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

by Lawrence Anthony

  I stopped and got out of the vehicle, the trackers and David behind me.

  ‘What’re you guys doing?’

  One looked at me, eyes darting with anticipation. He shifted his rifle, caressing the butt.

  ‘We’re going after elephants.’

  ‘Oh yeah? Which ones?’

  ‘They’ve bust out of Thula, man. We’re gonna shoot them before they kill someone – they’re fair game now.’

  I stared at him for several seconds, grappling to absorb this new twist to my escalating problems. Then cold fury set in.

  ‘Those elephants belong to me,’ I said taking two paces forward to emphasize my point. ‘If you put a bullet anywhere near them you are going to have to deal with me. And when we’re finished, I’m going to sue your arse off.’

  I paused, breathing deeply.

  ‘Now show me your hunting permit,’ I demanded, knowing he couldn’t possibly have obtained one before dawn.

  He stared at me, his face reddening with belligerence.

  ‘They’ve escaped, OK? They can be legally shot. We don’t need your permission.’

  David was standing next to me, fists clenched. I could sense his outrage. ‘You know, David,’ I said loudly, ‘just look at this lot. Out there is a herd of confused elephants in big trouble and we’re the only ones here without guns. We’re the only ones who don’t want to kill them. Shows the difference in priorities, doesn’t it?’

  Fizzing with anger, I ordered my men back into the Land Rover. Revving the engine and churning up dust clouds for the benefit of the gunmen staring aggressively at us we sped up the road.

  The acrimonious encounter shook me considerably. Technically the urban Rambos were correct – the elephants were ‘fair game’. We had just heard on our two-way radios that the KZN Wildlife authorities, whom we had alerted as soon as the herd had broken out, were issuing elephant rifles to their staff. I didn’t have to be told that they were considering shooting the animals on sight. Their prime concern was the safety of people in the area and no one could blame them.

  For us, it was now a simple race against time. We had to find the elephants before anyone with a gun did. That’s all it boiled down to.

  After another mile up the road the herd’s tracks veered into the bush, exactly as the motorist had told us. Thula Thula is flanked by vast forests of acacia trees and ugagane bush, which grows thickly with interwoven thorn-studded branches that are as supple and vicious as whips. It’s a riotous tangle of hostile thickets; lovely and wild to view, but torturous to track in. The wickedly sharp thorns scarcely scratch an elephant’s hide, of course, but to us soft-skinned species it was the equivalent of running through a maze of fish hooks.

  The forest spread north as far as the eye could see. Could we find the animals in this almost impenetrable wilderness?

  I looked up to the heavens, squinting against the harsh yellow-white glare that indicated we were in for a savage scorcher of a day and found my answer – air support. For us to have a fighting chance of catching the elephants before some gunman did, we had to have a helicopter tracking above. But to get a chopper up would cost thousands of dollars, with no guarantee of success. Also, most commercial pilots wouldn’t have a clue as to how to scout elephants hiding in such rugged terrain.

  But there was one man I knew who could track from the sky – and, fortuitously, he was a family friend. Peter Bell was not only a technical genius at Bell Equipment, an international heavy-duty vehicle manufacturer, but also an expert game-capture pilot and a good man to have on your side in an emergency. I quickly drove back to Thula Thula and phoned him.

  Peter didn’t have to be told how serious the problem was and unhesitatingly agreed to help. While he got his chopper ready, we continued the chase on foot. But we had barely infiltrated the acacia jungle when our Ovambo game guards, staring at what appeared to me to be a flinty patch of dirt, shook their heads. After some deliberation, they proclaimed the elephants had turned back.

  I had inherited the Ovambos from the previous owner, who thought highly of them. There are thousands of Ovambos in Zululand today, many of whom had fought in the South African Army during the apartheid wars. They’re mostly employed in the security industry and are valued for courage and weapon skills. They seldom socialized with my Zulu staff.

  Ndonga had told me his team were expert trackers, which was why we were used them now.

  ‘Are you sure?’ I asked the head tracker.

  He nodded and pointed towards Thula Thula. ‘They have turned. They are going that way.’

  This was news I was desperate to hear. Perhaps they would voluntarily return to the reserve. I grinned and slapped David on the back as we headed back through the bush towards home.

  However, after twenty minutes of some of the toughest going I have ever experienced, I began to have doubts. Sweat was cascading down my face as I called over the chief tracker.

  ‘The elephants are not here. There is no spoor, no dung and no broken branches. No signs at all.’

  He shook his head, as if patiently consulting with a child, and pointed ahead. ‘They are there.’

  Against my better judgement we carried on a bit further and then I had had enough. There was something wrong here. It was obvious there were no elephants around. An elephant, due to its massive size and strength, does not need to be furtive. It leaves very clear tracks, piles of dung and snapped branches. It has no enemies apart from man, thus stealth is not in its nature.

  Also, every indication was that they were heading towards their previous home. Why would they suddenly backtrack now?

  I called David, Ngwenya and Bheki and told the Ovambos they were wrong; we were returning to the original tracks. The Ovambos shrugged but made no move to join us. I was too wrapped up in the intensity of the chase to think much about that at the time.

  An hour later we picked up the spoor again – fresh and heading in completely the opposite direction. Why had the Ovambos chosen the wrong route? Had they deliberately led me the wrong way? Surely not … I could only surmise that they were scared of stumbling without warning upon the elephants in the wild terrain. There was no denying this was dangerous work.

  In fact, a few years back in Zimbabwe, an experienced elephant hunter had been killed on a safari doing exactly what we were doing – tracking elephant in thick bush. Following what he thought to be a lone bull, he suddenly discovered that he had walked slap into the middle of a herd spread out in the heavy undergrowth. The first sign of this comes when one realizes in horror that there are elephants behind, that you walked right passed them without noticing. They had turned the tables and the enraged animals came at the hunter and his trackers. Completely surrounded, he and his men had no chance. They died grisly deaths.

  We kept in radio contact with Peter who flew tight search grids over the bush ahead while John Tinley, a KZN Wildlife ranger from our neighbouring reserve called Fundimvelo, visited nearby settlements asking headmen if any of their people had seen the herd. The answer was negative, which was good news. Our biggest concern was that the animals would wander into a village and stomp thatched huts into floor mats or, worse, kill people.

  Hot and scratched, shirts dark with sweat and nerves jangling, we kept moving, every now and again finding signs confirming we were on the right track. I reckoned we were at least two hours behind, but who knows – they could have been just ahead, waiting in ambush as the Zimbabwean herd had for the hunter. That fear was always with us. More than once we froze, hearts in our mouths as a kudu or bush-buck burst from its hiding place in a crackle of snapping sticks, often barely yards away so thick was the bush. It really was dangerous work and I could feel tensions starting to surface as we became more and more irritable.

  Although progress was torturous, it was impossible to move faster. Thorns parted as one man squeezed through a gap and then snapped back like a hornet at the man behind.

  What I was banking on was the animals stopping at a watering hole to rest, allow
ing us to catch up precious miles. A factor in our favour was that they had Nana’s two-year-old son, who we called Mandla, in tow. We named him Mandla, the Zulu word for ‘power’ in honour of his incredible stamina in staying with the herd during the long chase. He would slow them down significantly. Or so I hoped.

  Eventually after a long, hot, thirsty and frustratingly empty day, the sun dipped below the horizon, and we stopped. Nobody looks for elephant stumbling around a thorn jungle at night. Tracking the animals in the thick stuff during daylight is bad enough; in the dark it’s suicide.

  Reluctantly I called off the search and Peter agreed to fly again the next day.

  We arrived home bedraggled and despondent and flopped onto the lawn in front of the house. Françoise came out and took over, issuing instructions for food and handing out ice-cold beers.

  We were exhausted. But a hearty meal followed by a soaking hot bath does wonders for morale, and an hour later I wandered out onto the open verandah, sitting beneath the stars, trying to make sense of it all.

  My Staffordshire bull terrier Max followed me. He was a magnificent specimen of the breed, forty pounds of brawn and muscle. I had got him as a just-weaned puppy and from that first moment he had tottered after me with unconditional devotion. His pedigree name was Boehringer of Alfa Laval, but Max suited him just fine. He would have been a trophy winner at shows except for one physical flaw: he had only one testicle. Which I thought was ironic – Max had more cojones than any creature I knew, man or beast. He was absolutely fearless.

  And yet, he was an absolute pushover with children, who could pull his ears and poke his eyes and get nothing but a sloppy lick in return.

  Max flopped at my feet, tail thumping on the floor. He seemed to sense my dismay, nudging me with his wet nose.

  Stroking his broad head, I mulled over the day. What had possessed the herd to smash through two electrified fences? Why had the Ovambos made such a careless mistake with their tracking? Why had they then abandoned the search?

  There was something that didn’t gel; some piece missing from the jigsaw.

  Max’s low growl jerked me out of my thoughts. I looked down. He was fully alert, head up, ears half-cocked, staring into the dark.

  Then a soft voice called out: ‘Mkhulu.’

  Mkhulu was my Zulu name. It literally means ‘grandfather’, but not in the limited Western sense. Zulus venerate maturity and to refer to someone as an Mkhulu was a compliment.

  I glanced up and recognized the shadowy figure squatting on his haunches a few yards away. It was Bheki.

  ‘Sawubona,’ I said, giving the traditional greeting. I see you.

  ‘Yehbo.’ Yes, he nodded and paused for a while, as if pondering what to say next.

  ‘Mkhulu, there is a mystery here. People are making trouble,’ he said, his tone conspiratorial. ‘They are making big trouble.’

  ‘Kanjane?’ How so?

  ‘A gun spoke next to the boma last night,’ he continued, aware that he now had my full attention, ‘and the elephants were shouting and calling.’

  He stood up briefly and raised his arms, mimicking an elephant’s trunk. ‘They were crazy, maybe one was even shot.’

  ‘Hau!’ I used the Zulu exclamation for surprise. ‘But how do you know such important things?’

  ‘I was there,’ he replied. ‘I know the elephants are valuable, so I stayed near to the boma last night, watching. I don’t trust the amagweragwer.’ The word meant ‘foreigners’, but I knew he was referring to the Ovambo guards.

  ‘Then the big females came together and pushed a tree onto the fence. There was much force and it fell hard and broke the fence and they went out, they were running. I was afraid because they came close past me.’

  ‘Ngempela?’ Really?

  ‘Ngempela.’ It is true.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ I replied. ‘You have done well.’

  Satisfied that his message had been delivered, he stood up and stepped back into the darkness.

  I exhaled loudly. Now that would explain a lot, I thought, my mind racing. A poacher shooting next to the boma unaware of the elephants’ presence would certainly have put the jitters into the herd, particularly as their previous matriarch and baby had been shot barely forty-eight hours ago.

  But much as I liked Bheki, I had to treat his suspicions about the Ovambo guards with caution. Tribal animosity in Africa often runs deep and I knew there was little love lost between the Zulus and the Namibians. There was a possibility that the indigenous staff may use the confusion surrounding the escape to implicate the Ovambos so locals could get their jobs.

  However, Bheki had certainly provided food for thought.

  As dawn glimmered we drove to where we had left off yesterday and saw Peter’s helicopter coming in low, circling like a hawk to select the best landing spot on the ribbon of potholed road. Seeing the chopper landing in billowing dust a group of Zulu children came running up from the nearby village, gathering around the thudding machine and chattering excitedly.

  The tracking team plunged back into the thorny bush to pick up the spoor on the ground, while I assisted Peter in tracking from the air. As we took off, I gazed out over the endless panorama of this charismatic stretch of Africa, so steeped in history. Originally home to all of Africa’s onceabundant wildlife – now mostly exterminated – it was where conservationists like us were making a stand. The key was to involve local communities in all of the benefits and profits of conservation and eco-tourism. It was a hard, frustrating struggle but it had to be fought and won. Tribal cooperation was the key to Africa’s conservation health and we neglected that at our peril. It was vital that those rural kids who had been clamouring around the helicopter – kids who lived in the bush but had never seen an elephant – became future eco-warriors on our side.

  We flew north along the Nseleni River, scanning the spear-leafed reed beds for jumbo tracks and barely skimming the towering sycamore figs whose twisted roots clasped the steep banks like pythons. It was difficult to see much as the rains had been good and the lush growth could have hidden a tank.

  Then at last some news. KZN Wildlife radioed in saying they had a report of a sighting: the herd had chased a group of herd boys and their cows off a waterhole the previous afternoon. Fortunately there had been no casualties.

  This underscored the urgency of the situation, but at least we now had a confirmed position. Peter dropped me near the team, lifted off and dipped the chopper as he altered course while I jumped into the waiting Land Rover.

  Then we got another call from KZN Wildlife. The elephants had changed direction and were heading towards the Umfolozi game reserve, KZN Wildlife’s flagship sanctuary about twenty miles from Thula Thula. They gave us an estimated bearing, which we radioed to the chopper.

  Peter found them in the early afternoon, just a few miles from the Umfolozi reserve’s fence and some distance from our position on the ground. They were moving along steadily and Peter knew it was now or never; he had to force them around before they broke into Umfolozi as he would be unable to get them back once they were within the reserve’s fences.

  There is only one way to herd elephants from the air, and it’s not pretty. You have to fly straight at the animals until they turn and move in the opposite direction – in this case back towards Thula Thula.

  Peter banked and then whirred down, blades clattering and coming straight at Nana, skimming just above her head and executing a tight U-turn, then coming back from the same angle again, hovering in front of the animals to block them going forward.

  This is stomach-churning stuff, requiring top-level flying skills, rock-steady hands and even steadier nerves. If you fly too high, the elephants will slip through underneath and be gone; too low and you risk hitting trees.

  At this stage the elephants had been on the run for more than twenty-four hours and were exhausted. They should have turned wearily away from the giant bird furiously buzzing them from above. That is what 99 per cent of animals –
even a creature as mighty as an elephant – would have done.

  The herd stood firm.

  Again and again the chopper came at them, the rotor clapping with rhythmic thunder as it virtually kissed the treetops. Yet still Nana and her family refused to retreat, trunks curled in defiance whenever Peter came in low, judging his distance by inches. But they didn’t budge. He radioed to us what was happening, and I realized that my herd was something else. Maybe I was biased, but they were special …

  Eventually, through superb flying, Peter inexorably wore them down. Inch by inch he edged them around until they were finally facing Thula Thula. Then he got them moving, herding them from above, deftly manoeuvring his machine like a flying sheepdog.

  I started to breathe easier, daring to believe everything was going to be all right. Back at Thula Thula workers had spent the day mending the ruined fences, both at the boma and the border, and they radioed me to say everything was ready. We would still have to cut open a section of fence to drive them through, but we wouldn’t know where to cut until they arrived.

  Finally after hours of tense aerial herding, we saw the helicopter hovering low on the far horizon. They were going to make it. I gave instructions to the fence team to drop a wide section of the fence to provide instant access into the reserve and prayed the frazzled matriarch would go straight in.

  Then I caught sight of her for the first time, pushing slowly through the bush just below the thundering helicopter. All I could make out was just the tips of her ears and the hump on her back, but it was the most welcome thing I have ever seen.

  Soon they all came into view, plodding on until they were at the road. Just a tantalizing fifteen yards from the lowered fence, Nana tested the air with her trunk and halted.

  The mood suddenly changed. From fatigued acceptance, the herd now was charged with defiance. Nana trumpeted her belligerence and drew her family up in the classical defensive position, bottoms together facing outwards like the spokes of a wheel and they held their ground with grim determination. Peter continuously buzzed them … goading them to make that last little sprint into the reserve. But to no avail.