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

by Lawrence Anthony

  He dropped the snake and came towards me, wagging his tail. The snake was chopped into three distinct pieces, its head still quivering from contracting nerves.

  Max looked mighty pleased with himself. I was just relieved – until I saw his eyes. He was blinking furiously. The spitting cobra had lived up to its name and hit bang on target. Mfezis are extremely accurate up to about eight feet and actually spray instead of spit. This means a fine mist of highly toxic venom comes at you as a sheet, rather than as a single globule and it’s vital to wear glasses and shut your mouth when threatened by them – especially when you’re trying to move them off with a broom.

  Françoise quickly got some milk. We bathed Max’s eyes and I rushed him to the Land Rover. The nearest vet was twenty miles away in Empangeni, and if we didn’t get there soon, Max could go blind. However, the fact we had managed to clean out most of the poison with milk so soon after the attack augured well.

  The vet agreed that the milk had countered the poison, squeezed some paste into the pupils and said Max would be fine.

  As we left, he jumped into the car, tail thumping like an overjoyed windscreen wiper.

  ‘Who the bloody hell do you think you are?’ I admonished. ‘Rikki-Tikki-Tavi?’

  Indeed, Max had been as quick as Kipling’s Jungle Book mongoose. Throughout the fight he had never barked, extremely unusual for a dog. His utter silence had been his key asset. Most dogs prance in front of a snake yapping furiously, giving the reptile an easy target. Instead, Max had slowly padded around it without uttering a sound. The mfezi had trouble twisting to face him on the slippery tiled floor, enabling Max to get behind it.

  I stroked his head. ‘You’re a natural bush dog, my boy.’

  Later that night David and I returned to the elephants. Max, who adopted an almost bored expression whenever I checked his recovering eyes, came with us.

  We inspected the boma and catnapped for a few hours in the Land Rover. Then at 4.45 a.m. I heard a slight rustle near the fence. I knew, with dread, it was Nana preparing for her pre-dawn breakout attempt, as she did every morning. I walked down, by now knowing exactly where she would be. Once again, Mandla was at her side, the rest of the herd queuing behind.

  ‘Please don’t do it, girl,’ I said.

  She stopped, tense as a spring as she watched me. I carried on speaking, urging her to stay, keeping my voice as low and persuasive as I could. I kept using her name.

  Then she suddenly shifted her stance to face me head-on. The furious stare from her mucous-rimmed eyes faded for a moment. Instead there was something else flickering. Not necessarily benign, but not hostile either.

  ‘This is your home now, Nana. It’s a good home and I will always be here with you.’

  With unhurried dignity, she turned away from the fence, the others breaking rank to let her through and then following closely behind.

  After a few yards she stopped and let the others go ahead. She had never done that before – she had always been the first to disappear into the bush. She turned and again looked straight at me.

  It was only for a few seconds, but it seemed to go on forever.

  Then she was swallowed up by the darkness.

  chapter nine

  As the weeks progressed, the herd gradually started to settle down. So much so that we were now able to approach the fence at feeding time without being charged by enraged elephants. We also got some much-needed sleep.

  Living rough in the wilderness is a salve for the soul. Ancient instincts awaken; forgotten skills are relearned, consciousness is sharpened and life thrums at a richer tempo.

  Unlike being on a wilderness trail where each day is another trek to another place, David and I were not just transients and had to adjust in order to become accepted by the permanent residents on our wild patch. We had to blend into our environment as seamlessly as fish in a lake.

  Initially the abundant wildlife regarded us as unwelcome colonizers. They wanted to know who we were, what we were, and what were we doing on their turf. Wherever we went, hundreds of eyes watched. I had that prickly sensation of being under constant surveillance and whenever I looked up, a mongoose, warthog, or tawny eagle would be peering from a distance … taking in everything, missing nothing we did.

  But soon we too were creatures of the wild. The larger animals got used to us and sensing we posed no danger, started to move around us freely. The resident impala ram and his harem, normally as skittish as colts, grazed thirty or so paces away as if we were part of the scenery. Zebra and wildebeest came past regularly while kudu and nyala browsed nearby, completely at ease.

  That didn’t mean we were entirely welcome. A troop of baboons led by a posturing male complained bitterly as they sauntered past for their daily ablutions at the river. We had inadvertently pitched camp slap in the middle of their domain and their fearsome leader had no hesitation in venting his ire. Sitting on top of a Natal mahogany tree, he would show his dagger-shaped yellow teeth and snarl HOOH, HOOH, HAAA across the valley. BOH, BOH, his deep territorial call echoed down the riverbed. To him we would always be trespassers.

  It was late spring and birds of all shapes and sizes, feathered in an explosion of African colours, chirped and sang the stories of their lives to all who would listen, while snakes – including the lethal black mamba – sought shade from the baking sun. My favourite was a beautiful rock python that lived in a group of boulders beside a gully. He was still a youngster, less than five feet long, but watching his olive and tan body rippling over the ground was as special as you could get.

  I always kept a firm grip on Max’s collar whenever this yard of elastic muscle glided past. Although he had long since learnt not to chase most wild animals, he still had a thing about snakes. Given half a chance he would have been onto the python in a blink.

  The Land Rover’s two-way radio aerial also made a great scaffold for a one-inch bark spider that imperiously took up residence. Despite her diminutive size, she was an absolute dynamo. Every evening she strung out her web using the aerial as a support, and every morning she gobbled it all up, saving each precious milligram of protein snared in the gossamer threads, only to rebuild it again at dusk. We named her Wilma and her three-yard-wide web was an engineering marvel, an absolutely formidable, super-sticky trap that seized any flying insect in a grip of silky steel, including four-inch longhorn beetles, which she would methodically suck the life out of.

  Sometimes we needed to drive to the far end of the boma and as we started the vehicle she would hang on to her just-completed web in a flat panic at the engine’s vibrations. In the end, we always took pity on her and walked instead.

  At dusk, animals that lived in the sun went off to sleep wherever they felt safest. The landscape emptied, but not for long. It was soon repopulated under the light of the African stars by creatures of the night. Warthogs gave way to bush pigs with short, stiletto tusks; tawny and martial eagles were replaced by giant eagle owls that scouted the skies on silent wings, swooping down on vondos, plump oversized bush rats whose sluggish vulnerability is countered only by its prolific breeding capacity. Fiery-necked nightjars with bear-trap mouths customized for snatching insects in mid-flight soaked up the fading heat from the baked ground before soaring into the heavens. Bats, thousands upon thousands, scudded through the air and bushbabies, among the cutest creatures alive with their cuddly looking little bodies and huge eyes screeched raucous mating calls from the treetops.

  Hyena, perhaps the most maligned and misunderstood of all Africa’s animals for their unfair reputation of being savage scavengers, but one of my favourites, skulked in the alleys of the dark looking for dinner. YOOUP YOOUP, YOOOOUP they called, marking their territory with their manic cackles. Huge dog-like footprints the next day sometimes showed that they had come in for a closer look at us. We used the spotlight intermittently to track this seething theatre, only because leaving it on for too long lured swarms of bugs that attacked us in squadrons. It’s bad bush practice to keep a li
ght on continuously as light attracts insects, insects attract frogs, and frogs attract snakes. Our only permanent illumination was the campfire.

  One morning we woke to find leopard droppings near the Land Rover. The local male had marked his territory right where we were sleeping, delivering a firm feline message – this was also his space.

  Living so close to the ground, so to speak, also gave me plenty of time to study the herd and I became fascinated by their individual quirks. Nana, huge and dominant, took her matriarchal duties seriously and like a fussy housewife utilized every inch of the boma’s confines to the maximum. She marked out the best spots for shade, the best shelter from the wind and – uncannily – knew feeding times to the minute. She also knew exactly when the waterhole and mud pond were due to be refilled by us.

  Frankie was the herd’s self-appointed guardian. She delighted in breaking away from the rest and storming past us at full speed, head held high and glaring fiercely just for the hell of it.

  Mandla, Nana’s baby boy, was a born clown whose antics kept us endlessly amused. Full of bravado he would regularly mock-charge us – just as long as his mum was close by.

  Mabula and Marula, Frankie’s thirteen-year-old son and eleven-year-old daughter were always quiet and well behaved, seldom straying far from their mother.

  Nandi, Nana’s teenage daughter and mirror image, was much more independent and would often wander around exploring on her own.

  And then there was Mnumzane, the young bull and son of the previous matriarch who had been demoted from crown prince to pariah after his mother’s demise. He was no longer part of the herd’s inner circle and spent most of his time alone or on the periphery of the group. This was the eons-old elephant way; herds are fiercely feminized and once a male approaches puberty he is evicted. This is nature’s way of scattering its seed otherwise all herds would be interbred. But sadly the trauma of young males being ostracized from their families can be heart-wrenching; similar to desperately homesick boys being sent to distant boarding schools. Usually in the wild they meet up with other young evicted males and form loosely knit askari bachelor herds under the guidance of a wise old bull.

  Unfortunately we didn’t have a father figure for Mnumzane, so he was simultaneously going through the agony of losing his mother and sister, as well as being evicted from the only family he knew and loved. Come feeding time, Nana and Frankie would roughly shoulder him away and he only got scraps after everyone else had had their fill.

  We saw he was losing weight and David made a point of feeding him separately. His gratitude was wrenching to watch, and David, who has a natural affinity with all wildlife, started paying him special attention, slipping him extra alfalfa and fresh acacia branches every day.

  Mnumzane’s lowly status was confirmed one evening when we heard a series of prolonged high-pitched squeals. Denied the use of the Land Rover by Wilma’s web-building activities, we sprinted to the other side of the boma to see that Nana and Frankie had the youngster cornered and were shoving him onto the electric fence.

  ‘Look at that,’ David panted as we ran up. ‘They’re using him as a battering ram, trying to force him through to make an opening.’

  So they were. Mnumzane, caught between hot wires and a mountain of flesh and tusk, was screaming himself hoarse as electricity jolted through his young body. The more he screamed, the more they pushed.

  Eventually just as we were about to intervene – although I’m not quite sure how – they released him. The poor fellow bolted and ran around the boma at full speed, loudly trumpeting his indignation.

  He calmed down and found a quiet spot as far away from the rest of herd as he could. There he stood and sulked, miserable to his core.

  This incident showed conclusively that Nana and Frankie understood exactly how an electric fence worked. They knew that if they could bulldoze Mnumzane through the live wires, they could break free without getting shocked.

  Despite this, to my intense relief, by now the dreaded dawn patrol had stopped. Nana no longer lined up her brood at the northern boundary, threatening a mass breakout and despite the odds we seemed to have made some sort of progress in the few weeks they had been there. But neither of us expected what happened next.

  The next morning soon after sunrise I glanced up to see Nana and baby Mandla at the fence right in front of our little camp. This had never happened before.

  As I stood, she lifted her trunk and looked straight at me. Her ears were down and she was calm. Instinctively I decided to go to her.

  I knew from hard experience that elephants prefer slow deliberate movements, so I ambled across, ostentatiously stopping to pluck a grass stem and pausing to inspect a tree stump – generally taking my time. I needed to let her get used to me coming forward.

  Eventually I stopped about three yards from the fence and gazed up at the gigantic form directly in front of me. Then I took a slow step forward. Then another, until I was two paces from the fence.

  She did not move and suddenly I felt sheathed in a sense of contentment. Despite standing just a pace from this previously foul-tempered wild animal who until now would have liked nothing better than to kill me, I had never felt safer.

  I remained in a bubble of well-being, completely entranced by the magnificent creature towering over me. I noticed for the first time her thick wiry eyelashes, the thousands of wrinkles criss-crossing her skin and her broken tusk. Her soft eyes pulled me in. Then, almost in slow motion, I saw her gently reach out to me with her trunk. I watched, hypnotized, as if this was the most natural thing in the world.

  David’s voice echoed in the surreal background. ‘Boss.’

  Then louder, ‘Boss! Boss, what the hell are you doing?’

  The urgency in his call broke the spell. Suddenly I realized that if Nana got hold of me it would all be over. I would be yanked through the fence like a rag doll and stomped flat.

  I was about to step back, but something made me hold my ground. There it was again, the strange feeling of mesmeric tranquillity.

  Once more Nana reached out with her trunk. And then I got it. She wanted me to come closer and without thinking I moved towards the fence.

  Time was motionless as Nana’s trunk snaked through the fence, carefully avoiding the electric strands, and reached my body. She gently touched me. I was surprised at the wetness of her trunk tip and how musky her smell was. After a few moments I lifted my hand and felt the top of her colossal trunk, briefly touching the bristly hair fibres.

  Too soon the instant was over. She slowly withdrew her trunk. She stood and looked at me for a few moments before slowly turning and returning to the herd that had gathered about twenty yards away, watching every move. Interestingly, as she got back Frankie stepped forward and greeted her, as if to welcome her return to the fold. If I didn’t know better I would have said she was giving her a ‘well done’. I walked back to the camp.

  ‘What was that about?’ asked David.

  I was silent for a while, absolutely awestruck. Then the words tumbled out, ‘I don’t know. But what I do know is, that it’s time to let them out.’

  ‘Let them out? From the boma?’

  ‘Yes. Let’s take a break and talk about it.’

  We drove to the house for a mug of fresh coffee, animatedly discussing what had happened.

  ‘Nana’s now a very different elephant to the one that arrived here, that’s for sure,’ said David. ‘In fact the whole herd is different. The aggro has gone like it’s been switched off. Maybe we should phone KZN Wildlife and see what they say.’

  ‘No … we should just let them out. Wildlife has already said we must keep them in for three months. They’re not going to change their minds now.’

  David nodded. ‘You’re right. Remember what we said one night after they came back from Umfolozi? That to get this herd on side we had to get the matriarch to trust at least one human? Well, that’s now happened. She trusts you.’

  ‘OK. Radio Ndonga and tell him to make
sure the outer fence is fully powered. We’ll let them out into the reserve early tomorrow.’

  We drove back to the boma and the enormity of what we were about to do hit me. If I was wrong and the herd broke out, they would be killed. I started having second thoughts, but while doing the final fence patrol for the night, I noticed the elephants were more relaxed and calmer than I had ever seen them before. It was almost as if they anticipated something special was about to happen. Sensing that made me feel better.

  At 5 a.m. a game guard radioed me from the energizer shed to say that power was ‘off’ in the boma. David lifted the gate’s hefty horizontal eucalyptus poles off their hinges.

  I called out to Nana, who was standing at the fence about fifty yards away, and deliberately walked in and out of the entrance a couple of times to show it was open. Then David and I went and stood on top of an anthill at a safe distance from the entrance to get a grandstand view.

  For twenty minutes nothing happened. Eventually Nana ambled over to the gate and tested the space with her trunk for some invisible impediment. Satisfied, she moved forward, herd in tow, and then inexplicably stopped halfway through the exit. For some reason she would go no further.

  Ten minutes later she was still standing there motionless. I turned to David, ‘What’s going on? Why doesn’t she go out?’

  ‘It must be the water in front of the gate,’ he said. ‘The trench we dug for the delivery truck is full of rain and she doesn’t like it. I think she won’t go through because it’s too deep for Mandla.’

  Then, for the first time, we witnessed a graphic demonstration of Nana’s Herculean strength.

  On either side of the gate stood two eight-foot-high, eightinch-wide eucalyptus poles sunk thirty inches into concrete. Nana inspected these with her trunk, then put her head down and gave a push. The shafts buckled as the concrete foundations popped out of the ground like corks.

  David and I stared at each other, stunned. ‘My God,’ I said, ‘we couldn’t even have done that with the tractor. And to think that yesterday I was letting her touch me!’