The book 'The Elephant Whisperer' is the self told story of local conservationist Lawrence Anthony
who accepted onto his reserve a herd of rogue elephants that were destined to be destroyed.
In his effort to understand their angst he was able to create a bond with them and in the process
learned from them a great deal about life, loyalty and freedom.
The relaxed breeding herd today that has trebled in number since its introduction is a far cry
from the highly traumatized group that was introduced back in 1999.
David Bozas who assisted Lawrence with the introduction into Thula Thula says these were elephants
that had witnessed several cullings which would account for their mistrust of humans.
He took us to the holding boma where they were held when they were brought in.
On the night we got here it was raining the elephants were late. So imagine everything that could have
gone wrong went wrong; the electrics weren't working. As the elephants were driving down we were
running around madly trying to get everything ready and you can see the fence here.
So it's a five strand electric fence. We put them in here and the protocols dictated to us by the authorities are:
you put the elephants in, you close the gate and you move off. You literally only come here to feed them.
So we did that and that was great. We came here the next morning at about five, half past five.....there were no elephant.
They were gone. They had broken out and were on their way home.
I mean you could literally draw a line between here and the route they were on
and that really set off a motion of just drama for the next few hours. Lawrence arranged helicopters,
he just just arranged everything. The amazing thing though was the amount of response
we had but negative response. We had hunters arriving from all over South Africa.
They heard about these elephants breaking out, they just wanted to come and shoot them, you know.
Lawrence had offers from Chinese zoos, all over the place, to take them and offering a lot of money.
And I think what people must realize is that the context and this is where Lawrence really, I think,
started to show his wonderful character. We were in dire straits here in terms of finance.
I mean Francoise was was running the lodge. She was doing the restaurants.
Lawrence was moving between between Thula Thula and his home which was then Durban and
I think a lot of other people would have taken the money and offloaded this problem but he didn’t.
And I think something resonated within him with this herd and he decided, no, we are going to get them back.
So essentially what happened was we darted them from the helicopter put them on the trucks
and we brought them back here, but KZN Wildlife were very explicit to Lawrence they said: 'If they get out again
we're going to destroy them'. In fact they wanted to destroy Nana on sight, she was the matriarch,
they wanted to put her down. Lawrence, an unbelievably persuasive man, persuaded them not to and
they brought them back, but when we got here that’s when he said to me: ‘Listen Dave
are you up for this?’ And I said: ‘Like well you know of course we are.’ So we decided that
we were going to stay with the elephants 24/7. So we made a camp over here which was great.
It was very simple. I mean we essentially slept in the vehicle; we had coffee and all that sort of stuff in the vehicle.
Francoise would come down and bring us midnight snacks and keep our spirits up. Then we had bales of lucerne
that we had to put into the boma to supplement and we had to throw it over the fence but the elephants
were so aggressive that the guys didn’t want to go close, none of the staff wanted to come here.
So eventually we realized that every time people were here they became agitated.
So it was literally down to myself and Lawrence to feed these poor guys.
So there was this period, it was just under three weeks, it was very violent, it was unpleasant.
The aggressiveness towards us was just.... it was tangible. You could feel it.
Then there was this moment. I mean there was a definitive moment when it all changed like that.
And what happened was, it was in the morning, and Lawrence was feeling very despondent,
because we had tried everything for nearly three weeks; these elephants just weren’t settling. He was
sitting there, I was over there by the campsite where we were earlier and I was making coffee and I looked up
and Lawrence walking towards the boma and I was like ....... what the hell are you doing Lawrence!
She’s going to come through! And he walked up, here’s the point here, she was standing just next to this corner
post here and Lawrence stood there and she put her trunk over the fence and touched him on the head.
It was at that moment everything just changed. There was a serenity, it was calm and he said: 'Right, it is time to let them out'.
I think there was this obvious sense that she thought: you know what this can be home.
we can trust these people. For Lawrence it just absolute relief that everything had just changed for the better.
That's a major breakthrough. I mean, like you said, it's never been done. That was such a connection
between human and wild animal. Wild animal that had been mistreated.
Absolutely! I think the magic of this whole thing was is not about.....of course what Lawrence did was
unbelievable, but you’ve got a family group of pachyderms that accept a human being into their fold.
Now, I like to think if they can work out that we can co-exist surely we need to reevaluate
how we are operating on this planet.
Absolutely. I think a lot of the time as human beings we’ve lost our own connection,
never the mind the connection with nature but here is a clear example of connecting with nature,
connecting with your intuition and exactly what you are saying why can’t we it do as human beings.
David, like Lawrence, was able to bond with the elephants during their time in the boma,
and today Frankie, from whom he once fled, is more likely to seek him out then attack him.
You can see Frankie and the old bull coming up the road here, you can see how she
is trying to get to us but she keeps blocking him from getting to us
because I suppose she wants us all her to herself.
Thobiso, the agitated bull, seems to be pacified after recognising David’s smell and moves
on to join the other elephants who have increased in number from the initial 7 to a breeding herd of 21.
It is very unusual to get so close to Mabula, the notoriously aggressive bull,
but today he seems to be pretty chilled out.
This is Mabula’s son you can see he has the same shaped tusks.
The great magic about this herd of elephant especially that they have come from the real win, and
I think, the real victory that Lawrence had now, is that they are this magnificent viewing herd, a natural,
relaxed herd of wild elephant. And that is the real success and the beauty of everything that we did here.
What Lawrence had done in winning over a group of angry elephants who hated humans and who die hard
conservationists had all but given up on, is all the more incredible when bearing in mind that
this was a man with no formal training in conservation when he bought the land to create Thula Thula
on which he and Francoise set up a lodge and a tented camp.
Lawrence passed away in 2012 and for the last seven years the herd has come to the lodge
each year on the anniversary of his death, an amazing testimony to the very special bond he had with them.