The Elephant Whisperer

The herd begins to settle, and the rangers are even able to now feed the elephants without getting charged at. Lawrence studies the herd and begins to recognize each elephant’s individual quirks: Nana is dominant and matriarchal, constantly watching over the herd; Frankie is the self-appointed guardian, aggressive in her protection of them; Mandla, Nana’s baby boy, is a born clown; Mabula and Marula, Frankie’s 13-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter, are quiet and well-behaved; Nandi, Nana’s teenage daughter, is independent like her mother and content to explore on her own; and Mnumzane, the old matriarch’s young bull, is no longer part of the inner circle, spending time on the periphery.

Mnumzane’s experience is the way things happen in nature, as male elephants approaching puberty are evicted from the matriarchal herd. They meet up with other bulls to form an askari bachelor herd under the guidance of an older bull. Mnumzane’s lowly status is confirmed by an incident in which Lawrence finds Nana and Frankie attempting to use the young bull as a battering ram to break the electrical fence, before the screaming elephant manages to escape.

One morning after sunrise, Lawrence finds Nana at the fence right in front of their camping spot. She lifts her trunk at him, and against all wisdom, he approaches her. She touches him with her trunk through the fence for a minute, before returning to the herd. Lawrence lets the herd out of the boma the next morning, believing that Nana now trusts him.

Lawrence and David pack up camp after the elephants leave. On Lawrence’s way home, he is intercepted by Ndonga, who claims there is a leopard hiding in the bush ahead, which Lawrence finds unusual, as leopards are nocturnal. As they wait, Lawrence sees an Ovambo guard come out from behind the house, wiping his hands and nodding at Ndonga. Following this, Ndonga lets Lawrence proceed, claiming he was wrong about the leopard.

At home, Ngwenya, the security foreman, meets with Lawrence, telling him he has heard Ndonga is responsible for the poaching on Thula Thula. He shoots the buck, and the animals are skinned by the other Ovambos and Phineas, the gate guard. Stunned by these allegations, Lawrence ponders just as David arrives with news that the electrician is at the gate to inspect the energizers. Shortly after, Ndonga radios that the elephants are at the northern boundary. Lawrence heads down there in time to see a huge acacia tree left uncut near the fence, which Nana predictably heaves onto it. Lawrence manages to get on the other side and pleads with Nana while the electrician repairs the fence. Minutes later, Nana backtracks with the herd and disappears into the reserve.

Noticing that the Ovambos all scattered as soon as the tree came down, Lawrence realizes that the Ovambos had never been true game rangers and that Ngwenya’s assertions about them are correct. He remembers the different mishaps—the wrongly electrified boma fence, the gunshot near the boma, Ndongo’s attempt to distract Lawrence while the Ovambo guard wiped his hands behind the house, and even the acacia now left standing by the fence. The arrival of the elephants has made it unsafe for poaching to continue at night, hence the poachers trying to get rid of them. Lawrence pulls David aside to fill him in.

Lawrence confides in David everything he has learned. They come up with a plan to collect evidence. Meanwhile, rangers will be posted alongside the Ovambo guards at all times, while David himself will continually keep Ndonga company. Lawrence summons Phineas, a simple man who has AIDS and manages to get the truth out of him.

Sobbing, Phineas apologies and promises to make a full confession in return for his safety. He details how over 100 animals have been slaughtered and sold already. With Phineas as the key witness, Lawrence collects evidence and builds a case, interviewing other staff as well. Ndonga and the Ovambos are left unable to continue their poaching activities with the constant monitoring and get jumpy and restless.

Meanwhile, Nana and her family settle in well on the reserve, and Lawrence drives up one day to observe them. Nana catches his scent and turns to face him, advancing with the rest of the herd, but simply walks past his vehicle. However, Frankie, at the back of the line, breaks away and mock charges at Lawrence. He realizes he needs to be careful around this ill-tempered and still-dangerous elephant.

Back home Lawrence gets a call from the dealer again. This time, he asks Marion about the dealer, who reveals they had tried to get the elephants before Lawrence and had already presold the herd to a Chinese zoo. If the animals end up there, their lives will be miserable. Furthermore, the zoo only wants babies, and the adults will be shot.

Lawrence calls the dealer back and asks him not to contact him again. The dealer finally acquiesces and, in confidence, tells Lawrence that the original matriarch who was put down was not as bad as portrayed—she only kept breaking out because she was trying to get her herd to better water and grazing land.

Fresh information keeps popping up as the Ovambos vent their frustration by getting drunk and bragging about their exploits at the local watering hole. Lawrence gives the police full statements and affidavits, but when they arrive at the Ovambos’ cottage to arrest them, they find it deserted. An alert is put out, but the police are sure the Ovambos are probably halfway to Namibia by now. That evening, the mood at the reserve is tranquil, “as if some particularly malignant force had been purged” (108).

The reserve begins to find equilibrium as the elephants settle in and the poaching issue is largely resolved. Lawrence continues to observe the herd from afar, but occasionally mishaps happen. On one occasion, he is caught on foot by Frankie and drops his brand-new cellphone while retreating into the Land Rover. The phone begins to ring, and Frankie steps on it, silencing the call and shattering the casing. Miraculously, Lawrence discovers the phone is still working. He calls up Nokia to congratulate them on their device’s sturdiness, though they don’t seem to believe his story.

Besides the elephants, even the other animals seem to be adjusting well after the Ovambos’ disappearance. Lawrence begins to see a lot more wildlife on his drives through the reserve and finds it astonishing that the animals seem to have realized overnight that the poaching threat has disappeared. Lawrence happily believes that all his worries are in the past, only later realizing how wrong he was.

Françoise joins Lawrence on the quad bike one day for a ride through the reserve. They track the herd and, seeing them some distance away, give them time to move ahead before continuing onward. However, they accidentally find themselves riding into where the herd has stopped to graze, cutting off Marula and Mabula from the others in the process.

Nana takes two steps toward the bike and then backs off, but Frankie charges at them. Lawrence stands up and begins to yell wildly, and Frankie somehow snaps out of her rage, stopping right above them on the bike and glaring at them before she backs off. Stunned, Lawrence drives home, trying to remember what happened to explain why Frankie may have pulled out of the charge. He eventually remembers he had been yelling, “Stop, stop, it’s me, it’s me!” (120). He knows it sounds ludicrous but believes Frankie had recognized him from the boma and spared his life because she witnessed Nana’s interaction with him.

The power on the electrical fence goes down one evening near the western boundary. The Land Rover, too, refuses to start, so David decides to take the tractor to investigate. However, the tractor doesn’t have headlights, and Lawrence realizes David has also forgotten his radio. He tries to watch for David’s flashlight in the distance, when suddenly he hears the call of two male lions headed in the same direction as David. Lawrence assumes they must have snuck in from the nearby Umfolozi reserve.

Lawrence and Bheki decide to go after David on foot with their rifle. They hear the lions close by and move faster, but two miles away, they spot David with the tractor. He, too, has heard the lions and left the tractor on to keep them away. The lions dug a hole under the fence to get in, and together the men repair the fence and the hole, effectively trapping the lions inside.

Lawrence calls the Parks Board section ranger the next morning, who confirms that they have, in fact, lost two lions. The rangers search for a couple of days until they find another hole under the wire fence, through which the lions have presumably left to return to Umfolozi. A few weeks later, Lawrence is driving through Umfolozi at night and stops to urinate. Luckily, he checks the area with a flashlight before getting out and sees two male lions lying in the grass 10 yards away. He has an uncanny feeling that they are the same young lions who visited Thula Thula recently.

Three southern white rhinos are delivered to Thula Thula. One female, still drugged, wanders away from the others, unwittingly close to the elephants. Mnumzane catches its scent and approaches to investigate. Lawrence and David plan to distract Mnumzane with horse feed thrown out of the Land Rover, while shielding the rhino with the vehicle. They finally manage to do so, but the herd smells the feed too and wanders over, just as the rhino settles down to rest.

Lawrence and David manage to distract the rest of the herd too, but Mnumzane, still interested in the rhino, wanders back. Lawrence and David cut him off repeatedly with the Land Rover, which angers the young elephant, and he prepares to charge. Lawrence yells at him not to, just as the rhino wakes up and moves off. Lawrence lurches the car at Mnumzane, which breaks him out of the charge. Lawrence realizes how lucky they have been, as they couldn’t have successfully pulled off such a maneuver with an adult bull.

Frankie’s charge at Françoise and Lawrence has strengthened his bond with the herd: It is a breakthrough not only that Nana did not charge but also that even Frankie pulled out of one when she recognized Lawrence.

A few months later, Lawrence and Françoise are woken up by Bijou, Françoise’s Maltese poodle, growling. It is 2:00 a.m., and Lawrence steps out to investigate. He finds Nana in his doorway pulling grass from the thatched roof. He talks to her, and she reaches out with her trunk and touches his head and face. Lawrence realizes the entire herd is with her. The elephants leisurely stroll around the garden in the moonlight.

Lawrence calls David, who joins them in watching the elephants. They eventually move away three hours later, just as day is breaking, but not before Nana approaches Lawrence once again, running her trunk all over him.

Lawrence wakes up later that day feeling satisfied, as the elephant visit demonstrates progress. However, a crisis emerges over breakfast that same day, when he receives a call that rangers are being chased by the elephants. He rushes to the spot, where the rangers have managed to escape to the other side of the fence. The entire herd gathers, and Frankie appears agitated.

Lawrence eventually concludes that something innocuous must have set the elephants off—the rangers may have stumbled into the herd’s territory without realizing, agitating the elephants. However, the incident alerts Lawrence to the fact that the herd is still a dangerous one and more work needs to be done before he can relax.