-1563) who was Mayor of Hamburg 1548-1563 [12] and German Imperial Army officer in German Army Air Service Hermann Köhl (1888-1938), aviation pioneer and pilot of the first transatlantic flight by a fixed-wing aircraft from East to West in 1928.[13]

Growing up in California, United States, and on Östermalm in Stockholm, Koehl grew up as passionated aquarist and studied zookeeping at Enskede gårds gymnasium. Besides subsequent studies at Stockholm University and Calle Flygare Teaterskola, Koehl initiated his career as commissioned shepherd for the Royal Herd of Sheep at Gärdet in Stockholm, before carrying out mahout apprenticeship in Sri Lanka and India,[14][15][16] and traditional German elephant management and training in Hanover Zoo and Hagenbecks Tierpark in Hamburg, by elephant chief trainer Karl Kock.

Dan Koehl in maharaja clothing at Cirkus Krone, Germany (2001).

Dan Koehl on the ship SVK 655 Arn, Swedish Auxiliary Naval Corps.

Since the late 1970s, Dan Koehl has served as head elephant keeper, stable master and consultant at zoos, circuses and ranches around the world. European locations have included Skansen, Cirkus Scott, Borås Wildlife Park, Tiergarten Schönbrunn, Dresden Zoo, Zoolandia. Parco Natura Viva, Kolmården Wildlife Park, Circus Krone, Tiergarten Walding, Karlsruhe Zoo and Prague Zoo. While at Skansen, pending the departure of the stable's elephants "Nika" and "Shiva" to inferior living conditions abroad, he figured in a campaign that sparked nationwide debate over "Stockholm's beloved elephants". Despite described by Cynthia Moss in Elephant Memories as "among the best-cared-for and happiest I had ever seen in captivity", after much controversy, Skansen's elephants were shipped to Cricket Park, England, only to face premature death.[17][18][19] At Kolmården Wildlife Park, Koehl was commissioned "royal head groom" for the management of the elephants "Boa" and "Saonoi" donated to King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden by King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand.[20] Since the 1990s worldwide locations have included Elephant Experience and Sondelani Game Lodge in Zimbabwe, Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage in Sri Lanka, and Airavata Elephant Foundation and Compagnie des Eléphants d'Angkors elephant Sanctuary Kulen Elephant Forest, both latter ones in Cambodia.[21][22][23]

Dan Koehl has contributed to various animals and wildlife care and preservation foundations related especially to elephants, including Asian elephant victims of war at Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage.[24][25] As Deputy of the Executive Secretary for the European Elephant Keepers and Managers Association (EEKMA) 1998–2008, he co-worked out the Elephant management safety guidelines (2002),[26][27] and has served as chairman for Swedish National Union of Aquaristic Societies (SARF).[28][29]

In addition, as a licensed mariner, Koehl has served maritime as deck officer for the Swedish Auxiliary Naval Corps[30] as well for civil purposes, owner of the 100 year old ship Moälven.[31]

Parallell to lecturing in zoology, Dan Koehl has been documenting research about elephants, creating the Elephant Listserver (elephant-@listserver.wineasy.se), [32] in 1995 as a collaboration with the Elephant Research Foundation and its founder Jeheskel Shoshani, [33] who assisted him in creating a FAQ-section and zoological research at his website Elephant Encyclopedia, online since 1995 and located at https://www.elephant.se, which since 2006 also is comprising the world's largest research database on individual elephants (and possibly on individual animals from a single species overall).[34][35][36] Cited by journalists, organisations and in scientific works,[37][38] it has notably figured in regard to Elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus and to evolution of cancer suppression.[39][40][41][42][43]

Swedish Wikipedia's increase after the implementation of advertisements on Susning.nu 21 Nov. 2002

After being a prolific user at Swedish UseModWiki Susning.nu and during months the only contributor to Swedish Wikipedia,[44] Koehl switch over completely to Swedish Wikipedia 20 November 2002 after an advertising banner was exposed on Susning, with several prolific contributors gradually following suit. Koehl pioneered much of its fundamental corpus by creating thousand of articles (with over 1500 not deleted pages having over 9 million exposures, apr 0.5% of the total of 2 billion exposures on Swedish Wikipedia during 2019), maintenance functions, co-translated "Phase III" MediaWiki,[45][46] initiating sv.wikipedia.org 1 December 2002, appointed Swedish Wikipedia's first "sysop" and called to the first Tinget, the wiki "thing" of 24 November 2002 which became the first instance akin to an arbitration committee on any Wikipedia language version.[47]

As Wikipedia user User:Dan Koehl for eighteen years being the 90th earliest user still 'active', Koehl has created over 500 heraldry shields of Swedish medieval noble families and has been fighting vandalism on Wikimedia serving as admin on four projects, being the longest serving admin on Wikispecies and is belonging to top 2 500 of most active Wikipedia contributors of all time.

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