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

leopard hiding under that single tiny bush barely ten yards away. Even though I heard it and knew full well it was there, it was so inconspicuous that I still couldn’t see it. I grabbed Max’s collar and held him tight, and fired a shot into ground. I dislike firing a weapon in the reserve but the big cat was waiting in ambush too close by to do anything else.

In a lightning blur of dappled gold, a large male leopard came out of the shrub and bolted. If it had come at us from that distance it would have been a nightmare, but going the other way he was poetry in motion, one of nature’s most stunningly beautiful creations.

However, apart from that little adventure, I was extremely happy with the day’s events.

After Nana had deliberately let me ‘hang out’ with her and Mvula, everything changed. It was now easy being around them and even Vusi my guinea-pig ranger couldwalk to within a reasonable distance without reaction. A little later I got four rangers to stroll past the herd a few times as if on a game walk and – voilà – we had done it. Even Frankie didn’t raise an eyebrow.

Nana had obviously taken her decision and communicated it to the rest of the herd. And from that I learned another important lesson. Previously traumatized wild elephants appeared to regain a degree of faith in new humans once the matriarch has established trust with just one new human. But it must be the matriarch. My close relationship with Mnumzane hadn’t altered the herd’s attitude towards me one iota, despite the fact that they obviously communicate all the time.

Now, thanks to Nana, guests could walk in the wild near these magnificent creatures, an experience to be savoured for a lifetime. Yet barely two years ago Frankie had tried to kill Peter Hartley the manager of the Umfolozi reserve while he was tracking them during the breakout.

That put it all in perspective. We were moving along well.

However, it wasn’t just us ‘tracking’ them. One evening when the lodge was full and a candlelit dinner was being served on the verandah to animated guests gushing about the day’s bush experiences, Nana suddenly appeared on the lawn right in front of the lodge, herd in tow.

‘Wow, she is a bit close,’ I thought, watching her movements carefully. And with that the cry went up.

‘Elephant, elephant!’ shouted two first-timers who, immediately shushed by more seasoned bush lovers, continued pointing excitedly, while others grabbed for cameras as the whole herd came into view between the lodge and the waterhole. It was a great game-viewing experience but the problem, as I quickly realized, was that they were not going to the waterhole, they were coming up towards the lodge.

Elephants operate on the steadfast principle that all other life forms must give way to them and as far as they wereconcerned foreign tourists at a sit-down dinner round a swimming pool were no different from a troop of baboons at a waterhole.

Nana came towards us without breaking step. I waited until I knew that she was definitely not going to stop or alter course, and whispered loudly to the guests. ‘Let’s go! Go, go!’

This prompted a rush for the cover of the lodge.

But there are always some people who know better. They’re always men, usually in a group, and without fail choose to pick the most ludicrous occasions to ‘prove’ their manhood. As the guests hurried off to safety, one particular ‘big city’ group stayed exactly where they were, lounging exaggeratedly over the dining chairs and feigning indifference as the herd drew nearer.

Frankie looked up and flicked her ears at the unmoving group, who, unable to recognize the customary warning, stayed put. Not getting the appropriate response, she then took a few quick steps towards them, ears flared like a cape and trunk held high.

‘Bloody hell!’ shouted one. ‘She’s charging!’ Chaos erupted and chairs flew everywhere as the ‘macho’ men blindly ran into each other in a most unedifying every-man-for-himself stampede.

Satisfied that she had got the respect she deserved from this errant group of primates, Frankie dropped her ears and fell back in behind Nana as they all ambled across the lawn up onto the lodge’s tiled game-viewing patio. They stood huge and imposingly out of place, surveying their alien surroundings.

The coast was clear, and attracted by the strange paraphernalia of the fully decorated dining table they moved over to explore. The investigation of the delicate fare with their heavy trunks led me to believe that whoever coined the phrase ‘a bull in a china shop’ had never actually seenan elephant in a china shop. Glasses and plates were swept aside by careless trunks and smashed all over the place. Similarly candles and holders were tossed on the floor and then the tablecloth was violently yanked from below the remaining crockery and cutlery, completing the debacle.

Discovering that some of the mess was in fact edible, they delicately picked up and ate every bread roll and salad remnants off the floor, walking over glass shards as if they were paper. The table was roughly shoved aside, cracking open as it did so, and I watched in amazement as first one chair then another went airborne. Tiring of the dinner they focused on the now obvious purpose of their visit – the swimming pool.

‘That’s what they’re here for,’ I thought. ‘They know about the pool. They’ve been here before, probably late at night.’

The swimming pool was their new waterhole. All Nana was doing was simply clearing the guests away as she would do to any other animals so they could drink in peace.

She dropped her huge trunk into the pool and sucked gallons of the sparkling clear water up her elongated prehensile nose. Throwing her head back she delivered it messily to her gaping wrinkled mouth and gave the rumbling goahead to the others.

And they had an absolute ball. Mvula, Ilanga and Mandla to the delight of the now peeking