TRIBUTE TO A CONSERVATIONIST WHO TRUMPETS THE WAY IN TROUBLED TIMES
AN ELEPHANT IN MY KITCHEN: WHAT THE HERD TAUGHT ME ABOUT LOVE, COURAGE AND SURVIVAL FRANCOISE MALBY ANTHONY WITH KATJA WILLEMSEN MacMillan Review: Barbara Spaanderman
FRANCOISE Malby Anthony is a born optimist and a survivor. A blonde, chic Parisenne, she fell in love with Lawrence Anthony, the South African conservationist.
She was 33 years old and in freezing London at a trade show, when the classic movie line, “Would you mind sharing a cab with a guest going to Earl’s Court?” brought her in touch with the man who would change her life.
First impressions count and all she saw was a red-haired tourist. He was in London to market a surfing gadget. They hit it off and before long Francoise was headed for South Africa, and on a game safari on a bakkie in KwaZulu-Natal. She had never encountered wild animals before, and the experience of being so close to rhinos and the long, powerful necks of giraffes was both frightening and exhilarating.
Thanks to the efforts of Dr Ian Player, the population of white rhino was on the rise.
In 1999, the couple bought Thula Thula Game Reserve, and the first elephant brought there was Nana, who became the matriarch of the herd. They were disappointed that the previous owner had sold off all the rhinos, but before long the animal welfare organisation approached them to take on a herd of rogue elephants.
What they knew about elephants was that problems would be caused by the older ones, and like human children, the younger learn by example. Their herd consisted of two breeding females, two teenagers and three little ones under the age of 10. Delivered by articulated truck, the elephants were terrified, and the Anthony couple knew if they did not get them under control it could rapidly move to their demise by gun. The elephants disappeared and for 10 days the search went on for the herd.
Finally, back in the boma at Thula Thula, Lawrence gained the trust of Nana. “Nana put her trunk through the fence and touched my hand,” he says, awestruck.
In 2012, when Lawrence was away on business her “indestructible husband died of a heart attack”. They had run Thula Thula as a team. Lawrence dealt with animals and Francoise with marketing, hospitality and finances. Suddenly Francoise had to cope with his death, the animals and staff.
So strong was the bond with the couple and the elephants that, as Francoise writes, they “crossed miles and miles of wilderness to mourn with us, to pay their respects, just as they do when one of their own has died”.
Elephants have temporal glands which sit between the eye and the ear, and when they stress this secretes a liquid which looks very much like tears. “The dark moist lines running down their massive cheeks showed that something had deeply affected them.”
After Lawrence’s death, one of the rhinos, Thabo, was shot by a poacher. He came from the Moholoholo Rehabilitation Centre in Hoedspruit where he had been brought in, still dragging his umbilical cord. No one knew what happened to his family. Baby rhinos are extremely vulnerable and need round-the-clock care to survive.
They are born without a horn which is the primary reason they are not killed with their mothers by poachers. Francoise’s plan was to build a rehabilitation centre directed at orphans. Malby Anthony is never mawkish when she describes the day-today trials and tribulations of running the farm, dealing with the rhinos and elephants, her dogs and raising the money and setting up the rehabilitation centre. Rehab centres are “safe havens where distressed and injured orphans can overcome their poaching trauma and grow into well-balanced rhinos”. With Thabo shot, but rescued, Malby Anthony’s life in South Africa was reaffirmed. It spurred her on to launch their own rhino fund. She raises money, takes on administrative partners, not always successfully, increases the security detail, and still retains the joy of living under African skies. “There’s something magical about eating outdoors under the stars in Africa, close to a roaring fire, cocooned by a circle of reeds. It connects the past, the present and the future and makes you feel you’re the only people on earth.”
Yet she never loses sight of her role. Four Paws became a major contributor to the development of the rehabilitation centre.
What choice does Malby Anthony have? “It’s a war out there… A rhino’s horn is Mother Nature in all its glory, and when I look at our rhinos, I see prehistory, power and dignity. Poachers see dollars.”
An Elephant in My Kitchen is an easy read about a difficult subject. It is a tribute to Francoise Malby Anthony that she retains optimism, ubuntuism and love in these troubling times of the destruction of our wildlife.