The Elephant Whisperer: My Life With the Herd in the African Wild (3 page)

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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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After checking that the injury was not life-threatening, we started criss-crossing the bush until we picked up the tracks – or spoor as it is called in Africa. It belonged to a single gunman – not a group, as we had initially feared. I called Bheki and my security
induna
Ngwenya, whose name means crocodile in Zulu, two of our best and toughest Zulu rangers. Bheki is the hardest man I have ever met, slim with quiet eyes and a disarmingly innocent face, while Ngwenya, thickset and muscular, had an aura of quiet authority about him which influenced the rest of the rangers in his team.
‘You two go ahead and track the gunman. David and I will stay here to protect the rest of the workers.’
They nodded and inched their way through the thornveld until they believed they were behind the shooter. They slowly cut back and waited … and waited.
Then Ngwenya saw a brief glint of sunlight flash off metal. He signalled to Bheki, pointing to the sniper’s position. Lying low in the long grass, they rattled off a volley of warning shots. The sniper dived behind an anthill, fired two blasts from his shotgun, then disappeared into the thick bush.
But the guards had seen him – and to their surprise, they knew him. He was a ‘hunter’ from another Zulu village some miles away.
We drove the shot labourer to hospital and called the police. The guards identified the gunman and the cops raided his thatched hut, seizing a dilapidated shotgun. Amazingly, he confessed without any hint of shame that he was a ‘professional poacher’ – and then heaped the blame on us, saying that erecting an electric fence would deprive him of his livelihood. He no longer could break into Thula Thula so easily. He denied trying to kill anyone, he just wanted to scare the workers off and stop the fence being built. Not surprisingly, that didn’t cut much ice with the authorities.
I asked to see the shotgun and the cops obliged. It was a battered double-barrel 12-bore, as ancient as its owner. The stock, held together with vinyl electrical tape, was scratched and chipped from thousands of scrapes in the bush. The barrel was rusted and pitted. There was no way this was the person responsible for our major poaching problem.
So who was?
With that disruption behind us the construction continued from dawn to dusk, seven days a week. It was back-breaking work, sweaty and dirty with temperatures soaring to 110 degrees Fahrenheit. But mile by torturous mile, the electric fence started to take shape, inching northwards, then cutting
east and gathering momentum as the workers’ competency levels increased.
Building a
boma
was equally gruelling, albeit on a far smaller scale. We measured out 110 square yards of virgin bush and cemented 9-foot-tall, heavy-duty eucalyptus poles into concrete foundations every 12 yards. Then coils of tempered mesh and a trio of cables as thick as a man’s thumb were strung onto the poles, tensioned by the simple expedient of attaching the ends to the Land Rover bumper and ‘revving’ it taut.
But no matter how thick the cables, no bush fence will hold a determined elephant. So the trump card is the ‘hot wires’. The electrification process is deceptively simple. All it consists of is four live wires bracketed onto the poles so they run inside the structure, while two energizers that run off car batteries generate the ‘juice’.
Simple or not, the energizers pack an 8,000-volt punch. This may sound massive, which it is, but the shock is not fatal as the amperage is extremely low. But believe me, it is excruciating, even to an elephant with an inch-thick hide. I can vouch first-hand, having accidentally touched the wires several times during repairs, or while carelessly waving arms in animated conversation, much to the mirth of my rangers. It’s most unpleasant as the electricity seizes and surprises you. Your body shudders and unless you let go quickly you sit down involuntarily as your legs collapse. The only good thing is that you recover quickly to laugh about it.
Once the fence was up, the final task was to chop down any trees that could be shoved onto it, as this is an elephant’s favourite way of snapping the current.
The deadline passed in an eye-blink and of course we were nowhere near finished, even though I had employed more men and at the
boma
we slaved virtually around the clock, even working by car lights at night.
Soon the telephones started jangling with the Mpumalanga reserve managers wanting to know what was going on.
‘Everything’s fine,’ I boomed cheerfully over the phone, lying through my teeth. If they knew the problems we had with unrealistic deadlines and workers being shot at by a rogue gunman they probably would have called the deal off. Sometimes I would put Françoise on the line to pacify them, which she did admirably with her entrancing French lilt.
Then one day we got the call I dreaded.
The herd had broken out again and this time damaged three of the reserve’s lodges. We were bluntly told that unless we took the elephants immediately, the owners would have to make a ‘decision’.
Françoise fielded the call and crossing her fingers said we only need to get our elephant proofing approved by KZN Wildlife – the province’s official authority – and all problems would be over.
Somehow the owners bought that and reluctantly agreed to an extension. But just a few more days, they warned, or else there would be a ‘decision’.
That word again.
Exhausted teams were still hammering in the final fence nails when the Mpumalanga reserve manager phoned to say he could wait no longer and was sending them, ready or not. The elephants were being loaded as we spoke and would arrive at Thula Thula within eighteen hours.
I hurriedly called our Parks authority, KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife, to come and inspect the
boma
, stressing that the animals were already on their way. Fortunately they were able to respond instantly and said an inspector would be at Thula Thula within a couple of hours.
David and I sped down for a final look-see as I wanted everything to be perfect. But while we were double-checking that all vulnerable trees were beyond toppling distance from the fence, something suddenly struck me as being odd. Something didn’t look right.
And then I saw the problem. Damn it! While the electric wires were bracketed on the inside, the fence itself, including the heavy-duty cables, had been strung up on the outside of the poles. This was a fatal flaw because if an elephant braved the power and leant on the mesh it would rip off like paper. The poles thus provided at best flimsy inner-lateral support, literally just holding the fence up. Once the inspector saw this he would instantly condemn it. That meant the truck would be turned and the herd sent back to certain death.
I clenched my fists in exasperation. How could we make such an elementary error? It was too late to do anything as the dust mushrooming above the savannah signalled the arrival of the inspector. I prayed we could bluff our way through, but inwardly I despaired. The project was doomed before it began.
The inspector jumped out of his bush-worn Toyota Land Cruiser and I began effusively thanking him for arriving at short notice, stressing that the elephants were already on the road. I hoped that adding a deadline edge might swing things our way.
He was a decent guy and knew his business, making particular note of a large tambotie tree with gnarled bark knotted like biceps that was close to the fence. Tambotie is an exceptionally hard wood that blunts the sharpest chain-saw and the inspector remarked wryly that not even an elephant could snap this particularly ‘muscular’ one. He deemed it safe.
Then he went to check the meshing and my mouth went dry. Surely he’d notice the wire was on wrong side.
The Gods were with us that day, and to my gut-churning relief, he – like us – didn’t spot the obvious mistake. The
boma
was given the green light. I now had my crucial authorization and summoned every available hand to secure the fence correctly.
The 600-mile drive south from Mpumalanga to Thula Thula would take all day and much of the night as the eighteen-wheeler needed plenty of pit stops to feed and water the jumbos. I wasn’t concerned about the journey as one of Africa’s top elephant hands, Kobus Raadt, was in charge.
It was only then I got the news from Françoise – that she had heard that the herd’s matriarch and her baby had been shot during the capture. The justification was that she was ‘bad news’ and would lead breakouts at Thula Thula as
well. We learnt this via a telephone call after the animals had left and I was as stunned as if I had been hit in the spleen. This was exactly what we at Thula Thula were fighting against. While I understood the conventional reasoning behind the choice to kill the matriarch, I felt that decision should have been mine. As elephants are so big and dangerous, if they create problems and pose a risk to lodges and tourists it is quite usual for them to be shot out of hand. However, I was convinced that I would be able to settle the herd in their new home. Consequently I was prepared to take the risk of accepting the escape-artist matriarch and her baby and work with her. Even so, this killing cemented my determination to save the rest of the herd.
The Zulus who live close to the land have a saying that if it rains on an inaugural occasion, that event will be blessed. For those in step with the natural world, rain is life. That day it didn’t just rain, it bucketed. The bruised skies sprayed down torrents and I wasn’t too sure the Zulus had this ‘blessed’ story right. When the articulated truck arrived outside Thula Thula in thick darkness the deluge had turned the dirt tracks into streams of mud.
Barely had we opened the gates to the reserve when a tyre burst, the reinforced rubber cracking loud as a rifle shot. This panicked the elephants, who had just seen their leader gunned down and they started thumping the inside of the trailer like it was a gigantic drum, while the crews worked feverishly to change the wheel.
‘This is
Jurassic Park
!’ Françoise cried. We laughed, not necessarily in mirth.
Françoise and I first met some years back in London at the Cumberland Hotel. It was minus 17 degrees Celsius and I urgently needed to get to Earls Court for a meeting. There was a long queue snaking up to the taxi rank outside the hotel and the doorman, who knew I was in a hurry, said he would see if anyone would share a cab. As it happened, a
gorgeous woman right at the front was also going to Earls Court. The doorman asked if she would mind sharing and pointed at me. She leaned forward to get a better look, and then shook her head. It was the most emphatic ‘No’ I had seen.
Well, that’s life. Rather than hang around I decided to take the Underground and as I strode off, to my surprise, the same woman miraculously appeared next to me at the Tube station.
‘’Ello,’ she said in a thick French accent, ‘I am Françoise.’
She said she felt guilty about not agreeing to share a cab and to make amends offered to show me which train to take. To say I was smitten would be putting it blandly.
She knew London well and asked if I was interested in jazz. I wasn’t, but I also wasn’t stupid enough to say so. In fact, I professed undying love for the genre. Thank the stars she didn’t ask for proof – such as my favourite musician – and instead suggested that as jazz lovers we go to Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club that night. I pondered this for a fraction of a nanosecond before answering ‘Yes’ with more enthusiasm than absolutely necessary.
Apart from wondering why I had never appreciated the bewitchment of jazz before, I spent much of that evening telling her of the magic of Africa – not hard in the middle of an English winter. Was there plenty of sun in Africa, she asked? I scoffed … was there sun? We invented the word.
Well, here we were twelve years later drenched to the marrow in the bush, wrestling with a gigantic wheel on a muddy rig loaded with elephants. I don’t recall mentioning this could happen while piling on the charm during our first date.
The spare wheel had scarcely been bolted on when to the surprise of no one the truck slid just a few yards before it sank into the glutinous mud, its tyres spinning impotently and spewing muck all over the place. No amount of cajoling,
swearing, kicking or packing branches underneath worked. And even worse, the elephants were becoming more and more agitated.
‘We’ve got to sort this out quickly or we’re going to have to release them right here,’ said Kobus, his brow creased with worry. ‘They cannot stay in the truck any longer. Let’s just pray like hell the outer fence holds them.’
We both knew that with this hair-trigger herd, it wouldn’t happen. We also both knew that if the elephants escaped they would be shot.
Fortunately the driver, sick of all the pontificating, took matters into his own hands. Without a word he slammed the truck into reverse, and somehow skidded the huge rig out of the bog and veered off the greasy road into the savannah that had marginally more grip. Dodging tyreshredding thornbush and slithering past huge termite mounds he somehow kept momentum until he reached the
boma
.
The crew cheered as though he had scored a touchdown at the Superbowl.
Coaxing the animals from the truck was the next problem. Due to their massive size, elephants are the only animals that can’t jump at all, and so we had dug a trench for the semi to reverse into so the trailer’s floor would be level with the ground.
However, the trench was now a soggy pit brimming with brown-frothed rainwater. If we backed into it, we would have a major problem extracting the vehicle. Mud is like ice; what it seizes it keeps. But with a herd of highly disturbed elephants inside, it was a risk we had to take.
Disaster! Not because the truck got stuck – instead, the trench was too deep and the trailer’s sliding door jammed into the ground. To compound matters it was 2 a.m., dark as obsidian and the rain was still sluicing down thick as surf. I put out an emergency wake-up call to everyone on
the reserve and armed with shovels we slithered around in the sludge hacking a groove for the door. I was surprised that my staff didn’t mutiny.
Finally the big moment arrived and we all stood well back, ready for the animals to be released into their new home.
However, as it had been an extremely stressful few hours, Kobus decided first to inject the herd with a mild sedative, using a pole-sized syringe. He climbed onto the roof of the trailer, which had a large ventilation gap, and David jumped up to give him a hand.
As David landed on the roof a trunk whipped through the slats as fast as a mamba and lashed at his ankle. David leapt back, dodging the grasping trunk with a heartbeat to spare. If the elephant had caught him he would have been yanked inside to a gruesome death. As simple as that. Kobus told me he had heard of it happening before; a person pulled into a confined space with seven angry elephants would soon be hamburger meat.
Thankfully all went smoothly after this and as soon as the injections had been administered and they had calmed down the door slid open and the new matriarch emerged. With headlights throwing huge shadows on the trees behind, she tentatively stepped onto Thula Thula soil, the first wild elephant in the area for almost a century.
The six others followed: the new matriarch’s baby bull, three females – of which one was an adult – and an eleven-year-old bull. The last out was the fifteen-year-old, three-and-a-half-ton, teenage son of the previous matriarch. He walked a few yards and even in his groggy state realized there were humans behind. He swivelled his head and stared at us, then flared his ears and with a high-pitched trumpet of rage turned and charged, pulling up just short of slamming into the fence in front of us. He instinctively knew, even at his tender age, that he must protect the herd.
I smiled with absolute admiration. His mother and baby sister had been shot before his eyes; he had been darted and confined in a trailer for eighteen hours; and here he was, just a teenager, defending his family. David immediately named him ‘Mnumzane’ (pronounced nom-zahn) which in Zulu means ‘Sir’.
The new matriarch we christened ‘Nana’, which is what all Anthony grandchildren call my mum Regina Anthony, a respected matriarch in her own right.
The second female in command, the most feisty, we called ‘Frankie’ after Françoise. For equally obvious reasons. The other names would come later.
Nana gathered her clan, loped up to the fence and stretched out her trunk, touching the electric wires. The 8,000-volt wires sent a jolt shuddering through her hulk. Whoa … she hurriedly backed off. Then, with her family in tow she strode the entire perimeter of the
boma
, her trunk curled fractionally below the wire to sense the current’s pulse, checking for the weakest link as she must have seen her sister, the previous matriarch, do so often before.
I watched, barely breathing. She completed the check and smelling the waterhole, led her herd off to drink.
The crucial aspect of an electrified
boma
is fine-tuning how long you keep the animals inside. Too short, and they don’t learn enough to respect the mega-volt punch the fence packs. But if it’s too long, they somehow figure out that it’s possible to endure the convulsions for the few agonizing seconds it takes to snap the strand – like the previous matriarch did. Once that happens they will never fear electricity again.
Unfortunately no one knows exactly what that ‘perfect period’ is. Opinions vary from a few days for more docile elephants to three months for wilder ones. My new herd was anything but docile, so how long I should pen them was anybody’s guess. However, what the experts had told
me was that during the quarantine period the animals should have no contact with humans. So once the gates were bolted I instructed everyone to move off except for two game guards who would watch from a distance.
As we were leaving I noticed the elephants lining up at a corner of the fence. They were facing due north, the exact direction of their former home, as if their inner compasses were telling them something.
It looked ominous.
Soaked and freezing with my personal magnetic needle pointing unwaveringly towards a warm bed, I left with a deep sense of foreboding.

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