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

The fact it was lying down sent alarms jangling. The infant should already be on its feet. All wildlife in Africa stands, albeit tottering, almost instantly after birth, and for a good reason. A vulnerable baby on the ground is asking for trouble, an easy snack for predators. Even elephants, with their formidable bulk, move away as soon as possible from a birth spot where the smell of the placenta will attract lurking carnivores.

I needed to find out what was going on so I started approaching on a slow zigzag path, carefully watching to see how close they would let me come. I got to about twenty yards away when Frankie caught a glimpse of me and rose to her full height, taking two or three menacing steps forward until she recognized who it was and dropped her ears. But she held her position and from her demeanour I could tell she didn’t want me any nearer. Once she was sureI had got the message, she turned back to the baby lying in front of her.

I could now at least see what was going on, and my heart sank. The little one, invigorated by the elemental energy that surges in new life, was desperately attempting to stand up. Time and time again it tried, patiently lifted by the trunks of its mother Nandi, its grandmother and matriarch Nana and its aunt Frankie. But, heartbreakingly, each time as it rose half up it fell back, only to start trying to get up again. This had obviously been going on for a while and my heart went out to the baby and the desperate family.

It was blazing hot and with absolute rotten luck the baby was lying in the middle of the only open space among the trees, right out in the blazing sun. To compound matters, it was also off the grass, lying on hot sand.

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; itwas 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 fromthe 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