The Elephant Whisperer: My Life With the Herd in the African Wild (30 page)

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Authors: Lawrence Anthony,Graham Spence

BOOK: The Elephant Whisperer: My Life With the Herd in the African Wild
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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.
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.
The timing could not have been worse. I was well outside the electric wire and to be caught with Thula in the open by her mother could be calamitous. I might even be regarded as a kidnapper. If I abandoned Thula and made a run for it there was no doubt they would whisk her off, and she would die. Her little – by elephant standards – feet were totally ill-equipped for life in the bush. A stroll around the garden as opposed to what she would be expected to do with her family was like comparing climbing a hill to Everest. It would be a slow death sentence even if Nandi lagged behind with her.
The only thing going for me was that the herd didn’t know Thula was alive. They had come for a social visit – not to find their baby. I had to move fast.
‘Come, Thula! Come, my girl!’ I called anxiously, looking over my shoulder and made for the gate about a hundred yards away as fast as I could urge her. Luckily I was downwind and the herd didn’t scent us while Thula stumbled along behind. If the wind had been blowing the other way, it could have provoked a stampede from the herd. Ahead Biyela was frantically pointing at the oncoming elephants with his umbrella, desperately calling Thula to hurry.
We made it to the gate – just – and I passed Thula on to Biyela, and then turned to watch the herd coming up.
They drew level a few minutes later and Nana’s trunk shot up like a periscope, the tip switching until she fixated on where Thula had just ambled out of sight behind a hedge of wild strelitzia. She turned, her stomach rumbling. Nandi and Frankie joined her, scenting the air, analysing floating molecules Thula had left behind. They were like detectives at a crime scene and eased forward just inches from the electric wire.
I went to Thula’s room, made sure she was closed in with Johnny and called a ranger to double-check the fence’s current. I then waited, guiltily hoping they would leave. I was copping out, pretending nothing was happening.
Twenty minutes later they were still there and I felt I could no longer ignore them. They were entitled to know what we had done.
But how? If I let them see Thula it might prompt something so primordial we could not handle it; if elephants believe their babies are in danger they’re uncontrollable. Their maternal instinct is ironclad. So what could I do to pacify them but still keep Thula with me until she was ready to be returned to her family fit and strong?
I didn’t know. But I felt that at least I should let them know their baby was alive.
I went to Thula’s room, took my shirt off and swabbed it over her body, put it back on and wiped my hands and arms all along her. I then walked back down to the fence and called them.
Nana came over first and as her trunk swept just above the single electric wire in greeting I stretched my hand out as I usually do. The response was remarkable. The tip of her trunk paused at my hand and for an instant she went rigid. Then her trunk twitched as she sucked in every particle of scent. I offered both hands and she snuffled up my shirt and vacuumed every inch. Nandi the mother and Frankie the aunt stood on either side, trunks snaking as
they too got the olfactory messages that Thula was alive and close by.
All the while I talked to them, telling them how we helped Thula cheat death, what was wrong with her feet and why she had to stay with me for a little longer. I told them we all loved her because she was so brave and happy. I told them that they could be proud of their newest little member, who was fighting so gamely for her life. I then told them, for some completely random reason, that even Max – the ultimate canine curmudgeon – had befriended her.
I have long since lost my self-consciousness at chatting away to elephants like some eccentric. As I spoke I looked for signs that something of what I meant was getting across. I needn’t have worried. We had come a long hard road together, this herd and I, and talking to them had been a crucial part of that process. And why not? Who am I to judge what elephants understand or otherwise? Besides I personally find the communication most satisfying. They evidently liked it too, responding with their deep stomach rumblings.
Eventually they read whatever they could from my shirt and these three magnificent elephants stood there before me like a judicial panel assessing the evidence.
After much deliberation they moved off and I could tell that they were relaxed and unconcerned. I’m not saying this lightly as I have seen unhappy elephants. I am familiar with many of their emotions. When they left, I know that they were happy. I know that they could have stormed the fence, electric or not, if they had been otherwise. I felt a glow ignite inside me. They trusted me, and I knew I could not let them down.
The weeks passed by and Thula was doing well, revelling in the affection and care ladled on her by Françoise and Johnny. So much so that Bijou became insanely jealous, constantly barking at the hulk towering up above like the
original mouse that roared. Thula ignored the yapping poodle with impressive regal disdain.
Inside the house she was Françoise’s shadow, particularly in the kitchen where she would dip her trunk in anything Françoise was cooking. I remarked that this would be the first elephant who would want her marula berries marinated in garlic.
Still she broke everything. The rangers’ weekly shopping trip to town now included lugging mountains of crockery to replace Thula’s damage. But what could you do? How could you get angry with a gallant creature that never gave up? That never complained? That refused to lie down and succumb?
Outside, Biyela was her hero. With his multi-coloured golf umbrella constantly covering her, the two became inseparable. In fact Biyela started sulking if she remained in the house for too long.
Indeed, for all of us, Thula was our talisman. She exuded an energy and vitality that tapped into the ethos of the reserve: that life was for living.
 
Then one morning Johnny called from her room and I went through to find her struggling to get up.
‘She can’t stand,’ he said, pushing and pulling to try and get her on her feet. I climbed in and helped. Eventually after much squealing and protesting we had her up and she tottered briefly then limped outside.

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