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

by Lawrence Anthony

  There was nothing to do but wait, watch and hope, so I sent the rangers off on other duties, got myself a bottle of water from the Land Rover and found a shady spot as close as I could to the elephants. I called out so they all knew I was with them, and Max and I settled in for the duration.

  I took out my binoculars and managed to focus in on the baby. She was a girl and the problem was starkly evident. Her front feet were deformed; they had folded over themselves in the womb and each time she tried to stand, she was doing so on her ‘ankles’.

  An hour later and the little one was exhausted and her attempts to stand were becoming weaker and less frequent. This did not deter her mum and aunts who, if anything, renewed their efforts with each failure. By worming their trunks under the little body, they lifted the baby up and held her on her feet for minutes at a time, then gently let her down, only for her to crumple to the ground again.

  Elephants always find deep shade on hot days and stay there. Their humungous bodies generate a lot of heat so keeping cool is a priority. Looking up at the sun I cursed; it was firing full-strength and these poor animals were in its direct blast. Yet none shied off for the shade of the trees, barely twenty yards away. There they stood in the midday solar furnace guarding the baby, even the younger elephants, which were doing little more than watching. Nor did any leave for a long draught of cool water at the river less than half a mile away. Their sail-like ears, their natural radiators were flapping overtime, fanning as much air as they could, attempting to regulate their overheated bodies.

  It was only then I noticed that the baby was permanently in the shade of its mother’s and aunt’s shadows. Not just because they happened to be standing around her, but because they were taking conscious care to do so. While the sun arced through the sky I watched amazed as they all took turns to act as an umbrella, slowly shifting their positions to ensure the struggling infant was always out of direct heat.

  Three hours later and the baby started to succumb. She didn’t want to be moved any more and trumpeted pitifully when family trunks lifted her yet one more time. She was fatigued beyond measure.

  Eventually Nana stopped and they all just stood there, waiting with the baby lying motionless in front of them. I homed in with the binoculars and could see she was still breathing but fast asleep.

  Wildlife can absorb adversity that would destroy a human without a blink. This little elephant had gone through the trauma of birth and spent half a day in a blazing new alien environment and hadn’t even had her first drink. Yet she was still alive, still fighting.

  But she must be nearing the end and somehow I had to get her away from the herd. They were doing the best they could, but this little creature needed sophisticated medical care. With the best will in the world, Nandi and Nana could not fix the baby’s feet. Her only chance was with us – and even that was tenuous. But how could we get her away from the herd? An elephant’s maternal instinct is extremely powerful. We could not remove a baby from its mother simply by driving up and snatching it. The retribution would be cataclysmic.

  So what could we do? Short of opening fire and trying to scare them off with bullets, which would destroy my relationship with them forever, there was no other way. Perhaps if it was just Nandi … but certainly not with Nana and Frankie around as well.

  So there we sat, Max and I, pondering the great mysteries of the elephant world. In the late afternoon, when the day cooled fractionally, the elephants started again worming their trunks in tandem underneath the baby, trying to lift her onto her feet. They kept it up until nightfall, agonizingly failing each time.

  I drove the Land Rover in closer and beamed the headlights onto the scene to help them, watching in awe as the elephants never gave up. They had been trying for nearly twelve hours now. Their persistence was absolutely phenomenal. The Marines may have a saying ‘leave no one behind’, but these elephants could even have taught them a thing or two.

  Towards midnight the baby was pitifully weakened and I resigned myself to the fact that not only was she not going to make it, but there was nothing I could do. I called out a goodbye, saying I would be back, then drove back up to the house and went to bed, expecting the worst when I woke.

  When I returned the next morning as dawn broke, incredibly the herd was still there, still trying to get the now almost completely limp body to stand. I couldn’t believe it; the dedication of these magnificent creatures was beyond comprehension. My respect for them and what they were doing was infinite.

  The sun started climbing and by 10 a.m. I knew we were in for another steamer. And still they continued. But what more could they do? I knew the baby was finished.

  A few minutes later, Nana backed off a few paces for the first time and stood alone, as if assessing the situation. She then turned and walked off without stopping. Her trunk dragged, her shoulders stooped, a portrait of dejection. The decision had been made. Nana knew that they had done what they could. She knew it was all over. Despite their best efforts, the baby was unable to stand and thus wouldn’t survive.

  The rest of the herd followed and were soon out of sight on their way to the river to slake their arid gullets. They had been on wilderness ER for more than twenty-four hours without drink or rest. Few humans could match that.

  Yet Nandi stayed behind. As the mother, she would be there to the end, protecting her baby from hyenas or other predators. She manoeuvred her crippled daughter in her shadow and stood still, head down, exhausted, resigned to her firstborn’s fate, but determined to protect the infant to its last breath.

  I studied the baby through the binoculars, certain she was now dead. Then almost imperceptibly, I saw her head move. My heart pounded with excitement. She’s still alive, barely, but still alive! And with the herd gone, another crazy plan came into my head.

  I sped to the house and loaded a large open container on the back of the Landy, filled it with water, and threw in a bag of fresh-hewn alfalfa. Brendan summoned the rangers.

  ‘OK, guys,’ I said, ‘this is what’s going to happen. I’m going to try and reverse right up to Nandi, give her a sniff of the water and alfalfa, and then slowly move off to try and draw her away from the baby. She hasn’t had a drink or anything to eat for twenty-four hours and she’s been baking in the sun solidly. She’s starving and thirsty, so she may just follow me. There’s a sharp corner in the road about thirty yards off, and if she follows me there she won’t be able to see the baby. That’s when I want you guys to sneak in from the other side, get in as fast as possible, load up the baby and then speed off.’

  I paused for a moment, scanning their eager faces. ‘But if Nandi sees you taking her baby, there won’t be enough of you left for me to bury. So if you’re not comfortable with this, don’t come with me. It’s bloody dangerous. I really mean that.’

  There wasn’t a moment’s hesitation. ‘We’re in,’ was the unanimous reply.

  I nodded my thanks. ‘OK. I’ve phoned the vet and he’s on his way with a drip as the baby will be dangerously dehydrated. I have also put a mattress in the back of the truck for her.’

  We quickly drove down, got into position, went over every aspect of the plan once again and then tested our radios. ‘We’ve only got one chance,’ I reminded them. ‘As I said earlier, if Nandi catches you near the baby you’re in big trouble. Reverse in so you can drive out of there forward if she sees you. One driver, two in the back to load the baby.’

  I at least had some protection as Nandi knew me and I was carrying food and water, but how she would react with her lame baby right there was anybody’s guess. However, for the rangers, it was a different story entirely. Nandi didn’t know them and on top of that they were stealing her baby. They could expect no mercy.

  I got in the Land Rover and started reversing towards Nandi, calling out to her as I got closer to let her know it was me. Her first reaction was uncharacteristic. She moved between the baby and the approaching Landy and then charged, trumpeting loudly to scare me away, kicking up a c
loud of dust. She had never come at me before so I stopped and leaning out of my window started talking to her soothingly. As she walked back, I gently started reversing again, only to prompt another noisy stampede. I kept talking and the third time I reversed, her charge had no steam at all and as she turned away I saw her physically jolt as she got the unbearably intoxicating scent of fresh water and food. She stopped and turned.

  ‘Come, baba,’ I called gently, ‘come, beautiful girl, come on. You’re hot; you haven’t had anything to eat and drink for twenty-four hours. Come to me.’

  She paused and then tentatively took a few steps forward, ears straight out, hesitantly checking everything, and then walked up and dipped her trunk into the trough and sucked in a yard of water which she squirted messily into her mouth, spilling it everywhere in her haste. Then her screaming thirst kicked in and she started drinking insatiably off the back of the vehicle and I moved forward very, very slowly. Without hesitation she followed, slugging bucketfuls as we moved along. She still hadn’t stopped when we were around the corner, out of sight of her baby. I couldn’t believe how thirsty she was.

  ‘Go, go, go!’ I whispered into the radio. ‘I can’t see you so neither can she. Let me know as soon as you’ve done it.’

  I continued talking to Nandi, calming her with my voice, keeping her distracted, and then for what it was worth I told her what we were doing. ‘Unless I take your baby, she’s going to die. You know that and I know that. So when you get back she won’t be there, but if we save her, I will bring her back to you. That I promise.’

  I have no idea if she understood anything, but intonation and intention can communicate far more than mere words. At least I felt better that I had told her what we were doing.

  A few minutes later, a breathless call came through. ‘We’ve got her. She’s alive – just – we’re moving off.’

  ‘Great! Well done, get her up to the house. I’m going to stay with Nandi for a while.’

  Nandi drank every drop of water and then tucked into the alfalfa. When she finished, she looked at me in acknowledgement and walked back to where she had left the baby. I reversed, following her and watched as she started nosing the ground. With her superb sense of smell she would have immediately caught the scent of the rangers. After sniffing around for a few long minutes, she stopped for a while and turned and slowly moved off in the direction of the herd.

  I know that if she had smelt hyena or jackal there was no way she would have reacted so calmly or left the scene so quickly. She would have followed the scent with a vengeance, never letting up.

  I waited until she was out of sight and radioed the rangers. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘She’s still alive. She’s on the lawn and we’ve been spraying water to cool her down. The vet is putting in the drip now.’

  ‘I’ll be there shortly. Well done, guys.’

  My hands were still shaking. I couldn’t believe we had done it. Thanks to my intrepid rangers, we had taken a baby elephant from her mother.

  Now all we had to do was save its life.

  chapter thirty-six

  When I arrived back at the house the baby was lying motionless in the shade on the grass and the vet was connecting the second drip sachet into a bulging vein behind her ear.

  ‘She’s barely alive and very dehydrated,’ he said. ‘The next few hours will tell if she makes it.’

  I walked off and made a few phone calls querying what milk substitute a wild orphaned baby elephant would take. We needed the exact mixture, and having got the formula from Daphne Sheldrick’s famous animal orphanage in Kenya I sent a ranger into town to buy the ingredients as well as some jumbo-sized bottles and the largest teats on the market.

  While I did that, Françoise started converting the spare bedroom, right next to ours, into an elephant nursery, scattering straw in bales on the floor and putting down a firm mattress for her to sleep on.

  ‘She’ll be comfortable here,’ she said with more confidence than I felt. ‘We will name her Thula.’

  I nodded. It was a good name.

  I went back to the baby and inspected her front feet crumpled in on themselves.

  ‘She’s huge,’ said the vet. ‘In fact, too big. That’s why her feet were squashed back, folded over in the womb. She was simply too big for the womb and her feet had nowhere further to grow. But the bones aren’t broken and the muscles are intact and loose enough to manipulate into the correct position. Hopefully they’ll straighten out with some exercise. ’

  He walked around her. ‘Her ears are also worrying me a touch. They’ve been burned raw by the sun and sand and she may lose the fringes. I’ll prescribe some ointment.’

  Just then Thula lifted her head quite strongly. A drip is a wonderful thing with wildlife. Sometimes it works so powerfully it’s like watching a resurrection and so it was with Thula who was suddenly springing back from the dead.

  ‘She’s certainly feeling better,’ said the vet. ‘Let’s move her to her room and hopefully she’ll get some sleep. When she wakes, give her a bottle.’

  Holding the drip we carried her to her new room. She instantly fell asleep on the mattress.

  ‘I’ll tell you what is amazing,’ said Johnny, coming over to Françoise and me. ‘It only took two of us to lift her on to the pickup. We were so scared of the mother coming back that we loaded her in seconds. But when we got back here she was so heavy we couldn’t get her off the truck at all. It eventually took four of us. That’s adrenalin for you.’

  Johnny our new ranger stayed with her and would do so around the clock until she was healed. Orphaned elephant babies need the constant companionship of a surrogate mother otherwise they rapidly decline, both physically and emotionally. Johnny, who had only joined us a few months back, was going to be just that – a chore he accepted with relish.

  The next morning Thula took her first giant-sized bottle from him and drank the lot.

  The following day she was much stronger so Johnny fashioned a canvas sling and hung it from the towering marula tree on the lawn. We gently carried Thula out and she protested vigorously as we slipped the sling under her stomach, lifting her up while Johnny eased her deformed limbs forward. We then lowered her with her feet in the correct position.

  Our plan was simple: we had to strengthen her front feet or else she would die. And there she stood, wobbling like a wino at first, but gradually gaining some balance. We repeated this procedure several times between meals and by evening she was standing steadily with the aid of the sling.

  I whistled softly. Perhaps we could save her after all – perhaps I would be able to keep my pledge to the herd. The progress this tough little infant had made in one day alone was inspirational.

  The next morning she started taking uncertain steps supported by the sling and by the third day she was walking unaccompanied, albeit slowly with plenty of fall-downs. Yet she never complained; she always seemed cheerful, almost laughing in an elephantine way as she struggled to get up. Her courage was absolute. Her cheerfulness amid constant pain was simply unbelievable.

  Within a week, although limping badly, this gallant little creature was hobbling around the lawn with Biyela following behind carrying a large golf umbrella to protect her from the sun. She had captured our gardener’s heart; from now on it seemed his mission in life was to keep the sun off her frazzled skin.

  As the days went on she got stronger and was regularly taking the bottle, a vital part of hand-rearing a wild elephant. Unlike baby rhinos which will trample over you to drink from a bottle, orphaned elephants can be extremely difficult to feed. They subliminally want to suckle from their mother, so you have to persuade them that they are doing just that. The trick is to hang a chunk of sacking from the ceiling to simulate the mother and then stand the baby next to it and introduce the teat from underneath, just as if she was suckling.

  But if that didn’t work, it was back to muscular force-feeding, and feeding times sometimes redefined the word chaos in our house.
Johnny would back Thula into a wall, put his arm around her neck and ram the bottle into her mouth, squirting the vitamin-enriched milk into her system while she fought him every inch of the way. And at 270 pounds she could fight all right. Johnny often came off worst, landing flat on his bum spraying milk all over the place while Thula bolted for the door to seek consolation from her new best friend Biyela and his omnipresent umbrella. Biyela would then follow her around the lawn, glaring at us as if we were serial elephant-abusers.

  But the fact that she took the bottle regularly was a huge plus. This, I believe, was due to her essentially being a happy creature and the caring environment we had created around her. Françoise in particular lavished constant attention on her and Thula adored her in return, following her around the house like a giant love-struck puppy. The only problem was that she broke everything she could reach; a coffee mug on the table was instant history and we soon learned that anything not nailed down would be trashed. If she didn’t pull it onto the floor with her trunk, she bumped it off its perch with her bulk.

  As she got stronger, the limp receded and apart from having some trouble lying down, she was healing beautifully. Indeed, her biggest problem in life was now trying to unravel what that strange appendage flapping in front of her face was all about. An elephant’s trunk pulses with about 50,000 muscles. Thula was endlessly fascinated by hers; she flapped it about as a human baby would do with a doll.

  Although I instructed everyone that she should never be alone I could have saved my breath. Johnny was always there and off-duty staff members regularly came up to the house to make a fuss of her. Everyone loved her indomitable spirit and Thula flourished under this utter devotion from her new family. Despite constant pain as her feet slowly straightened out, she always seemed to be smiling. Even Max, who would fight any creature for no reason other than that it was there, followed her around the lawn on her daily walks, his tail wagging like a feather in a gale.

  One late afternoon, a sunset in paradise, I was walking her through the bush outside the garden, acclimatizing her to the longer grasses, thorns and trees that would be her future home, when suddenly I saw the herd appear at the top of the road. They had decided to come to the house for one of their periodic visits.