The Elephant Whisperer: My Life With the Herd in the African Wild by Lawrence Anthony (the ebook reader txt) 📕

and to survive you need every genetic advantage you can muster. Consequently almost all animals have excellent night vision enhanced by a reflective membrane behind the iris, which catches even distant starlight and magnifies it. This membrane is why their eyes reflect so brightly in the dark when a light is shined at them. The big cats apparently have the best night vision but all species rely on acute eyesight either to hunt or to escape the predators of the night.

Well, not all species. There’s a notable exception; the planet’s most dominant creature is completely night blind. And that’s us – Homo sapiens.

Try walking in thick bush on a moonless or cloudy night without a flashlight and see what I mean. It’s so black you can’t see anything … and I mean anything. Unless you can navigate by the stars (provided there is no cloud cover) you’ll be lost, maybe even panic-stricken, within minutes.

I once crashed on the quad-bike at night about four miles from the camp. I lost my flashlight in the accident and had to walk home in the dark. I still remember that journey with trepidation today. I was completely blind and walked through the bush with both hands in front of me so at leastI knew if I was going to hit something. I could have fallen into a hyena den and wouldn’t have known until I woke up – or more likely, didn’t.

It took hours to get back and I was a bruised, nervous, thorn-scratched wreck when I did. What concerned me most as I blindly stumbled along was that every other living creature around was watching my antics as clear as day. To any predator I would have appeared as a wounded or disabled animal. Twice, when the bush seemed to suddenly come alive, I frantically fired shots into the air with my pistol. I was lucky to get home.

So how did our ancestors survive the eons without keenly developed night vision? I know plenty of scientists and not one of them has ever been able to explain satisfactorily to me how puny, tasty, night-blind Homo sapiens endured so spectacularly when everything around us had to have excellent night vision if they were to make it through a summer, never mind evolve.

Yet despite my reservations, David jumped up on Gunda Gunda and set off into the dusk. It was only when he was gone that I realized he had forgotten his radio.

I went back to the house, made some phone calls and then walked out and sat on the lawn overlooking the reserve trying to spot David’s flashlight blinking on the far boundary when I heard a low moan crescendo into a rasping roar that made my blood chill. Max also froze staring out into the dark, alert.

‘It can’t be,’ I thought, and then I heard it again, oscillating eerily across the wilderness. This time there was no mistake. It was the call of a male lion marking his territory. As we had no resident lions on the reserve, this meant an itinerant animal had broken in.

But even worse, the call was suddenly reciprocated, a curdling growl that bounced off the cliffs. That meant there were at least two lions roaming on the reserve. And of allplaces, the roars were echoing from the western boundary – exactly where David was driving along without headlights. They must have come in through the fence while the power was down.

Out in the dark every creature on Thula would have heard the ominous call, for it was death itself calling, beckoning out for you.

Nana too would have heard it. I imagined her standing frozen, ears flared, trunk up, smelling the air to work out where the call came from and thinking of the youngsters in the herd. Her tactics and habits would now change, as would everything else on the reserve.

I bent down and patted Max, reassuring him.

It sometimes happened that lions broke out of the nearby Umfolozi game reserve and went walkabout, raiding cattle and generally striking fear far and wide in the villages. When lions are on the loose they totally control the countryside. They’re difficult to corner and find cattle or other livestock exceptionally easy prey. If they become too much of a problem, they are usually hunted down and killed by rangers.

The breakouts are a result of pressure exerted, often forcibly, on young males by the dominant lion to quit the pride. An alpha male will not tolerate competition and once male cubs mature, they are chased off. However, with all territories in the reserve already taken by other resident prides, the youngsters are often forced outside the protected areas and into the human domain.

These young males, usually brothers, are absolutely formidable and will stay out until they are older and stronger, all the while gaining hunting and fighting skills. They then go back into the reserve and challenge a patriarch for his territory and his harem. And at two against one, they’re often successful.

I love lions, one of Africa’s most charismatic and iconiccreatures, but I wished this pair had chosen somewhere else to do their ‘gap year’. We weren’t ready for them at Thula Thula just yet.

However, my prime concern was for David. While he was on the tractor with its noise and greasy fumes he was relatively safe. But he was looking for an electrical fault, and to find it he would have to get off the vehicle and walk along the fence, sometimes for long distances. I knew he was carrying a small torch but no rifle, and walking in the bush at night unarmed with lions in the immediate vicinity is crazy stuff. If we had heard the lions earlier he certainly wouldn’t have gone out and I was hoping against hope that he had also heard the calls. But Gunda Gunda is pretty noisy and I couldn’t bank on that.

I called Bheki who was at the rangers’ house – he had also heard the big cats – and told