The Eye of the Elephant

by Mark James Owens

  "It'll take a while for the lions to come," he says. "So we'll just finish our coffee, go to the blind, and play more roars there." Meanwhile the speakers blare their great roars across the plains.

  Quickly finishing their breakfast, Kasokola, Mwamba, and Simbeye take refuge in the Mog, where they wait for us to call them. Mark and I stand together, sipping our steaming camp coffee as we watch the herds of zebra and wildebeests on the plain.

  "Hey! There's a lion!" Mark exclaims, pointing straight ahead. A large male with a full mane stands less than sixty yards away, his chin raised, moving his head side to side, apparently searching for the intruder who is bellowing in his territory.

  "Hurry, let's get to the blind," Mark says, as he picks up a speaker and sneaks through the grass toward the blind. I lift the other speaker and follow. Without the taped roars to home on, the lion heads off in the wrong direction and disappears from sight.

  In the blind we quickly hook up the stereo system and start playing the roars, taking cover behind the cloth. Almost immediately the lion reappears, trotting straight for us. Careful to stay below the level of the awning cloth, Mark loads the darting rifle with a drug-filled syringe. At fifty yards the lion slows to a saunter, his eyes wide, tail flicking. It only now occurs to me that nothing but a piece of cloth stands between us and him. The tape player continues to challenge the male, who hunches his shoulders as he stalks toward us, stiff-legged. He breaks into a trot again, his mane swinging loosely.

  Mark turns off the speakers and takes aim with the darting rifle. Since the lion is coming straight for us, the only possible target is his forehead. Mark holds his fire. At forty yards the lion veers left and circles the blind, just out of range, then disappears behind our thicket. The brush behind us is so thick we cannot see him. Mark plays the roars again. We stand in the silence, watching and listening.

  "He's right here," Mark whispers.

  "Where?"

  "Right here!" Moving very slowly Mark points to the end of the blind where it is tied to the bush. The lion's muzzle is almost touching the cloth as he peers into the depths of the thicket—and our blind. He is at most a yard from my right leg; too close to dart. He looks up and down the strange material, sniffing loudly at its unfamiliar odors.

  Apparently satisfied that no other male lions are hiding in the bushes, he turns and walks toward the plain. Slowly Mark lifts the rifle above the blind and darts him in the flank. The lion whirls around and stares at us. We freeze again. This is the most dangerous moment: if he associates us with the sting in his rump, he may charge. He spit-growls once, but turns and trots away. Five minutes later he sits on his haunches, relaxing as the tranquilizer takes effect. After another five minutes he slumps to the ground, immobile. With the guys' help, we collar, weigh, measure, and ear tag the lion.

  For the next three days we set up the speakers at different spots on the plain, and try to call in other lions. But wherever we go, it is this same male who appears, still trying to chase imaginary intruders from his area. We name him Bouncer.

  We have just returned to Marula-Puku from an expedition late one afternoon, and the men are mending a flat tire on the Mog. We have long ago given them the hut to live in; Mark and I sleep in a puptent near a small supply tent at the other end of the island. Our kitchen is merely a clearing under the marula trees, with crates and tin boxes arranged in a square. I am mixing cornbread batter and preparing to bake it in the black pot by the fire.

  "KA-POW! KA-POW!" Gunshots from across the river.

  "Poachers!" Simbeye shouts, pointing south.

  More shots. Three, four, five, six, seven. I feel their concussion in my chest. Eight. Nine.

  "Sons of bitches! AK-47s!" Mark swears. "Not more than a half-mile from here. They're probably shooting elephants."

  All my doubts about our fighting the poachers dissolve in an instant. "We've got to do something!"

  But with only one gun and no authority to go after poachers on our own, all we can do is drive to Mano to get the scouts. Their camp is eighteen miles northwest of Marula-Puku. Within minutes of the last shot Mark and I are in the Mog, clawing our way up the scarp. When we arrive, Mano camp is quiet and still, although scattered cooking fires glow here and there in front of each hut. Mark jumps down and quickly tells Island Zulu about the gunshots. A few scouts stand around, leaning against the truck. Tapa, who had dried fish and meat in our camp, yawns. Nelson Mumba, still wearing his red bandana, walks away. As honorary game rangers and directors of our project, Mark and I have the authority to order the scouts on patrol. But we do not want to command them; we want them to come on their own.

  "We have no ammunition," Zulu tells us.

  "What happened to it?" Mark asks. Mosi Salama, the warden in Mpika, swore to us that each man had been given his monthly allotment of five rounds. The scouts look at each other, speaking in Chibemba. As before, all agree that they have not received their allotment.

  "I have one round," says Gaston Phiri, a lively, short man with the energy of a shrew. "But we have only four rifles, and one does not have a bolt."

  Mark senses a faint willingness in Phiri. "Mr. Phiri, I will pay every man who comes with us two hundred kwachas for each poacher he catches."

  "But we have no food for patrol," says Phiri.

  "We will give you food," I interject.

  Eventually six of them agree to come, but they will need two hours to get packed. We urge them to hurry, so that we can catch the poachers before daybreak, but Phiri tells us, "We cannot patrol at night. That is when the lions are hunting. Don't worry. The poachers will not move at night either."

  It is midnight before we get back to Marula-Puku, and Mark and I are up again at four-thirty, getting a big fire going, making as much noise as possible to wake the slumbering scouts. They finally join us around the fire at five-fifteen. They unpack their worn knapsacks, which they have just packed, and Phiri puts a huge pan of water on the fire to boil their n'shima. The others lie around the fire smoking tobacco and chatting, waiting for the water to boil. I stoke the fire continuously, to make it hotter.

  "Look, it's boiling," I say to Phiri.

  "Yes, but it must boil for many minutes to get very hot."

  I stare at him, wondering how I can explain that water cannot get hotter than it is at the boiling point. The poachers are probably breaking camp and moving on, and here we are waiting for water to perform a miracle. But I keep quiet, hoping that the poachers are also waiting for their water to exceed the boiling point.

  Twenty minutes later the water is hot enough to satisfy the scouts. They toss in handfuls of mealie-meal, stirring vigorously, then eat the paste with the bully beef and tea we have provided. They breakfast in leisurely fashion, as is their custom; when they are finished, they wash their hands carefully in a basin of water. Then each man rolls a cigarette and smokes it down to his fingers. An hour and a half after rising, they are nearly ready to head out.

  For patrol, we give them enough mealie-meal, salt, dried fish, beans, tea, and sugar to last a week. They repack their bags and at six forty-five announce they are ready. Mark steps forward to go with them, but Phiri holds up his hand.

  "You can tell us, please, where you heard the gunshots. But you cannot escort us there. You are not a scout."

  Mark is annoyed but accepts their position. He takes the compass and, pointing 170 degrees, shows them exactly where we heard the shots, and adds, "Don't forget. For every poacher you capture, you each get two hundred kwachas."

  We wish them luck as they march out of camp in a ragged line. Four have uniforms, two do not. Their trousers are torn and patched. Four have boots, one wears a pair of rubber-tire sandals, and one is barefoot. Only two have proper rucksacks; another carries a plastic bag, and Phiri has an old gunnysack thrown over his shoulder. Island Zulu is still lugging his old cot frame and has three plastic mugs, red, yellow, and blue, tied to his pack. They have three rifles—one without a bolt, another without sights—and a shotgun that w
on't extract spent rounds. And they have only one round of ammunition. No wonder they are reluctant to go after poachers armed with AK-47s. Nevertheless, they are going. "Good luck," I say again softly.

  Mark, Simbeye, and Mwamba go to the airstrip to grade it with the Mog's loader, while Kasokola and I remain in Marula-Puku. Kasokola, the youngest of the Bembas, is shy and quiet, but smiles readily at the slightest prompting. He and I clear the grass where the office, bedroom, and kitchen huts will go, then drive sticks into the ground to mark the corners of each. After seeing what happens to a mud hut in the rains, we plan to build stone cottages with thatched roofs.

  At eight-thirty I see the first vultures circling to the south, where the shots were fired. The carcasses are closer than we thought. The game guards should have found them easily by now and be on the trail of the poachers. I feel sickened that elephants were shot so close to camp, for if we can't protect the animals in areas right around us, what chance do we have to stop poaching in the rest of the park?

  "They are coming, Madam," Kasokola says quietly.

  I whirl around, "Who is coming?"

  He points south. "The game guards."

  The scouts are walking toward us, spread out in a line along the riverbank. It is eleven o'clock. Have they captured poachers already? I hurry toward them, as they emerge from the long grass. There are only six men; no poachers.

  "Good morning, Madam," Gaston Phiri says loudly and cheerfully.

  "Hello, Phiri," I answer quickly. "What is happening? Where are the poachers?"

  Phiri raises himself to his greatest height, which is about the same as mine, and announces, "We have found two poached elephants! They are on the riverbank, only half a mile from here."

  "Good," I say, "we sort of knew that." I point to the scores of vultures soaring less than a mile away. "But what about the poachers?"

  Still holding himself erect, Phiri answers, "We thought you would want to take photographs of us with the dead elephants."

  I stare at him in disbelief. "Phiri, we have plenty of photos of dead elephants. In fact, since we have been in this national park, we have only taken pictures of dead elephants! Since we have been in Zambia we have seen more dead elephants than living elephants. What I want is a picture of you with poachers. You are supposed to capture the poachers, not have a photo session with the dead elephants."

  The scouts frown and look away, clearly disappointed that they are not going to be photographed.

  "We have found the tracks of the poachers," Phiri continues. "We can chase them out of the park."

  "Phiri, they will be miles from here by now. They probably left at sunup."

  "We will go after them," he says, "but first we must have lunch. Can you give us some more canned meat?"

  "We gave you a week's supply of food a few hours ago. We have only four tins left. Okay, here are two of them. But please try to capture those poachers!"

  "Thank you very much! And anyway, we thought maybe you would like to take our photograph here before we go on patrol."

  "Right. You're absolutely right. We should have done that this morning." I don't even bother to rush as I bring the camera from the tent. "Stand together over here."

  They crowd together, holding up their rifles and making the most fearsome facial expressions and guttural growls. Too bad the poachers have not joined us for lunch—they might have had the fright of their lives. Little do the scouts realize it is a picture of despair.

  The scouts do not come back to Marula-Puku. Later I ask Simbeye if he has heard anything, and he tells me that when the scouts left our camp they marched straight back to Mano to share the food with their families. Mark and I are disappointed, but realize we may be expecting too much of six men with one bullet and hungry families. We will have to equip them better, not only with rifles but also with tents and uniforms, and somehow ensure a more reliable supply of food at Mano. By candlelight we draw up a list of the scouts' most pressing needs and resolve to discuss it with the warden on our next trip to Mpika.

  Two days later we see the elephants of Camp Group moving in the distance along Khya Stream. Now, instead of ten, there are only eight.

  8. The Heart of the Village

  DELIA

  They learn in suffering what they teach in song.

  —PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

  THE SHARP EDGE of the hand-carved wooden stool cuts into my thigh, as I glance back and forth from Mark to the village headman, who is acting as our translator for Chief Mukungule. We are all sitting on various-sized stools in the thatched n'saka—except for the chief, who is enthroned on a seat taken from an old DC-10 aircraft. The chiefs barefoot wife squats on the earthen floor near a clay pot of steaming sweet potatoes. Crowded nearby, their heads leaning toward us to catch the words of the translator, are twenty to thirty villagers of Mukungule.

  "You see," Mark says, "if we can save the wild animals, the tourists will come from America to visit the park. They will bring money that will benefit your village. And if we can help bring back the animals around the park, your people can hunt them for meat—in a controlled way—so that there will always be some for food."

  The headman stares at Mark for a long moment before turning to the chief and delivering his translation in Chibemba. Mukungule was born in 1910 and has been chief since 1928. He claims to have one hundred eighty grandchildren. His once-dark Bantu eyes have faded to a piercing ice-blue, but his personality is as warm and gentle as the African breeze. Most of his teeth are missing, no doubt the result of his insatiable appetite for sugar. He knows no English, but he smiles easily and communicates well with those ancient eyes, which have seen many things, including the coming and going of the British.

  After an exchange in Chibemba, the headman turns to Mark, "We do not know this word 'tuureest.'"

  I decide to give it a try. "Many people in the world like to travel, and they take money with them to pay for food and places to sleep. So the country they are visiting gains money. There are no elephants or Cape buffalo in America or Europe. The people who live there will come here to see these wild animals. They will pay a lot of dollars and pounds to see them. Your village could benefit from these visitors."

  As the headman translates, the chief looks at us and nods his head slowly.

  "But if the poachers keep shooting the elephants and buffalo, there won't be anything for the tourists to see. They won't come here. They won't bring their money."

  I watch the villagers' faces; only the chief is nodding. Most of the people of Mukungule are of the Bisa tribe, which split from the Bemba tribe after the great exodus from Lubaland in Zaire in the nineteenth century. The older villagers, including the chief himself, remember well the days when they lived in the valley at the Lubonga-Mwaleshi confluence, the very spot inside the national park that we have come to love. The chief's ancestors, generations of chiefs, are buried under a tree only a few hills from our camp. Every October the headmen trek down the scarp to pay their respects to those spirits, by tying white swatches of cloth in the branches of the tree. It was their land, their home, their hunting ground, their burial place. As far as anyone knows, they were the first humans to live there—and until we came, the last. When the area was designated a game reserve by the British colonial government in the 1950s, the Bisas were asked to leave. Now we live near their ancestors and ask them to stop shooting the animals for meat and the elephants for ivory. We talk of "tuureests" coming from the moon with a kind of money they cannot imagine.

  They left the valley willingly, the chief tells us, because the Mwaleshi hippos ate their crops and made farming impossible. In those days there was plenty of wildlife on the scarp, right here in Mukungule. As long as the Bisas hunted with bows and arrows, they could not kill too many animals and there were always enough to feed the tribe. Once guns were introduced, hunting was easier and no one controlled the numbers of animals shot. Soon all the animals west of the park were gone.

  There is no butcher shop in this entire area, the
chief continues, not even in Mpika. If a man in Mukungule wants to put meat on the table for his children, he must poach in North Luangwa National Park. I shift uneasily. Unfortunately there are so many people needing to feed their families, and so few animals left, that allowing people to kill "for the pot" would amount to a quick fix that would soon eliminate all wildlife in and around the park. For this reason, subsistence poaching—killing to put meat on the table—must be controlled as well as poaching for commercial gain. Both will lead to the near-term destruction of a valuable resource that can be used to raise the living standard of the people.

  Talking a bit faster now, we explain that we understand their problems: there are no jobs in Mukungule, no meat, little protein. We want to assist them. If they will stop poaching, we will help them find other jobs and other sources of protein. Later, if tourists come to the park, there will be lots of work for the men; and the women can grow beans and groundnuts, raise chickens, build fish farms, and sell produce to the tour operators. While obtaining our permits to operate in the park, we persuaded the Zambian government to return 50 percent of its revenue from tourism to the local villages. But if the poaching continues, most of the animals in North Luangwa will be gone in five years. Then what will they do?

  "You don't have to wait for the tourists to come," we tell them. "Anyone who will exchange poaching for a job can talk to us right now." We have raised funds for this purpose in the United States through our new foundation, the Owens Foundation for Wildlife Conservation.

  As we rise to leave, bowing and clapping our respects to the chief in the Bisa and Bemba fashion, most of the villagers drift away, apparently uninterested in our offers. Only a small group of about ten women, standing to one side and not smiling, beckon to us. They are dressed in tattered Western-style blouses with faded chitenges wrapped around their waists. All are barefoot, although one is holding an old pair of high-heeled shoes, apparently to show that she does own some. With the help of the translator, and after much arguing on their part and confusion on ours, we agree to pay the women five kwachas for every bundle of thatching grass they cut and groom. We will need about two thousand bundles, which would bring them a total of ten thousand kwachas, probably more money than the entire village has ever seen. After making a circle of wire to show them the requisite size of the bundles, we arrange to return for the grass in seven days.