An Elephant in My Kitchen: What the Herd Taught Me About Love, Courage, and Survival

by Françoise Malby-Anthony

  ‘I’m just worried about my animals,’ I sighed.

  ‘We’re all worried about rhinos. This technique helps keep them safe. It’s quick, lasts longer than dehorning and over time, with international publicity, it will go a long way to make the world a safer place for rhinos.’

  The thinking was that by making the end product unattractive to buyers, poachers would stay away from poisoned horns. This meant putting up signs along the entire length of our perimeter fence in both English and Zulu, and working hard with local newspapers and radio stations to get the message across that Thula Thula’s rhino horns were ‘damaged goods’.

  Some game reserves had gone for the more aggressive solution of removing their rhinos’ horns but I couldn’t bear the thought of that. Taking away the majestic horns of these powerful creatures went against everything I was trying to do.

  I thanked her for the information and immediately made arrangements with Dr Mike Toft to poison Thabo and Ntombi’s horns. He knew our rhinos well and I didn’t want anyone else doing it. Although the technique was still in its early experimental stages and there wasn’t any scientific data to back it up, if it had a small chance of keeping my rhinos safe, I wanted to try it. Lawrence and I often made deci- sions based on gut feeling, and so far it had worked for us. Look at his decisions with Nana and the herd. Everyone told us that the best way to settle down a rogue herd was to leave them alone without any human contact whatsoever. Lawrence listened to his instincts and did the complete opposite. It paid off and today they were healthy and happy, and making babies at a rate that was getting me into trouble.

  The big day for the horn poisoning came far too quickly and I was very relieved that both Thabo and Ntombi were near the lodge when Mike arrived with his team. It meant we wouldn’t have to put them through the trauma of capture. Mike Toft saw how worried I was and took the time to explain what was going to happen.

  ‘I’ll start with Ntombi. She’s right here so it’ll be easy to dart her with the tranquillizer. As soon as she gets groggy and we can approach her, we’ll help her drop safely to the ground and then I’ll anaesthetize her. Once she’s out, we’ll monitor her breathing and heart rate the entire time.’

  ‘She won’t feel anything, will she?’

  ‘Nothing at all. Once we’ve stabilized her, I’ll drill a hole in the horn and insert a probe through which we’ll pump the poison, then she gets the reversal drug and will wake up as if nothing’s happened.’

  ‘What if something goes wrong?’

  ‘She’s a healthy four-year-old, Françoise. Nothing’s going to go wrong. Trust me.’

  I did trust him. But this was my girl orphan and I was scared.

  ‘Is it okay if I watch?’

  ‘I think you should. You’ll feel better when you see how straightforward it is,’ he nodded.

  He pushed a long dart into the back of the gun then plugged up the rifle. The body of the dart is filled with tranquillizer and it has a hypodermic needle on one end, and a fluffy red tail on the other that stabilizes the dart in flight. I shuddered. Even though I understood that the gun was specially tooled for tranquillizing procedures like this, it looked as lethal as any gun I’d seen on a poacher.

  Mike lodged the gun against his shoulder and aimed. I knew it wouldn’t be loud but I still blocked my ears. The dart flew through the air and landed bang in the middle of Ntombi’s left flank. She took a few confused steps, then the rangers ran to her side and guided her as she crumpled to the ground. I felt stricken, as if I’d betrayed her.

  The minute she dropped, Thabo bolted over to her and began sniffing her face and body. The rangers tried to push him away but I stopped them.

  ‘Let him stay with her for a few seconds.’

  He nudged her with his huge square snout then walked around her and gently rested his chin on her back, as if re- assuring her that everything was going to be fine. He didn’t seem the slightest bit stressed yet he clearly sensed something wasn’t right, and I have no doubt that the presence of people he knew and loved made him trust the strange situation he was in.

  Alyson and Siya quickly laid out some lucerne for him a few metres away and our foodie rhino lumbered over and tucked into his favourite treat. Two rangers parked their 4×4s at an angle near Ntombi’s head to protect her from any further investigations from Thabo.

  Her eyes were covered with a black cloth and two rolls of fabric were inserted into each ear to cocoon her from the noise of the procedure.

  ‘Heart rate stable. Six breaths per minute,’ Mike said tersely.

  I forced myself to keep looking, devastated to see my big strong Ntombi out cold on the ground. When Mike picked up the drill and positioned it against her horn, I closed my eyes. It’s a horn, it’s keratin. I knew she wouldn’t feel it but I couldn’t bear to see it. The screech of the drill entering her horn made my flesh crawl.

  She can’t feel it, I kept thinking.

  ‘It’s not hurting her, Françoise,’ Mike said.

  I reluctantly watched him screw a long probe into the hole, then he switched on the high-pressure pump and bright-blue infusion entered the horn. I hated every minute of it. I knew it had to be done but it was gut-wrenching to see her surrounded by cold metal – 4×4s, infusion equipment, wires, probe – and with men crouched at her head wearing long black gloves to protect themselves against the toxic liquid they were injecting into her. It felt more like dramatic head surgery than a simple thirty-minute procedure.

  We were out in the open but it was as quiet and solemn as a church.

  No one spoke, and when they did, it was in low measured voices. Only the twittering and chirping of birds broke the silence. Ntombi didn’t move: not a twitch, not a tremor. I could see the mighty curve of her vertebrae under her hide and ran my fingers over the scratches and scars that were testimony to her two years of freedom in the bush. For a frightening moment, I thought she had stopped breathing but then her tail flicked and the relief brought tears to my eyes.

  I laid my palm on her beautiful strong back, felt her warmth against my skin.

  I’m sorry we have to do this, but I don’t know how else to keep you safe. I will never stop protecting you, I promised silently.

  Mike shifted his attention to Thabo and once he had successfully poisoned his horn too, and both rhinos were back on their feet, he packed away his tools and medical kit and looked at me.

  ‘I’ve got some good news for you,’ he smiled. ‘I found a solution to control the elephant population.’

  ‘Really? No culling?’ I asked.

  ‘We’re going to put the bulls on the pill!’

  ‘That makes a nice change,’ I grinned. ‘For once, males will be responsible for birth control.’

  He outlined his strategy to me. Twice a year, the older bulls would be darted with a special contraceptive formula that would not only control their fertility but would also help manage their periods of being in musth, when their behaviour becomes aggressive and unpredictable. The method was affordable, available and reversible.

  ‘How does it work?’

  ‘That’s the beauty of it. It’s steroid based so we’re not injecting them with hormones, which means there’s no risk of making them more aggressive or changing their behaviour in a long-term way.’

  ‘No risks at all, are you sure?’

  ‘Absolutely. If you don’t count the bulls being irritated by the helicopter when we’re darting them.’

  ‘How soon can you do it?’

  ‘We’ll need to apply for permission but that shouldn’t take long. Quite frankly, I think the authorities will be delighted for us to try this out.’

  I felt like throwing my arms around the man. He had handed me a much-needed reprieve from the wildlife authorities. Things were looking up.

  15

  Never give up

  Not even six weeks after sending Four Paws our proposal, an email arrived from Heli Dungler. I was excited to see it pop up on my phone and assumed he was getting
in touch to ask for more information. I clicked it open.

  Dear Françoise, I am happy to tell you – and of course Alyson – that Four Paws will be supporting the expansion of Thula Thula and the establishment of a rhino orphanage with the amount of 300,000 euros.

  I was stunned. Had he added an extra zero by mistake? It was an enormous amount of money. Enough to refurbish the old house, construct an orphanage wing, create several outdoor enclosures, and buy medical equipment, medicine and food. I phoned Heli just to make sure.

  ‘It isn’t a typo,’ he said, a smile in his voice. ‘Your orphanage is going to happen.’

  If anyone knew about the complexity and challenges of rescuing animals, it was him, and I could think of no better person to have as a partner in our animal sanctuary.

  ‘We believe in dialogue with the locals,’ he told me once. ‘Because the only way we can achieve our goals is by working with the community. Without their commitment, we’ll never achieve real change in how animals are treated.’

  It’s exactly what Lawrence and I had believed when he was alive. We didn’t want to be an island where local people weren’t included. What would the point of that be? Our vision at Thula Thula was to create something that we could all be proud of. Almost every member of our staff comes from within five kilometres of Thula Thula.

  I felt proud, thrilled and terrified.

  The responsibility was overwhelming – not only to Four Paws but to every creature we would be caring for. It was also the first time I would be doing something this big without Lawrence.

  When construction started in January 2014, I kept telling myself that we had built the lodge and tented camp from scratch, and that with the help of the right people I could do it again. But it was one thing telling myself I could do anything I wanted; it was another believing it, and no amount of positive thinking could get rid of the knot in my stomach. Building a facility for poaching victims was far more daunting than building a luxury lodge for ecotourists. There was so much at stake. If the heating fails in our lodge, we might get a bad rating on TripAdvisor, but the guests won’t die. Heating failure in our high-care ward would kill the vulnerable animals. There was no room for error.

  ‘Don’t forget about us,’ Mabona chided me gently.

  She was right. The business side of Thula Thula pays for our running costs and salaries, and it funds our conservation, so I couldn’t afford to take my eye off the ball. I very quickly realized that I would never be able to manage the build and run the game reserve at the same time. I was already stretched to the limit – the lodge and tented camp needed my full attention, I was still learning about our animals, I was working flat out on marketing Thula Thula, and I was trying to raise funds to expand the reserve to meet the land regulations set by the wildlife authorities for the herd.

  I’m not Superwoman and it just wasn’t possible for me to do everything.

  Common sense won and I pulled together a team of experienced people to help me with the construction and administration of the orphanage project.

  I struggled to stay away though, and went there as often as I could. It had been my dream for so long and I loved seeing it come together. Alyson and the rangers were on-site every day and we brought in several wildlife consultants to guide us. They say it takes a village to raise a child, and this child, our orphanage, was the product of so many people – all with the same vision of building a safe haven for victims of poaching. Everyone wanted it to be a success.

  My main focus during this time was getting to grips with our security. We were losing animals to poaching every day and I had no idea how to stop it.

  Newspapers and television tend to focus on rhino and elephant poaching, but smaller game suffer as badly from poaching, and the number of wildebeest, buffalo, buck and even vultures that were being killed on game reserves in South Africa was horrific.

  We have one of the largest breeding colonies of white-backed vultures in the region nesting in the majestic wild fig trees along the Nseleni River, and they were dying in droves. These powerful aerial athletes have a seven-foot wingspan and eyesight that is eight times better than human eyesight. They aren’t poached for the pot, they’re killed for muthi, traditional medicine sold by unscrupulous ‘healers’. So many of these vultures have died that the species is on the critically endangered list.

  It is believed that smoking dried vulture brain or sleeping with it under your pillow gives clairvoyant powers – visions of the future. A tempting tool if you’re living on the breadline and a Lotto or horse racing jackpot stands between you and freedom from poverty. The so-called healers who sell this useless magic are scavengers preying on those who can least afford it. The white-backed vulture will become extinct if it doesn’t stop. And it won’t stop. How can it? Those buying the vulture muthi don’t know better and those selling it won’t give up the money they make. It was a losing battle but not one I was prepared to give up on.

  By now, I had had two years of trying to manage security but was no closer to feeling that this crucial part of the reserve was under control. The man I had employed to take over from Connie as head of security had lasted six months, and I went through three more managers after that. Part of the problem was that they didn’t like taking instruction from a woman, especially not a foreign one who couldn’t speak their language properly. Clearly it wasn’t just that and my instincts told me there was a bigger underlying issue. But what? And how could I fix it?

  Fighting poaching is a brutal compromise of choices. Daily or weekly foot patrol? Guns or no guns? Do it ourselves or contract out?

  If I had a bottomless pot of gold, I would have men scouring the reserve non-stop, equipped with night-vision binoculars, the best firearms, and top-level communication equipment. I would have infrared cameras set up everywhere and regular helicopter patrols. The reality was that I didn’t have a blank cheque, nor Lawrence’s magic money tree, and it was only thanks to our rhino fund that I was able to send my four best men for top-level anti-poaching training in the Limpopo and that I could afford to bring in ProTrack – a specialized paramilitary anti-poaching unit – to upskill the rest of our team and to deploy a full snare sweep of all 4,500 hectares of the reserve.

  Day three of the snare sweep, and my mobile rang. It was Mark, head of the ProTrack task force.

  ‘You’d better come down,’ he said.

  ‘I’m on my way.’

  Twelve men stood in a semicircle, faces grim, semi-automatics at their sides. No poacher was going to get away on their watch. Twenty-two snares lay at their feet. And that was after only three days. Mark used a knife to hook up one of the wire strands and pointed to small tufts of fur.

  ‘It’s an old one but something died in it. The men found a dozen in the first three hours. You’ve got a big problem here.’

  I nodded, nauseated at the thought of the slow deaths happening on my doorstep.

  ‘If it’s any consolation, you’re in the same boat as most of the reserves we’ve worked with.’ He scratched a map of Thula Thula in the sand and pointed to where the snares had been found, then he stabbed it with his knife. ‘We’ve done this section already, and tomorrow we go here, here and here.’

  They found a staggering sixty-three snares in total, nine with carcasses that the poachers hadn’t bothered to come back for, and one with a small deer that was still alive, but the snare was so embedded in its throat that we had to euthanize it.

  ProTrack taught our rangers and guards how to spot signs of poachers – litter, cigarette butts, boot prints, broken branches. They showed them how to track poachers once they were on the reserve and how to catch them.

  In an ideal world, none of this should be necessary.

  A facility for orphaned animals shouldn’t be necessary either.

  But it’s not an ideal world and poaching is here to stay. So was my determination to fight it. Having well-trained men on the ground would help keep our animals safe, and soon we would be able to look after the young v
ictims of poaching elsewhere, right here at Thula Thula.

  16

  An elephant in my kitchen

  I carried the pile of paperwork over to the coffee table, almost tripping over Jeff who was sprawled out in the middle of the lounge snoring his head off. Gypsy was asleep on my bed and Gin trotted behind me, hoping I would make a snack before I started work. His timing was a bit off. It was nine at night and I had already had dinner.

  ‘The thing about you, Gin, is that you only love me for my food.’

  He wagged his tail in agreement. I bent down and gave him a nuzzle. I love all Jack Russells but this one was extra special. A friend had called me a few months after Lawrence had passed away to tell me about puppies that would be put down if they didn’t find homes. I was at the rescue centre within fifteen minutes and I could have taken every one of them. But I managed to control myself and chose Gin, who was the litter’s runt, and his brother, a scrawny black-and-white live wire whom I named Tonic.

  Gin and Tonic loved each other as puppies but as Tonic grew older, he began to bully his little brother. His alpha dog behaviour was so out of control that I was forever pulling him off Gin and didn’t dare leave them alone. Eventually I was forced to send Tonic to live with my manageress at the tented camp. Not that he minded. He had a thing about chasing monkeys so was in his element.

  In his first week there, he saw a monkey steal a butternut from the kitchen and chased after it. The monkey scampered up a tree and sat on a branch with its spoils, gloating down at Tonic, clearly thinking it was safe. Refusing to be outwitted by a monkey, Tonic leapt up and managed to scramble onto a low branch, barking furiously. The monkey got such a fright, it dropped the butternut and the two of them bolted after it with the monkey grabbing one end and Tonic getting his jaws around the other. My Jack Russell won his tug of war but the monkey never forgave him and pelted him with rock-hard amarulas whenever it saw him.