The Unforgettable Tale of the Elephant Whisperer: Lawrence Anthony's Legacy

The book, The Elephant Whisperer, is the self-told story of local conservationist Lawrence Antony, 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 learn from them a great deal about life, loyalty and freedom. The relaxed breeding herd today that has trebled in numbers since its introduction is a far cry from the highly traumatized group that was introduced back in 1999. David Bozas, who assisted Lawrence with their introduction into Tula Tula, 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 I imagine everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. The electrics weren't working as the elephants were driving down, so 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 ellies 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 about five, hoppers five, there were no elephant. They were gone. I mean they'd broken out 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 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 that heard about these elephants breaking out. They just wanted to come and shoot them. Lawrence had offers from Chinese zoos all over the place to take these and offering them a lot of money. And I think what people must realise is that the context, and this is where Lawrence has really I think started to show his wonderful character, was we were in dire straits here in terms of financially. I mean Francoise was running the lodge, she was doing the restaurants. Lawrence was moving between Tulu Tula and his home which was then Durban. And I think a lot of other people had taken the money and offloaded this problem, but he didn't. You know I think something resonated in him with this herd and he decided we're going to get them back. So essentially what happened was we darted them with the helicopter, from the helicopter, put them in the trucks and we brought them back here. But Cazen Wildlife were very explicit to Lawrence. They said well Lawrence if they get out again we're going to destroy them. And in fact they wanted to destroy Nana on site, she was the matriarch. They wanted to put her down. Anyway Lawrence unbelievably persuasive man, persuaded them not to and they brought them back. But when he got here that's when he said to me, he said listen Dave are you up for this? And I was like well you know of course we are. You're in, you're in. We're in. So we decided that we were going to stay with the Ellies 24-7. So we made a camp over here, which was great, it was very simple. I mean we essentially slept in the vehicle, but we had like coffee and all that sort of stuff in the vehicle. Francoise would come down and bring us midnight snacks and you know just keep our spirits up. And then we had bales of lucerne that we had to put into the boma to supplement and you'd have to throw it over the fence. But the elephants were so aggressive that I mean the guys didn't want to go close. None of the staff wanted to come here. So eventually we realised every time there were people 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 by the campsite where we were earlier and I was making coffee or something and I looked up and Lawrence started walking towards the boma and I was like, you know, what the hell are you doing Lawrence? She's going to come through. And he walked up here, I mean here's the point chair, she was standing just next to this corner post chair. 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 to me, right, it's time to let them out. And I think there was this obvious sense that she thought, you know what, this can be home, we can trust these people. And for Lawrence it was 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 re-evaluate how we're operating on this planet. Absolutely. I think a lot of the time as human beings, we've lost our own connection, nevermind the connection with nature. But here was a clear example of connecting with nature, connecting with your intuition. And exactly what you're saying, why can't we do it 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 than attack him. You can see Frankie and the old bull coming up the road here. You can see how she's trying to get to us, but she's blocking. You can see how she keeps blocking him from getting to us because I suppose she wants us all for herself. Tebisu, 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 seven 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's got the same shape tusks. Let's check that. The great magic about this herd of elephant, especially that they've come from, the real win, and I think the real victory that Lawrence had now, is that they're this magnificent viewing herd. They're a natural, relaxed herd of wild elephant. And that really is, that's the real success and 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 Tula Tula, on which he and Francois set up a large and attentive 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.