Close encounter on the
The fulfilment of Jane Wynyard’s life-long dream to work with wild animals in Africa culminated in a tense moment with the largest land mammal on earth.
NELSON, one of the Save The Elephants researchers I’m working with, hisses urgently from the back seat: ‘‘Nobody move’’.
Only inches away – so close I can almost touch her – a wild elephant, the matriarch of the Royal family, looms over our vehicle, a four-legged giant, ears pulled forward, head and trunk snaking back and forth.
Her deep, earthy rumbles send chills up my spine.
While the rest of her family grazes quietly, the dusty red creature fixes her hypnotic amber eyes on the four of us in the jeep, her ears flapping violently.
Her powerful tusks gleam brightly in the late-afternoon sun like two white daggers and we’re so close I can see the little holes in her ears where she’s caught them on thorny acacia bushes.
She stops rumbling momentarily, rolls up her trunk and falls silent – a sure sign she’s about to charge.
Normally the elephants of Samburu – a reserve in northern Kenya – are quite trusting and relaxed around the Save The Elephants vehicles, but we’ve accidentally come too close to her family and are about to pay the price.
Any minute this enormous jeep.
I’m too frightened to take my focus off the matriarch in case the flicker of my eyes makes her charge.
The palm of my hands are red from where I’ve been digging in my nails.
Her head is so large she’s blocked out the sun. I try to change position in the truck, to move away, but Nelson’s warning rings in my ear.
Any movement – no matter how small – and she could charge, so all I can do is eyeball the largest land mammal on Earth as she stares, ears spread wide like a kite, feet planted firmly on the ground, emitting what sounds like unimpressed short snorts from her curled trunk.
And then, after what seems like the longest Mexican stand-off in history, the matriarch suddenly abandons her show of bravado with a dramatic toss of her head, gives a loud snort, steps sidewards and begins feeding off a bush nearby as though nothing has happened. I almost pass out with relief. Welcome to the fascinating, sometimes precarious but vitally important world of Save The Elephants in Samburu – an hour’s flight from Nairobi – where a team of dedicated researchers and rangers are valiantly protecting the world’s dwindling population of African elephants.
I’m staying at Save The Elephant’s tented research camp on the bank of the Ewaso Nyiro river after being invited by the organisation to photograph their work.
As a Kiwi-born, former conservation journalist now working as a wildlife photographer and photojournalist in London, it’s been a life-long dream to work with Africa’s wildlife.
Founded by elephant expert, Iain Douglas-Hamilton, Save The Elephants is dedicated to defending elephants against the ivory trade and to securing them a future in a rapidly changing Africa.
The researchers at Samburu conduct vital research on elephant behaviour and ecology in Africa to provide fresh insight into the life of these intelligent, gentle giants whose lives have been so decimated by poaching.
In Samburu, Save The Elephant’s intricate study of the individual elephants found that of 38 mature bulls recorded in 2000, only five were still to be found in 2011.
Half the mature females were also lost over that time, victims of poaching and severe drought. A quarter of all families were left without experienced females to lead them, leaving the young orphans to fend for themselves.
‘‘During the poaching crisis of the last eight years we lost many of the eldest, most magnificent elephants from the population we know in Samburu,’’ says Save The Elephant chief executive Frank Pope.
‘‘It was extremely distressing to see the individuals we know brutally killed, and see the impacts on their families.
‘‘Thankfully, it seems we may be through the eye of the storm here in Kenya now, thanks to strong collaborative efforts of the private sector and the government wildlife