The Elephant Whisperer: My Life With the Herd in the African Wild

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Authors: Lawrence Anthony,Graham Spence

BOOK: The Elephant Whisperer: My Life With the Herd in the African Wild
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To my beautiful, caring Françoise,
for allowing me to be who I am.
In 1999, I was asked to accept a herd of troubled wild elephants on my game reserve. I had no inkling of the escapades and adventures I was about to embark upon. I had no idea how challenging it would be or how much my life would be enriched.
The adventure has been both physical and spiritual. Physical in the sense that it was action from the word go, as you will see in the following pages; spiritual because these giants of the planet took me deep into their world.
Make no mistake, the title of this book is not about me for I make no claim to any special abilities. It is about the elephants – it was they who whispered to me and taught me how to listen.
How this happened was purely at a personal level. I am no scientist, I am a conservationist. So when I describe how the elephants reacted to me, or I to them, it is purely the truth of my own experiences. There are no laboratory tests here, but through trial and error, I found out what worked best for me and my herd in our odyssey together.
Not only am I a conservationist, I am an extremely lucky one for I own a game reserve called Thula Thula. It consists of 5,000 acres of pristine bush in the heart of Zululand, South Africa, where elephants once roamed freely. No longer. Many rural Zulus have never seen an elephant. My
elephants were the first wild ones to be reintroduced into our area for more than a century.
Thula Thula is a natural home to much of the indigenous wildlife of Zululand, including the majestic white rhino, Cape buffalo, leopard, hyena, giraffe, zebra, wildebeest, crocodile, and many species of antelope, as well as lesserknown predators such as the lynx and serval. We have seen pythons as long as a truck and we have possibly the biggest breeding population of white-backed vultures in the province.
And, of course, we have elephants.
The elephants came to us out of the blue, as you will read. Today, I cannot visualize a life without them. I don’t want a life without them. To understand how they taught me so much, you have to understand that communication in the animal kingdom is as natural as a breeze. That in the beginning it was only self-imposed human limitations that impeded my understanding.
In our noisy cities we tend to forget the things our ancestors knew on a gut level: that the wilderness is alive, that its whispers are there for all to hear – and to respond to.
We also have to understand that there are things we cannot understand. Elephants possess qualities and abilities well beyond the means of science to decipher. Elephants cannot repair a computer, but they do have communication, physical and metaphysical, that would make Bill Gates’s mouth drop open. In some very important ways they are ahead of us.
Some unexplained occurrences are quite evident throughout the plant and animal kingdom and there is nothing like looking at what is actually going on around you, to turn a lot of what you always thought to be true on its head.
For instance, any game ranger will tell you that if you decide to dart rhino for relocation to other reserves, the day
you go out to do so there will not be a rhino around for love or money. Yet the day before, you saw them all over the place. Somehow they knew you were after them and they simply vanished. The next week when you only want to dart buffalo, the rhino you couldn’t find will be standing by watching you.
Many years ago I watched a hunter stalking his prey. He had a permit to target only an impala ram from a bachelor herd. Yet the only males he encountered that day were those with breeding herds of females. And even more incredibly, these non-shootable studs stood nonchalantly within range, eyeing him without a care in the world, while in the background bachelor herds were running for their lives.
How is this so? None of us know. The more prosaic rangers among us just say it’s Murphy Law – that whatever can go wrong, will. When you want to shoot or dart an animal they are never around. Others, like me, are not so sure. Maybe it’s a bit more mystical. Maybe the message is in the wind.
This less conventional view is supported by a wise old Zulu tracker I know well. A vastly experienced man of the bush, he told me that whenever monkeys near his village got too brazen at stealing food, or threatening or biting children, they would decide to shoot one to scare the troop off.
‘But those monkeys are so clever,’ he said, tapping his temple. ‘The moment we decide to fetch the gun they disappear. We have learned not even to say the name “monkey” or “gun” out loud among ourselves because then they will not come out of the forest. When there is danger they can hear without ears.’
Indeed. But amazingly this transcends even to plant life. Our guest lodge on Thula Thula is about two miles from our home in a grove of indigenous acacias and hardwoods that have been there for centuries. Here in this ancient woodland, the acacia tree not only understands it’s under
attack when browsed by antelope or giraffe, it quickly injects tannin into its leaves making them taste bitter. The tree then releases a scent, a pheromone, into the air to warn other acacias in the area of the potential danger. These neighbouring trees receive the warning and immediately start producing tannin themselves in anticipation of an attack.
Now a tree has no brain or central nervous system. So what is making these complex decisions? Or more pertinently – why? Why would a seemingly insentient tree care enough about its neighbour’s safety to go to all that trouble to protect it? Without a brain how does it even know it has family or neighbours to protect?
Under the microscope, living organisms are just a soup of chemicals and minerals. But what about what the microscope doesn’t see? That life force, the vital ingredient of existence – from an acacia to an elephant – can it be quantified?
My herd showed me that it can. That understanding and generosity of spirit is alive and well in the pachyderm kingdom; that elephants are emotional, caring and extremely intelligent; and that they value good relations with humans.
This is their story. They taught me that all life forms are important to each other in our common quest for happiness and survival. That there is more to life than just yourself, your own family, or your own kind.
In the distance, the percussive shot of a rifle sounded like a giant stick of firewood cracking.
I jumped out of my chair, listening. It was a sound wired into a game ranger’s psyche. Then came a burst …
crack-crack-crack.
Flocks of squawking birds scrambled, silhouetted in the crimson sunset.
Poachers. On the west boundary.
David, my ranger, was already sprinting for the trusty old Land Rover. I grabbed a shotgun and followed, leaping into the driver’s seat. Max, my brindle Staffordshire bull terrier, scrambled onto the seat between us. With all the excitement buzzing he was not going to be left behind.
As I twisted the ignition key and floored the accelerator, David grabbed the two-way radio.
‘Ndonga!’ he bellowed. ‘Ndonga, are you receiving? Over!’
Ndonga was the head of my Ovambo guards and a good man to have on your side in a gunfight, having served in the military. I would have felt better knowing him and his team were on their way but only static greeted David’s attempts to contact him. We powered on alone.
Poachers had been the scourge of our lives since my fiancée Françoise and I bought Thula Thula, a magnificent game reserve in central Zululand. They had been targeting us for almost a year now. I couldn’t work out who they
were or where they were coming from. I had talked often with the
izinduna
– headmen – of the surrounding rural Zulu tribes and they were adamant that their people were not involved. I believed them. Our employees were mainly local and exceptionally loyal. These thugs had to be from somewhere else.
Twilight was darkening fast and I slowed as we approached the western fence and killed the headlights. Pulling over behind a large anthill, David was first out as we eased through a cluster of acacia trees, nerves on edge, trigger fingers tense, watching and listening. Tightly choked pump-action scatterguns with heavy pellets were our weapons of choice against poachers, for in the dark, in the bush, things are about as close and personal as you can get. As any game ranger in Africa knows, professional poachers will shoot first and shoot to kill.
The fence was just fifty yards away. Poachers like to keep their escape route open and I made a circling motion with my arm to David. He nodded, knowing exactly what I meant. He would keep watch while I crawled to the fence to cut off the retreat if a firefight erupted.
An acrid whiff of cordite spiced the evening air. It hung like a shroud in the silence. In Africa the bush is never willingly mute; the cicadas never cease. Except after gunshots.
After a few minutes of absolute stillness, I knew we had been set up. I switched on my halogen torch, sweeping its beam up and down the fence. There were no gaps revealing where a poacher could have cut his way in. David flicked on his torch as well, searching for tracks or blood spoor indicating if an animal had been killed and dragged off.
Nothing. Just an eerie silence.
With no tracks inside the reserve I realized the shots must have been fired from just outside the fence.
‘Damn, it’s a decoy.’
As I said that, we heard more shots – muffled but distinctive ‘crumps’ on the far side of the reserve, at least forty-five minutes’ drive on dirt tracks that often are little more than quagmires in the spring rains.
We jumped back into the Land Rover and sped off, but I knew it was hopeless. We had been taken for suckers. We would never catch them. They would be off the reserve with a couple of slain nyala – one of Africa’s most beautiful antelopes – before we got near.
I cursed my foolhardiness. If I had only sent some rangers to the far side instead of charging off blindly, we could have caught them red-handed.
But this proved one thing. I now knew for certain the
izindunas
who had been claiming my problems were internal – someone operating within the reserve – were spot on. This was not the local community’s work. It was not a few hungry tribesmen and scrawny dogs hunting for the pot. This was a well-organized criminal operation led by someone who followed our every move. How else could they have timed everything so perfectly?
It was pitch-dark when we arrived at the eastern perimeter of the reserve and we traced the scene with our torches. The tracks told the story. Two nyala had been taken with high-velocity hunting rifles. We could see the flattened bloodstained grass from where their carcasses were dragged to a hole in the fence, which had been crudely hacked with bolt cutters. About ten yards outside the fence were the studded muddy tracks of a 4x4 bush vehicle that by now would be several miles away. The animals would be sold to local butchers who would use them for biltong, a dried meat jerky that is much prized throughout Africa.
The light of my torch picked up a bloody tuft of charcoal-grey fur fluttering on the cut fence wire. At least one of the dead bucks was a male – the female nyala is light brown with thin white stripes on her back.
I shivered, feeling old and weary. Thula Thula had been a hunting ranch before I had bought it and I had vowed that would end. No animal would be needlessly killed again on my watch. I didn’t realize how difficult that vow would be to keep.
Despondently we drove back to the lodge. Françoise greeted us with mugs of dark, rich coffee. Just what I needed.
I glanced at her and smiled my thanks. Tall, graceful and very French, she was just as beautiful as the day I had first met her catching a taxi on a freezing London morning twelve years ago.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘A set-up. There were two groups. One fired some shots on the far boundary, then watched our Land Rover lights. As soon as we got there, the others bagged two buck on the eastern side.’
I took a gulp of coffee and sat down. ‘These guys are organized; someone’s going to get killed if we’re not careful.’
Françoise nodded. Three days ago the poachers had been so close it felt as if their bullets were whistling a fraction above our heads.
‘Better report it to the cops tomorrow,’ she said.
I didn’t reply. To expect the police to pay much attention to two murdered antelope was pushing it a little.
Ndonga was furious the next morning when I told him that more animals had been shot. He admonished me for not calling him. I said we had tried but failed to get a response.
‘Oh … sorry, Mr Anthony. I went out for a few drinks last night. Not feeling too good today,’ he said, grinning sheepishly.
I didn’t feel like discussing his hangover. ‘Can you make this a priority?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘We’ll catch these bastards.’
I had barely got back to the house when the phone rang. A woman introduced herself: Marion Garai from the Elephant Managers and Owners Association (EMOA), a private organization comprised of several elephant owners in South Africa that takes an interest in elephant welfare. I had heard of them and the good work they did for elephant conservation before, but as I was not an elephant owner, I had never dealt with them directly.
Her warm voice instantly inspired empathy.
She got straight to the point. She had heard about Thula Thula and the variety of magnificent indigenous Zululand wildlife that we had. She said she had also heard of how we were working closely with the local population in fostering conservation awareness and wondered … would I be interested in adopting a herd of elephant? The good news, she continued before I could answer, was that I would get them for free, barring capture and transportation costs.
You could have knocked me over with a blade of grass. Elephant? The world’s largest mammal? And they wanted to give me a whole herd? For a moment I thought it was a hoax. I mean how often do you get phoned out of the blue asking if you want a herd of tuskers?
But Marion was serious.
OK, I asked; what was the bad news?
Well, said Marion. There was a problem. The elephants were considered ‘troublesome’. They had a tendency to break out of reserves and the owners wanted to get rid of them fast. If we didn’t take them, they would be put down – shot. All of them.
‘What do you mean by troublesome?’
‘The matriarch is an amazing escape artist and has worked out how to break through electric fences. She just twists the wire around her tusks until it snaps or takes the
pain and smashes through. It’s unbelievable. The owners have had enough and now asked if EMOA can sort something out.’
I momentarily pictured a five-ton beast deliberately enduring the agonizing shock of 8,000 volts stabbing through her body. That took determination.
‘Also, Lawrence, there are babies involved.’
‘Why me?’
Marion sensed my trepidation. This was an extremely unusual request.
‘I’ve heard you have a way with animals,’ she continued. ‘I reckon Thula Thula’s right for them. You’re right for them. Or maybe they’re right for you.’
That floored me. If anything, we were exactly ‘not right’ for a herd of elephant. I was only just getting the reserve operational and, as the previous day had spectacularly proved, having huge problems with highly organized poachers.
I was about to say ‘no’ when something held me back. I have always loved elephants. Not only are they the largest and noblest land creatures on this planet, but they symbolize all that is majestic about Africa. And here, unexpectedly, I was being offered my own herd and a chance to help. Would I ever get an opportunity like this again?
‘Where’re they from?’
‘A reserve in Mpumalanga.’
Mpumalanga is the north-eastern province of South Africa where most of the country’s game reserves – including the Kruger National Park – are situated.
‘How many?’
‘Nine – three adult females, three youngsters, of which one was male, an adolescent bull, and two babies. It’s a beautiful family. The matriarch has a gorgeous baby daughter. The young bull, her son, is fifteen years old and an absolutely superb specimen.’
‘They must be a big problem. Nobody just gives away elephants.’
‘As I said, the matriarch keeps breaking out. Not only does she snap electric wires, she’s also learnt how to unlatch gates with her tusks and the owners aren’t too keen about jumbos wandering into the guest camps. If you don’t take them, they will be shot. Certainly the adults will be.’
I went quiet, trying to unravel all this in my head. The opportunity was great, but so was the risk.
What about the poachers – would the promise of ivory bring even more of them out of the woodwork? What about having to electrify my entire reserve to keep these giant pachyderms in when I could barely keep thieves with high-velocity rifles out? What about having to build an enclosure to quarantine them while they got used to their new home? Where would I find the funds … the resources?
Also Marion didn’t shy away from saying they were ‘troublesome’. But what did that really mean? Were they just escape artists? Or was this a genuine rogue herd, too dangerous and filled with hatred of humans to keep on a game reserve in a populated area?
However, here was a herd in trouble. Despite the risks, I knew what I had to do.
‘Hell yes,’ I replied. ‘I’ll take them.’

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