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

by Lawrence Anthony

  I shook myself out of it, forced myself to focus and then stood up. There was nothing I could do about it now.

  ‘Let’s get the tusk cleaned and then store it in a safe place,’ I said to Vusi. ‘Now at last we know what happened to him and why he went crazy.’

  ‘Yebo, Mkhulu.’

  ‘And let’s find that other tusk!’

  I walked away astonished that one of my own staff could even think of stealing Mnumzane’s tusk at a time like this. I had wanted them mounted as a pair in the lodge as a commemoration of his life.

  We never found the tusk. But that doesn’t mean I’m not still looking.

  That afternoon I received a surprise phone call from Nkosi Biyela. We had been in regular contact, but more often than not through his izindunas, headmen, as intermediaries.

  ‘I would like to meet with you,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I will come to Thula Thula tomorrow afternoon late.’

  ‘I look forward to it,’ I replied heartened by the call, ‘and may I make a suggestion? Please bring your wife and stay the night with us at the lodge as our guests.’

  ‘Yes, good idea, thank you. It will give us time to talk about our game-reserve project. I will see you tomorrow then.’

  The game reserve, the Royal Zulu, was the main reason I had come to Thula Thula all those years ago. My heart jumped – especially as he had referred to it as ‘our project’, which was a first since the project had first been presented to his father Nkanyiso Biyela twelve years ago. I had pursued the vision relentlessly but as so often happens in Africa, the delays and complications at times seemed insurmountable. Nkosi Biyela was the key to its success as he was by far the most powerful chief in the area and controlled the biggest chunk of the land. And he wanted to talk!

  That afternoon he arrived and we drove through the reserve on a late Zululand afternoon, observing the lush wilderness and robust wildlife and talking about the future.

  ‘Whose land is that?’ asked the Nkosi pointing to a stretch of heavy bush just outside our boundary.

  ‘It is yours.’

  ‘Good! Then I would like to join it with you,’ he said. Simple as that.

  I realized he wanted to continue and held off a reply. He then got out of the Landy and looked around, pointing to the KZN Wildlife reserve that adjoined Thula Thula to the north.

  ‘That I know is Fundimvelo. It was my grandfather’s land. They have offered it to me. I will take it back and join with you. We will then do the joint project you have spoken of for the benefit of my people.’ Again, simple as that.

  ‘Thank you, Nkosi.’

  ‘Now the Ntambanana land, why are they taking so long in releasing it to us?’ he asked, referring to the tract of bush and thorn on my western boundary. Ntambanana was originally land excised by the apartheid government from various tribes some decades ago and was now being returned. The Biyelas had the biggest claim over it, and so for Nkosi Biyela to query why this process was taking so long meant that the project was now going to get massive impetus from him.

  ‘I do not know, Nkosi. It worries me as well.’

  ‘We must start pushing them now,’ he said, referring to the local government. And when Nkosi Biyela talks about ‘pushing’, it certainly gets people’s attention.

  In those few minutes – completely out of the blue – he had described most of the land that made up my dream African game reserve, but not all of it. There was one last piece of the jigsaw, the most important piece: Mlosheni, an 8,000-acre section which ran north from Ntambanana right up to the White Umfolozi River, the gateway to the worldfamous Umfolozi game reserve. Once we had that, we could lower fences with the Umfolozi reserve and have a massive tract of pristine Africa.

  ‘Mlosheni,’ I said, then hesitated.

  ‘What of Mlosheni?’

  ‘Mlosheni will join us to the Umfolozi reserve. It is important.’

  ‘Of course! I have spoken with my izinduna, it is already agreed,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘The animals will migrate as they used to before the apartheid government put up the fences.’

  I reached out and we shook hands. I was elated, scarcely able to believe what I was hearing. This project would do more for his people than anything that had ever happened before and my mind raced, assessing the benefits to wildlife as well. Nkosi Biyela would lead a coalition of traditional communities into a brave new world.

  I knew too that while this agreement represented a fundamental breakthrough that had been twelve years in the making, there was still a lot of work to be done and many lengthy tribal meetings lay ahead. But at long last he was fully committed – now we would win. His word was absolutely crucial; it was without question what we needed most. Everything now could start happening.

  That evening in the lodge we continued discussing the Royal Zulu project and what it could do to regenerate our area. I felt the gloom of Mnumzane’s death lift; his soaring spirit would be part of a magnificent new reserve that would be Africa as it should be: wild, beautiful, with people and animals living in harmony. Indeed, to me the new reserve would be a monument not only to Mnumzane but to Max and baby Thula as well, who had also shown in spades the qualities most needed in the fight for our last remaining wild lands – courage, loyalty, and above all, perseverance.

  It was an evening I will remember for the rest of my days – a vision of what Africa can be. And not least thanks to the cooperation of a remarkable leader, Nkosi Biyela. This new reserve, imbued with Zulu history dating from their first king, Shaka Zulu, will kickstart the area both physically with job creation and investment, and spiritually with a true wilderness ethos. One only has to look at the comments in the guestbook at Thula Thula to see how often tourists remark on the spiritual effect the wild has had on them during their stay. Now with Nkosi Biyela onside, the final major barrier had been removed. Royal Zulu would at last become a reality and, I hope, a cornerstone of conservation in Africa.

  The next morning, after a hefty breakfast with the Nkosi during which his enthusiasm for the new project seemed, if anything, even more animated, I switched on the TV news. The looming war against Saddam Hussein in Iraq was being ratcheted up by the hour. It seemed now that an invasion was inevitable. But that morning the news also featured a clip on the Kabul Zoo in Afghanistan and filling the entire screen was a lion, blind in one eye with a tormented face full of shrapnel. A Taliban soldier had thrown a grenade at him. Somehow he’d survived. His name was Marjan. His pock-scabbed face, his baleful, accusing stare seared into my soul. This truly was the reality of animals caught up helplessly – faultlessly – in the vicious vortex of man’s folly. More graphic than any words, that awful image was an indictment of our species. Something snapped in my mind. My anger gnawed corrosively at my innards. I knew I had to get to Iraq and make sure the same thing didn’t happen to the creatures at the Baghdad Zoo, the biggest menagerie in the Middle East.

  Ten days later, during the coalition invasion, I was in the bomb-blasted Iraqi capital. It didn’t long take to grasp the enormity of the task before me and I needed a good man at my side. It took one phone call, and a few weeks later Brendan arrived.

  Brendan was with me in those crucial first few months when we saved the last remaining animals in the zoo and elsewhere in Baghdad. He then stayed in the Iraqi capital for more than a year after I left doing absolutely critical work in making sure the animals were well cared for.

  After that he went to Kabul where he also did sterling stuff in advising the Afghans on how to improve their zoo. Sadly, Marjan had died long before he arrived. In the process, he left Thula Thula. But I take immense pride in the fact that he had been part of the journey with us, both at Thula Thula and internationally.

  Like David, he was integral to what we achieved.

  He still comes ‘home’ to us for regular visits.

  chapter forty-two

  I returned home nearly six months later. It had been the most intense period of my life – the heat, dust and chaos of Baghdad’s war
zone matched only by surreal moments of tragedy, exhilaration, hilarity and despair.

  The experience taught me one thing for sure, and that is that the innocent, hope-filled days of Born Free are long gone. At one stage in Baghdad the zoo staff had kept a pride of desiccated lions and two Bengal tigers alive by manually hauling fetid water from a stinking lake. Hour by torturous hour, we drip-fed the dehydrated cats – a bucket at a time, and that single bucket was all that kept the animals alive – until it was stolen by looters. We in turn brazenly raided kitchens in Saddam’s bombed palaces and the city’s abandoned hotels for the lion’s next meal while fighting raged on around us.

  I have never witnessed such selflessness by such a small diverse group of people. From individual American soldiers who, sickened by bureaucracy, sacrificed their rations to feed starving animals, to tough South African ‘mercenaries’ who acted as self-appointed zoo security guards, and courageous Iraqi zoo workers and civilians who literally put their lives on the line working with Westerners. Baghdad in 2003 was a starkly incongruous snapshot of global good and bad.

  The experience fizzed so vividly in my system that I wrote a book about it afterwards called Babylon’s Ark. The catharsis of putting this adventure down on paper was immense, the lessons learned priceless. I also used this amazing experience to create The Earth Organization, which has grown rapidly. Earth Org is not a typical ‘greenie’ lobby, we are an organization of common people that targets practical projects to reverse the downward spiral of the dwindling plant and animal kingdoms.

  My elephants faced adversity and misfortune in their efforts to survive, and they did so resolutely, always looking after their own, always keeping perspective, never forgetting to squeeze in fun and play when they could. I found the same qualities in the abandoned animals of the Baghdad Zoo. Despite danger and privation in a world turned upside down, I never once saw them give up. These lessons are central to our philosophy.

  When I returned from Iraq, the herd was waiting for me at the gate of the reserve itself. This was unusual as I was told they had been in deep bush for most of the time I was away, so much so that the rangers had difficulty finding them for guests. In fact it was so unusual that the gate guard was caught completely unprepared and had to shut himself in the hut near the fence. When I hooted he reluctantly emerged, saw the elephants were still there and hurriedly threw the keys at me and bolted back inside again. I let myself in.

  Nana and her family followed me to the main house and milled around outside the fence. I got out of the car and spoke to them, my voice croaking with emotion. There were now fourteen of them, with all the new additions. The original herd of seven had doubled. The four very latest ones were Mnumzane’s progeny – his spirit would live on both spiritually and physically.

  As they stood there, sniffing the air, something soared in my heart and I knew then just how much this herd meant to me. And even more importantly, the lessons they had individually taught me.

  They say you get out of life what you put in, but that is only true if you can understand what it is that you are getting. As Nana’s and Frankie’s trunks snaked out to me over the fence, it dawned that they had given me so much more than I had given them. In saving their lives, the repayment I have received from them was immeasurable.

  From Nana, the glorious matriarch, I learned how much family means. I learned just how much wise leadership, selfless discipline and tough unconditional love is the core of the family unit. I learned how important one’s own flesh and blood actually is when the dice are loaded against you.

  From Frankie, the feisty aunt, I learned that loyalty to one’s group is paramount. Frankie would have laid down her life in a blink for her herd. To her, nothing was more important – there was no question about this being a ‘greater love’. And the love and respect she received in return for her courage was absolute.

  From Nandi, I learned about dignity and how much a real mother cares; how she was prepared to stand over her deformed baby for days without food or water, trying right until the end, refusing to surrender until the last breath had been gasped.

  From Mandla, I saw how tough it can be for a baby to grow up on the run in a hostile world and how his devoted mother and aunts ensured he made it as best he could. Since Mnumzane’s death, he had reached puberty and was about to be kicked out of the herd, as nature decreed, and would have new challenges to face.

  From Marula and Mabula, Frankie’s children, I saw first-hand what good parenting can achieve despite adverse circumstances. These beautiful, well-behaved children would be what we in human terms would call ‘good citizens’ – something often in short supply in our world. They saw how their mother and aunt treated me, and in return, they accorded me the respect one would give to a distinguished relative. I loved them for that.

  From ET I learned forgiveness. I had managed to reach out to her through her heartbreak and distrust, but only because she had let me. Somewhere along the way she had recovered her life and in the process taught me how to forgive, as she had forgiven humans for the horrors they had visited on her own family before she came to us. She had given birth while I was away and was standing close by looking at me, proudly showing off her baby. I made a special fuss of her.

  And, of course, there had been Mnumzane, my big boy who had become one of my dearest friends. Like anyone, there are things I regret in life – and to me the biggest one is that I did not somehow guess that an excruciating tooth infection had been the cause of him going ‘rogue’. I console myself knowing that no other game ranger would likely have worked that one out either. Indeed, he would have been shot out of hand a lot earlier on most other reserves.

  But perhaps the most important lesson I learned is that there are no walls between humans and the elephants except those we put up ourselves, and that until we allow not only elephants, but all living creatures their place in the sun, we can never be whole ourselves.

  I looked at them through the fence, feeling not only the warm peace of being home after six months of mayhem in a war zone, but revelling in the fact that my greater family was now also with me. The rumbling of their stomachs as they gathered at the fence was the most soothing sound I have ever heard. Just as Nana had done to me in the boma eight years ago, I felt surrounded by a sense of extraordinary well-being.

  Mandla and Mabula were off on the side now. I knew they would go through the same heartache of ostracism as Mnumzane had and I wished there was something I could do about it. In larger reserves, they would team up with other adolescents forming a loose bachelor association with an adult bull. They’re called askaris and do what most young groups of men do: hang out, chase girls and test their strength and wits against each other and the world.

  The older male becomes the father figure they never had in the matriarchal herd, teaching them masculine etiquette as well as more practical matters of survival in the wild, such as where the best watering holes and the most succulent branches and berries are. These geography lessons they never forget – hence the cliché about elephants’ long memories.

  In return, the askaris treat their father figure with utmost respect and affection. When he is too old to strip the bark off branches, they escort him to marshes or swamps where the leaves are softer. For elephants do not die gracefully of old age, they starve to death after they lose their sixth set of teeth. And when their leader is too weak to stand and dementia sets in, the askaris sometimes even guard him as he sags, preventing hyenas or lions from attacking him. Even when he dies, the askaris have been known to chase scavengers off the carcass. After he has gone they will visit his bones for as long as they are there, paying respects to a fallen leader. The fact that almost all elephants which perish naturally do so in the soft-food wetlands has led to the myth of secret graveyards and ivory troves where elephants instinctively migrate to die. The truth is they all usually die in the last areas where food is soft enough to ingest.

  This is also why those who hunt old bulls don’t – or refus
e – to understand the harm they are doing. An ageing elephant male is not something surplus to be dispatched by some meagre trophy-gatherer. He is a breathing reference library; he’s there for the health and well-being of future elephants. He teaches the youngsters who they really are and imparts priceless bush skills to succeeding generations.

  It was now clear that a wise masculine role model is needed in our ever-growing family. With Thula Thula being expanded dramatically into adjoining tribal trust lands as part of the Royal Zulu project, we would be able to import a mature bull to teach the growing number of young males on the reserve the facts of life.

  I have subsequently put the word out, and judging by the enthusiastic response, I know that soon we will get a sage patriarch to teach my askaris good manners. And I know that Mandla and Mabula will grow up to be fine young males. As soon as the Royal Zulu is established, we will have a piece of Africa as the mother continent was always meant to be, protected and enhanced by the people rooted in the region, people with a stake in the future of their land.

  I was mulling over all of this later after spending time in the bush with Bheki and Ngwenya when I noticed the entire herd grazing about half a mile away. The sun glowed on the hills that guard Thula Thula, back-lighting them like golden sentinels, the elephants before them silhouetted on the savannah. It was a vision of this timeless Africa at its most inspiring and I understood once more why elephants are so iconic of this continent.

  Nana and Frankie stood together, the matriarch and her deputy. Next to them were their older daughters, Nandi and Marula, both in the prime of womanhood, and with them the first elephants born in the area for more than a century, Mvula and Ilanga. On the periphery, perhaps 400 yards away, I saw the bachelors, Mandla and Mabula. Scattered throughout were the babies.

  I will have no interaction with the new generations. The whole idea when I initially adopted the herd was to release them directly into the bush. I never planned to have any connection with them, as to me all wild animals should be just that – wild. Circumstances, such as their escape and their anguish at being relocated and witnessing siblings being shot, made my intervention a reluctant necessity. As I said previously, I only wanted to get Nana the matriarch to trust one human to ease her bitterness over our species as a whole. Once that was achieved, and she knew her family would no longer be molested, my mission was accomplished. I was keenly aware that too much interaction with humans dilutes the feral qualities demanded in the wilderness.