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

by Lawrence Anthony

  ‘You were lucky,’ I said, as I rejoined the severed fence. ‘Now you have seen up close how dangerous these elephants are. Tell the others, tell everyone working here to keep their eyes open and stay far away from them.’

  I knew this episode would quickly spread through the village – with hugely colourful embellishments – which I hoped would further discourage potential poachers.

  But that was not my main concern. Instead, what really alarmed me was the fact the herd had no obvious reason to charge the rangers. Either the animals had been inadvertently provoked by Bheki and his men, or they were just hell-bent on ridding their new territory of all strange human beings. Perhaps the guards with their rifles reminded them of poachers from earlier encounters in their troubled lives.

  However, the more I thought about it, I began to believe the real reason was probably more innocuous. The rangers had probably been casually chatting among themselves and paying scant attention to their surroundings when, before they knew it, they had stumbled into the elephants’ space. Suddenly they were in deep trouble. Or at least that’s what I hoped had happened. We would never know, but what was certain was this was still an extremely dangerous herd and there was lots of work to be done before we could relax. If indeed we ever could.

  On the upside, my rangers now knew exactly how alert they had to be in the bush and I was sure they wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. And to their eternal credit, they hadn’t shot directly at the animals but kept their heads and got out of the reserve.

  They all climbed on the back of the Landy and we drove back to the house, whereupon they called all the other staff together and animatedly recounted their perilous experience as only Zulus, who are born raconteurs, can do, with everyone laughing loudly as they argued about who ran away the fastest.

  My sons Dylan, twenty-one, and Jason, twenty-three, from my first marriage were arriving later that day to spend some time on Thula Thula and I was looking forward to seeing them. Jason is a city boy who enjoys the bush. Dylan on the other hand is nuts about the wild and spends every spare moment he can out in the sticks.

  We had a treat in store for them as David and I had chanced upon an active hyena den a few weeks earlier and planned to stake it out that night. Soon after the boys arrived we packed some supplies and drove out to the den, but to our dismay found that it had recently been abandoned. The clan had moved on.

  Dylan couldn’t hide his disappointment and had walked off looking for their spoor. Soon we heard his low whistle.

  ‘Dylan’s calling us,’ I said. ‘He’s found something.’

  We pushed through the undergrowth and eventually found him crouched in a clearing. ‘Rock python,’ he whispered excitedly and spread his arms wide. ‘Huge.’

  Thula Thula and its surroundings are prime python territory, so much so that the snake has become the totem of the local Biyela tribe who believe that the spirits of their ancestors sometimes return in the form of this magnificent constrictor. Whenever a python is seen in the village, instead of killing it as they would do with any other snake, the people gather to watch and sometimes tie a goat to a stake as an offering. Rock pythons are Africa’s largest snakes and can be extremely aggressive when disturbed. And these are big reptiles we’re talking about; ten or twelve feet long is not unusual.

  But what Dylan had found astounded me. It was the biggest python I have ever seen, its golden brown body with tan and olive blotches stretched at full length in the bush.

  However, that’s not what Dylan was looking at. Instead he was pointing elsewhere, and as we moved across I saw another snake – even bigger. This was a once-in-a-lifetime sighting and of course no one had a camera. It’s axiomatic that if you want to see something really special in the bush, you leave your camera behind. Both snakes were resting, immobile after a day’s basking in the sun and we were able to walk up reasonably close without alarming them. Dylan paced them out. The first was fifteen feet long, the second a super trophy size seventeen feet.

  ‘That puts paid to my snake reference book,’ said David. ‘It says that pythons only grow to fourteen or fifteen feet.’

  We gazed at these incredible specimens, each as thick as a muscular man’s arm, until it got dark, then continued our vigil by torchlight, leaving only when the batteries started running low – not surprisingly none of us wanted to be anywhere near these monsters in the dark.

  The next day when we returned they were gone.

  I have not seen a snake of that magnitude since. And probably never will. But it was heartening to know they were out there, safe, protected and breeding.

  chapter nineteen

  Each day I made a trip into the bush to spend time with the herd, not only to check on their habits and movements, but because it was so invigorating being out there with them. Most importantly I wanted to continue investigating some strange aspects of their communication that intrigued me. I had opened the door to a brave new world and wanted to take advantage of every minute in the bush alone with them.

  I was on foot searching for elephants on a hot afternoon, when for a split second it felt as if the herd was right there, as if I had been daydreaming and walked into them. I quickly gathered myself and looked around, but surprisingly they were nowhere in sight.

  A little later it happened again. It was the lightest touch and then it was gone. Again I looked around but there was still no sign of them. Something inexplicable was going on. I was surprised that in all the time I had spent with elephants I had never noticed anything like this before.

  So I waited, going back to doing exactly what I had been doing before – just being part of the bush, and not expecting anything to happen. Suddenly, I got it again, a strong sense of anticipation that the herd was close by, and with that Nana emerged out of a nearby thicket followed by the others. I was gobsmacked. I had somehow picked up that they were there well before seeing them.

  In time I found that this experience also manifested itself in reverse. Sometimes while searching for them I would eventually realize that they were not in the area at all, that they were somewhere else. Not because I couldn’t find them, but because the bush felt completely empty of their presence.

  After a couple of weeks of practice I started getting the hang of it and, eventually, under the right circumstances, it became easier and easier to find them. Somehow I had become aware that elephants project their presence into an area around them, and that they have control over this, because when they didn’t want to be found I could be almost on top of them and pick up nothing at all. A little more experimentation and research and it became clear what was happening. Much like a lion’s roar at an audible level, the herd’s deep rumblings, well below human hearing, were permeating the bush for miles around them, and I was somehow picking this up even though I couldn’t hear it at all. They were letting everything and everyone know where they were in their own elephantine way, in their own language.

  One morning while driving gingerly along a boulder-strewn track I sensed that elephants were around and then heard a distinct trumpeting. I stopped and a few minutes later it echoed again, this time considerably closer. Suddenly a breathless Mnumzane lumbered out of the woodland, stopping right in front of the Land Rover, cutting me off and staring intently at me through the windscreen. He had never come that close before.

  He was absolutely calm and I sat in the vehicle, my heart beating loudly. Twenty minutes later I was much more relaxed and he was still there, browsing all around the Landy and showing no inclination to leave.

  Then the radio squawked into life and he tensed at the guttural invasion of the elemental serenity. It was the office, requesting that I return to base. But as I started pulling off Mnumzane quickly moved in front of the vehicle, and without malice, deliberately blocked the way. Puzzled, I switched the Land Rover off and he nonchalantly returned to his grazing. However, as soon as I keyed the ignition he again moved into my path, relaxing only when I switched off.

  It was clear that
he didn’t want me to leave. I rolled opened the window.

  ‘Hello, big boy. What’s up today?’

  He slowly, almost hesitantly, came around to the window, standing a yard or so away, looking down at me with his wise brown eyes. He rolled his head leisurely and seemed completely content, emanating easy companionship I felt as though I was in the presence of an old friend. This was what intrigued me: the emotions that I experienced when I was with them. For it seemed to be their emotions, not mine.

  They determined the emotional tone of any encounter. This is exactly what Nana had done to me in the boma when she decided it was time to leave. And this is what Mnumzane was doing at this very moment – passing on the sensation of being with an old friend. I recalled too the hostility in the boma when they first arrived. The antipathy reached out across the wires and you could feel it all around the enclosure, whether they were in sight or not.

  My attention returned to Mnumzane and then it dawned that he had chosen me for company over his own kind. That was why he had trumpeted out telling me to wait as I drove past, which is why he wouldn’t let me leave.

  I felt absolutely humbled, the hairs on my arm stiff with goosebumps as this colossus towered above me so obviously wanting to be friends. I decided to make the most of the experience – or rather privilege – and stayed put.

  He continued feeding and the nearby trees took a hammering as he moved from one to the next, snapping branches like twigs and stripping the leaves, creating a clear browse line. Every now and again he would lift his massive head and unfurl his trunk at me, sniffing to make sure I was still there.

  Eventually, after about another thirty minutes he turned and stepped aside to let the vehicle through.

  ‘Thank you, Mnumzane. See you tomorrow, my friend.’

  His tilted his head for a moment and then with that peculiar graceful swaying gait melted into the bush.

  I drove off. When the radio barked with David asking where I was, I didn’t answer. I was too awed to speak.

  As I spent more time with Nana and her charges, they too started coming closer and closer until they were happy grazing near the Land Rover. I was watching them on one occasion when Nana suddenly stopped feeding and walked up to the vehicle.

  I didn’t move. I could sense that she was being friendly so didn’t feel threatened, but I was totally unprepared for what happened next. Infinitely slowly – or so it felt – she stretched her trunk through the window to greet me. It was shockingly intimate, and although she had touched me before both in the boma and when she came up to the house, I believe this was the elephantine equivalent of an affectionate pat. She was letting me know that she was just fine with me being out there with them on their turf. Despite the obviously dangerous circumstances, I had never felt more comfortable, nor more at ease.

  Even Frankie was becoming more accommodating and would stand quite close to the vehicle with Mabula and Marula. The battleaxe had a soft side and once even started reaching out with her trunk, but lost her nerve and withdrew as soon as I put my hand up.

  Despite the feel-good factor, I never forgot that these were wild elephants and whenever they came close I manoeuvred the Land Rover continuously to ensure I was never cut off or put in a situation where I felt trapped or uncomfortable.

  These encounters gradually became more and more spontaneous and as the months went by I started getting individual greetings from the rest of the herd. They didn’t go as far as putting their trunks in the car as Nana did, but they would come right up and lift them as if waving. What they were doing, of course, was smelling me. I seemed to have been accepted as an honorary member of the group.

  But in the process the Land Rover was taking a hell of a beating. Elephants are extremely tactile, always touching, pushing and brushing against each other, and when these hefty jumbos bumped the vehicle, which they did all the time, they left crater-sized dents. The Landy eventually looked as though it had been in a particularly eventful NASCAR race. It attracted a lot of attention on my rare town trips and was quickly named ‘the elephant car’.

  The herd also loved to play with anything that protruded on the vehicle. My side-view mirrors were long gone, yanked off as if they were made of paper. Both radio aerials went the same way and I had to have screw-ons fitted, which I could remove before venturing out to meet the herd. The windscreen wipers were stripped off so often that I gave up replacing them, just driving with my head out of the window if it rained. And of course anything left in the back was carted off into the bush, including a spare wheel that we never recovered.

  For some reason they found the texture of metal fascinating and would spend hours feeling it. They loved the heat pinging off the engine, especially if the weather was cold, and would rest their trunks on the hood for long periods. In summer when the hood was searing hot they would lay their trunks down on it and then quickly yank them off, only – inexplicably – to scorch themselves again a few minutes later.

  Nana and Frankie, who had both been impregnated before arriving at Thula Thula, were coming to the end of their term and I kept a special eye on them. Elephants have a gestation period of twenty-two months, which meant that, amazingly, they had gone through two dartings and captures, and had been on the run while pregnant without adverse effect.

  Every week or two they came up to the house, so we eventually strung an electric wire around Françoise’s garden otherwise they would have trampled it flat and gobbled up the shrubbery. But even that didn’t deter them from visiting; they would stand patiently at the wire until I came down and said hello.

  One week I went to Durban on business and on my return was surprised to see all seven elephants outside the house, waiting expectantly as if part of a reception committee. I put it down to coincidence. But it happened again after the next trip, and the next. It soon became obvious that somehow they knew exactly when I was away and when I was coming back.

  Then it got … well, spooky. I was at the airport in Johannesburg and missed my flight home. Back at Thula Thula, 400 miles away, the herd was on their way up to the house when, as I was later told, they suddenly halted, turned around and retreated into the bush. We later worked out that this happened at exactly the same time as I missed my flight.

  The next day they were back at the house as I arrived.

  I soon accepted that there was something extremely unusual about all this; something that transcended the limited realm of my understanding. What has been scientifically proven is elephants’ incredible communication ability. As I had learned, elephants transmit infrasound vibrations through unique stomach rumblings that can be received over vast distances. These ultra-low frequencies, which cannot be detected by the human ear, oscillate at similar wavelengths to those transmitted by whales; vibrations that some believe quaver across the globe.

  But even if those wavelengths only vibrate for hundreds of square miles, which is now generally accepted in the scientific community, it still means elephants are potentially in contact with each other across the African continent. One herd speaks with a neighbouring herd, which in turn connects with another until you have conduits covering their entire habitat, just as you or I would have a long-distance telephone call.

  When scientist Katy Payne, of the Elephant Listening Project at Cornell University, discovered these elephant sound waves it was a startling breakthrough, one which would change our entire concept of elephant behaviour. There is a concrete link between advanced congenital intelligence and long-distance communication. For example, a frog’s communication skills consist solely of primal mating croaks as its pond constitutes its entire universe. It has no need to expand further.

  But elephants are communicating across vast distances, which shows that these giants of the wilderness are far more developed than we ever believed. They possess a vastly greater intellect than previously thought.

  If you doubt this, consider the following: would elephants have evolved such incredible communication abilities just to transmit a serie
s of meaningless rumbles and grunts? Of course not. Evolution is ruthless; anything not essential to survival withers on the gene-pool vine. Thus it is only reasonable to postulate that elephants are using these advanced long-distance frequencies for a specific purpose – to communicate coherently, one to another and herd to herd.

  So are they are telling each other about what is happening to their world and what we as humans are doing to them? Given their intelligence there is no doubt in my mind that this is exactly what is happening.

  chapter twenty

  Even though the Ovambos were long gone, poaching continued sporadically and while we tried our best to stamp it out, losing the odd impala on a game reserve whilst galling, was tantamount to shoplifting from a department store. But suddenly the situation changed. The Buchanana police station commander called me in and said he had information that rhino and ivory poachers were in the area. As any game ranger knows, these thugs were in a different league altogether: highly organized, heavily armed professionals who wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone who got in their way. They knew what they were doing, as we soon found out.

  We didn’t even hear the shot. It was fired from a .458 calibre rifle on the far side of the reserve, quiet and lethal. We only discovered the victim days later when out on patrol I noticed scores of white-backed vultures circling down in an aerial funnel.

  Something had died. Something big and we needed to get there fast to find out what it was. However, the corpse was in dense thornveld, far off any track, and by the time we had hiked there we were scratched, tired and greasy with sweat.

  Hyenas had already made gaping red inroads into the carcass, opening up the armour-plated skin for the vultures which swarmed over the rank grey cadaver. There must have been a hundred of them squawking, flapping and fighting to tear at the carrion.

  Those that had fought themselves into prime positions were stretching their elongated necks deep into the festering intestines, gorging themselves. Moving about on the edge of the melee were two black-backed jackals darting in and out between the huge birds and snatching at the meat. Judging by the state of decomposition the mound of putrefying flesh seemed about three days old.