by Clay Wilson
Out of curiosity I went to the croc farm to take a look. When I saw the horse, which had been butchered, I was shocked to see its lungs were full of pus. It was horrible and I clenched my fists in silent rage.
Some people in town thought I was just an arrogant Yank, a foreigner who thought he could come to this sleepy corner of Africa and tell everyone what to do. The fact is that with 27 years’ experience as a veterinarian, more often than not I did know what to do and I wasn’t afraid to tell people.
This was not the United Sates; I knew that. I could understand people who were living on or not far above the poverty line not being able to fork out the money for expensive treatments that people in America wouldn’t think twice about to cure or prolong the life of Chi Chi the poodle, but I could not get my head around the fact that someone would let an animal suffer rather than consider my diagnosis and recommendation.
At least she had a passion for animals and a big heart, though sadly she died a short time after her horse.
So much of my work as a wildlife veterinarian in Botswana ended in tragedy that it made it hard, at times, to carry on. There were small successes, however, that kept me going.
Aside from my dealings with larger animals, such as elephants, lions and buffalos, which were the source of most of my headaches and frustrations with human–wildlife conflict, I had a parade of smaller animals passing through my surgery.
Their injuries ranged from being hit by cars to one particularly unfortunate genet that got trapped in a door and crushed. I was able to fix up most of them and send them on their way. I rarely treated reptiles, as I suppose people were reluctant to pick up snakes, although I did once have someone bring a leopard tortoise to me for treatment.
So named because of the black rosette pattern on its golden brown shell, which resembles a leopard’s colouring, the tortoise had been hit by a car and although its shell had been cracked in several places it was still alive. I looked at the shell and thought about how I could mend it, then reached for the super glue. The tortoise recovered just fine and I ended up releasing him back into the wild. It was a long, slow goodbye when I set him free, but nonetheless gratifying.
Chapter 6
Saving the day
It was June 2010, and while the day was a perfect African winter’s one, with clear, blue skies and a perfect 26 degrees, I was going to check up on another death. I’d been called by National Parks to examine the carcass of a dead elephant at one of the Hospitality and Tourist Association of Botswana (Hatab) campsites about 16 kilometres from Serondella.
Once I arrived my plan was to inspect the body and take blood samples to try to determine the cause of death. If I (and the elephant) were lucky, it would have been old age, or perhaps the natural outcome of a fight to the death between two bulls.
More likely, the hapless creature might have died of anthrax or been killed by humans in one of a number of despicable ways. For all its insidiousness, anthrax was a naturally occurring disease and part of the environment, but an outbreak was always bad for business in a national park such as Chobe, as tourists did not want to see elephants and other animals bleeding to death from every orifice.
If man had a hand in this death then it could have been the result of an elephant stepping or putting its trunk into a snare meant for a buck or buffalo, a spray of bullets from a poacher’s AK47, a gunshot from a farmer angry at the pachyderm for raiding his crops before sneaking back into the park, or it could have been the silent but no less deadly ingestion of a plastic bag full of tantalising fruit peel.
My cellphone rang. “Doctor Wilson.”
“Clay, it’s Kabo.” After the ritual pleasantries he came out with the purpose of the call. “We’ve had reports from safari guides and tourists of a baby elephant stuck in the mud at Watercart. Can you go and see what you can do, please?”
“I’m on my way.”
Laura was with me and as we had just passed the Chobe Game Lodge, we turned around to head to Watercart, which was a few kilometres away in the other direction. Watercart is the first turn-off to the river from the main road that runs through the park. It was a beautiful spot, with a view out over the river beyond the channel in front of us, but what should have been a serene setting was being loudly interrupted by the anguished trumpeting of a mother on the verge of losing her baby.
On the edge of the water a baby elephant, which I estimated to be about nine months old, had been sucked into glutinous mud and was unable to free itself. Adult elephants suck up mud in their trunks and then spray it over themselves so that when it dries it forms a protective coating against the sun and insect bites. Babies, who take some time to learn how to use their giant proboscis, will often roll in the mud instead, and that was probably how this one became stuck.
The rest of the herd, a dozen or more elephants, were milling around close to the water, shaking their big heads and sniffing the air at the presence of another vehicle – us – arriving. I waved to the safari vehicles that had called in the drama.
Two big elephant cows, the baby’s mother and perhaps an aunt, were with the baby. The mother, identifiable by her plaintive calling, lowered her muddied trunk to her baby and tried nudging it out. If it was in the water, trying to climb a steep bank, she would have hooked her trunk under its belly and lifted him up, but because of the mud she couldn’t get the tip of her trunk under him.
The baby squealed as well; it was heart wrenching.
I drove slowly but steadily towards the herd, with the idea of dispersing it so that we might be able to get to the baby and try to free it. The elephants scattered as I closed in on them – all of them bar the mother. She turned on me, gave me a trumpet blast and took a few menacing steps towards me before going back to her baby for another fruitless attempt to free him.
I approached her again, but with the same result. While the rest of the family looked on from a now safe distance, there was no way mommy was going to leave her little baby to us humans. She charged our vehicle again.
“What are we going to do?” Laura asked.
I reversed to a safe distance, stopped the truck and got out and opened the back where I keep my vet’s bag and other essential gear. I took out the dart gun and loaded a projectile. There was nothing in it, but I was hoping the sting of a dart in her rump would be enough to scare off the mother.
By now word had got around about the stuck elephant and the rescue operation and a fleet of vehicles – maybe 20 – were parked on either side of the watercourse. Tourists and guides in their open-topped vehicles watched on anxiously as I drove down closer to the distressed female again, the dart gun now protruding from the window of my Land Cruiser. I brought the weapon to my shoulder, took aim through the telescopic sight and pulled the trigger. The dart sailed away and embedded itself in her thick grey skin.
Again she screamed at me and the ground shook as she took a few steps and began running away, but her maternal instincts and fierce loyalty kicked in and she headed back to the trapped infant. With the dart hanging out of her, she shook her head and trumpeted again, defying me, and went back to trying to shift the baby.
It was as heartbreakingly beautiful as it was frustrating to see this mother in action. She would kill any of us who tried to get close enough to help the youngster. On foot it would be suicide, and I knew from my experience with the angry snared elephant that had put its tusks through the back of my Ford bakkie that vehicles afforded little more protection at times like this. I had seen plenty of examples over the years of 4x4s flipped on their sides and cars squashed by angry elephants. She would fight to the death to protect her offspring.
“I’m going to have to dart her for real,” I said to Laura.
There is always an element of risk when darting an animal, especially one as big as an elephant. Plenty can go wrong. I backed off again and got out my kit and drew up a dose of 12 milligrams of etorphine. Once more I drove closer to her. I wanted her to move away, but while she took a few agitated steps around t
he baby, she was not going to go far. She was becoming increasingly agitated, so I fired.
It was another good hit, but there were cries of horror from the tourist vehicles.
“Oh my god, Clay! Look where she is,” said Laura.
I could see it for myself. As the drug began to take effect and the elephant’s movements became unsteady, she started to sway. This was normal, but the peril lay in where she was standing. A looming shadow covered the baby as its mother rocked drunkenly above her. As her brain clouded, her instinct was to be as close as she could to her young one, but now there was the very real possibility that she might fall on top of it.
“No!” shrieked Laura.
The cow began to crumple and for an instant it looked, from where we were waiting, like she would surely crush the little one to death. She landed with a splash and a plop, and sat on her butt in the shallow water and mud just short of where the baby continued to struggle. She eventually toppled over, miraculously missing the trapped infant.
I put the truck in gear and we sped forward. I pulled up close to the elephants, but clear of the mud, which could suck us in as easily as it had the young elephant. I didn’t want to be bogged when the mother came to, as she would likely attack the first thing she saw.
I quickly checked the mother and ensured that her trunk was extended, so her airway was clear, and that she was breathing okay. The baby squealed its anger at me for what I had done to its mom. Although the mother had missed her baby, I did not like the position she was in as I was worried she might do some damage to her internal organs from the way she was lying on her side. We had to reverse the drug I’d given her as soon as possible, but first we had to free her youngster.
The baby still had some fight in him and he squealed and flailed around with his trunk as I approached him. I trudged through the mud and could see immediately, as it sucked at my boots, how easily this little guy had become stuck. “Hey there, little fella, it’s okay. We’re just here to help you.”
I felt myself sinking, and when I hauled my leg out of the mud I found the goo had swallowed one of my boots. “Shit.” With one bare foot I squelched on until I was in reach of it. “Laura? I’m stuck. Can you get a rope?”
Some of the tourists volunteered to give me a hand, but I couldn’t involve them. Laura was my right hand. She struggled down through the mud with my bag and fetched a tow strap from the 4x4. “Easy, boy, we’re going to get you out of here,” I said, trying to soothe the elephant.
THWACK! He swung his head and his trunk followed and slammed into me. He might have been little, but he packed a hell of a wallop and I was almost knocked off my feet. The slap winded me and I closed on him, grabbing him to get inside his swing. “Ow! That hurt,” I admonished him.
He was covered in mud and slippery as an eel as he wriggled in my arms, but where his mother had failed I was determined we would succeed. I had seen too many elephants die needless deaths to let this little man slip away from us – even if he wasn’t being very appreciative. I threaded one end of the strap through a loop at the other to make a crude noose. With a heck of a lot of wrestling and cursing I was finally able to get the strap over his head and under his flailing front legs, without getting my own head knocked off. All the while I kept glancing across at the cow lying sedated in the mud and water just a few feet away. If she somehow came to early, I would be a goner, for sure.
Clawing at the mud and furiously high-stepping, I was finally able to drag myself free. Dripping with slime I hooked the other end of the strap to my truck and got back inside. Slowly, slowly I took up the slack in the strap. All eyes were on the baby and I’m sure the crowd held its collective breath for a moment as the taut line started to stretch.
Then, reluctantly at first, the baby elephant started to move. He trumpeted and squealed, but he was moving. Inch by inch we pulled him from his sticky, glutinous prison until at last he was able to stand on his own.
There was a spontaneous burst of applause and cheering from the tourists and guides who had stayed to watch the whole show, but the job still wasn’t over. And it could still turn nasty.
I jumped out of the truck and ran to him, but he was going crazy with his newfound freedom. He wouldn’t let me get close enough to him to untie the strap; he would shake his head and flick his trunk and mock charge me a few steps. Despite his relatively small size I had already been on the receiving end of that long nose and didn’t want him breaking one of my ribs or worse. All I could do was take my knife from its sheath on my belt and slice through the strap. The elephant charged away and the action of his running immediately loosened the strap. It was not in a position to harm him and I knew it would slip off him as soon as he snagged it on something.
The important thing was that he was free and healthy and now all he wanted was his mommy back.
While the baby ran off into the bush a short distance away – he kept a wary eye on his mother – I drew up a syringe of M5050 diprenorphine, the antidote to the M99 I’d given the mother.
I knelt by the cow in the mud and water and injected the antidote into an ear vein. As I stood and backed away towards my nearby truck, she started to stand. It is phenomenal seeing just how quickly such a large animal recovers after a shot of this stuff. She was unsteady for a couple of seconds, but her baby ran up to her and no doubt the sight of him helped revive her from her stupor. They sniffed each other and she curled her trunk behind his little rump and shuffled him on his way.
There was more clapping and cheering from the audience, and probably a few tears too. I felt myself getting a little choked up as the adrenalin rush started to subside.
Laura threw her arms around me. “Clay, we did it!”
Thank goodness it had all worked out, I thought. A hundred things could have gone wrong; the mother elephant could have attacked my vehicle or the onlookers or fallen on her baby or failed to come out of her drug-induced slumber.
As the mother and her calf rejoined the herd and the family checked on both of them, I was filled with a feeling of contentment and accomplishment that we were able to save the youngster to live another day. This was what I lived for. Yes, this place could drive me up the wall and I sometimes wondered whether I was doing any good here at all, but this incident had restored my faith in my decision to move to Botswana.
Laura had come through like a champion. We made a great team and saving the baby elephant was a great morale booster for her as well. I knew that every time I had to euthanise a wild animal it tore her apart; it was never easy for me, and I said a short prayer for every creature just before I did what had to be done. Laura would always go away to sit in the 4x4 when I had to put an animal down and I knew she was going to cry, and that she was trying to shield me from her tears. But this time was different and, for the rest of that day, as we drove through the park we passed many of the tourists and guides who had witnessed the rescue.
“Good job, man,” one said.
“You guys were great,” another added. There were smiles and waves and high-fives through car windows, and there was nowhere else in the world I would rather have been that day. Perhaps I was making a difference and perhaps it was a sign that this was where I was meant to be, alongside Laura, helping to save wild animals.
While saving the baby elephant was a high point and my passion was working with wildlife, I still had my local practice to think of. While it was still failing to cover its costs, I also had many successes there that were appreciated by the pets’ owners.
I was still struggling for acceptance in the local community, but that didn’t stop people from outside the area and from outside Botswana using my services. Because Kasane sits so close to the border of three other countries, I would often get people coming across from neighbouring Namibia and Zimbabwe to have their animals treated.
There was a Pekingese–poodle cross whose owners came to me from Zimbabwe. The dog’s teeth were so bad that they were just about rotten. The bacteria from its own mouth were poisonin
g it, so I gave it some anaesthetic and gave its teeth a good clean. It started improving soon after, now that it wasn’t making itself sick.
A while later Laura and I decided to go across to Zimbabwe so I could show her the majestic Victoria Falls. I was in regular contact with the owners of the dog with the bad teeth and they asked me if I would stop by while I was there and cut the dog’s nails. Apparently it hated this being done and had to be sedated for this simple procedure to take place.
While we were in Victoria Falls Laura and I hooked up with our friend Desmore, who is openly gay in a very flamboyant manner, which is a big call in a country where homosexuality is still illegal. Laura and Des got on famously and were chatting amicably and animatedly to the lady who owned the dog about how important their own pets were to them and how people needed to take such good care of them. Des was saying how lucky she was that I was there to make a house call.
While all this chitchat was going on I had put the dog under and started clipping its nails. I kept an eye on him and after I’d snipped a nail I got a funny feeling. I put my hand on its chest, to check on him. His heart had stopped beating.
Des, Laura and the owner were giggling away over some comment, but I now had to do something without letting on that the prized pooch they had all just been admiring was now dead as a doornail. “Laura, honey, go get my bag from the car, please.”
“What?”
“Go. Get. My. Bag,” I said out of the corner of my mouth. “Hurry.”
“Oh, okay.” Laura had her heels on and Des was laughing as she tried to run for the bag and slipped. When she got back I said, “Get the adrenalin out.”
“Okay.” Laura started rummaging in the bag but I couldn’t continue with the charade. I bent over the little dog and placed my mouth over its mouth and started blowing in breaths.
“What are you doing? What’s wrong?” the owner shrieked.
I couldn’t say anything as my mouth was full of the dog that had the most disgusting teeth I’d ever come across. I started chest compressions at the same time. Des had to leave the room overcome by the high drama unfolding before him.
