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Biography & Autobiography. Nature. Nonfiction. When South African conservationist Lawrence Anthony was asked to accept a herd of "rogue" wild elephants on his Thula Thula game reserve in Zululand, his common sense told him to refuse. But he was the herd's last chance of survival: they would be killed if he wouldn't take them. In order to save their lives, Anthony took them in. In the years that followed he became a part of their family. And as he battled to create a bond with the elephants, he came to realize that they had a great deal to teach him about life, loyalty, and freedom.The Elephant Whisperer is a heartwarming, exciting, funny, and sometimes sad account of Anthony's experiences with these huge yet sympathetic creatures. Set against the background of life on an African game reserve, with unforgettable characters and exotic wildlife, it is a delightful book that will appeal to animal lovers and adventurous souls everywhere.… (more)
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I enjoyed this narrative immensely.
The subtitle says it all: My Life with the Herd in the African Wild
Opening lines to Prologue: In 1999, I was asked to accept a herd of troubled wild elephants on my game reserve. I had no inkling of the escapades and adventures I was about to embark upon. I had no
This is a fine memoir of the author’s experiences. Anthony is a conservationist and works tirelessly to preserve the wild animals on his reserve and elsewhere. I was enthralled by his stories of this time. While the elephants are certainly central to the tale, he also includes details of the Zulu culture in post-apartheid South Africa, information about other endangered species (White Rhino especially), and even a tidbit on his work to save the animals at the Baghdad Zoo as Sadam Hussein’s regime fell. There is plenty of humor as well as harrowing danger, but what really comes across is his deep love of these magnificent animals. The story of Mnumzane (the bull elephant) just about broke my heart. Eight pages of color photographs are included in the paperback.
The audio book is narrated by Simon Vance, who is rapidly becoming one of my favorite audio performers. His facility with various accents, as well as his acting ability really breathes life into the story. I felt as if I were sitting by a campfire in the bush, hearing Anthony recount his adventures.
Lawrence Anthony bought a game reserve in South Africa and shortly after, rescued a herd of troublemaking elephants. He was able to calm them down and even befriend them. As the elephants become more well-behaved, his reserve grew with more and more wildlife and stories (good and bad,
I loved most of this! I listened to the audio, and did lose interest a few times, mostly during parts that weren’t about the animals, and I ended up sobbing as I walked from my work to the train listening at the end of the book!
Anthony's descriptions of 'communicating' with his herd do not devolve into the unbelievable or anthropomorphizing - though many of his brink-of-disaster stories do sound almost unbelievable; still, I feel they were too crazy for someone to have risked making up. His descriptions of the Zulus who inhabit the country with him are fairly even-handed; they are portrayed as individuals, but it's always a fine line, and they do always feel a bit "other".
Anthony develops relationships with this herd because they come to him with problems that must be overcome - they need to learn to trust him and accept his reserve as their new home. Ultimately, though, the saddest part of the book is the end where we are reminded rather suddenly that Anthony is really running a game reserve, not a petting zoo. His reserve is a place for wild animals to live wild. Thus, he develops no relationships with the newer additions to the elephant family. Presumably he does not even give names to the new babies anymore. That felt sad, but right.
This book covers the time from that first phone call asking him if he wanted a herd of elephants who kept breaking out of their current home and making trouble. Common sense said he should refuse, but saying no would mean the deaths of all nine elephants. He said yes.
We follow the scramble to get ready for the elephants, the shock of learning that the herd matriarch and her youngest daughter had been shot anyway, the elephants' breakout from their holding pen almost immediately on arrival. Anthony battles crisis after crisis, including the discovery that his own staff of guards are involved in poaching, while slowly and painstakingly building a relationship with the new matriarch, Nana, and getting the traumatized herd to recover and accept their new home. Over the nest several years, there is both success and heartbreak, for Anthony and the elephants.
Anthony tells an absorbing story, with humor and insight as well as the wide-ranging emotions that often accompany dealing with the highly intelligent, badly traumatized, five-ton elephants. This is a story well worth your time.
Highly recommended.
I bought this book.
First off, understand that the title of this book is highly misleading. This story is actually a balance of wondrous and woeful perspective of the reality of physical life, especially in the latter chapters, depicted through fascinating experiences. There is
"In our noisy cities we tend to forget the things our ancestors knew on a gut level: that the wilderness is alive, that its whispers are there for all to hear – and to respond to."
"Living rough in the wilderness is a salve for the soul. Ancient instincts awaken; forgotten skills are relearned, consciousness is sharpened and life thrums at a richer tempo."
"Under the microscope, living organisms are just a soup of chemicals and minerals. But what about what the microscope doesn’t see? That life force, the vital ingredient of existence – from an acacia to an elephant – can it be quantified?
"My herd showed me that it can. That understanding and generosity of spirit is alive and well in the pachyderm kingdom; that elephants are emotional, caring and extremely intelligent; and that they value good relations with humans.
"This is their story. They taught me that all life forms are important to each other in our common quest for happiness and survival. That there is more to life than just yourself, your own family, or your own kind."
The story can be seen in one vein as the age old struggle between the primal savagery of trigger happy men killing for the thrill of it, and wiser minds trying to protect wildlife, knowing humankind's future is at stake. It perplexes me how our blinkered cognitive processes exhibit such vagaries, even though knowing of the fickleness of evolution's trials and the influences of subjective experiences.
"It was something I simply couldn’t fathom … what type of person would shoot a terrified teenage elephant, and a female at that? For a tawdry fireside trophy? For the pleasure of the kill? And what kind of reserve owner would hawk a vulnerable young animal for such a reason?"
The message comes through loud and clear, that to truly protect any life form is to protect all by living in respectful coexistence with all life forms in the natural world model of life fueled by life. In such, death and the recycling of essential elements is a necessary precursor to new life in Earth's closed system of physical life.
"Death is an integral part of life. This is the dominant bush reality and I like it that way. It’s natural, uncluttered by materialism or artificial ethics and it helps me to maintain a wholesome perspective of my own existence and that of my friends and family."
Yet, in this book I was also amazed by the cognitive processes of the wildlife, especially the elephants. Whatever the explanations, it is beyond doubt that these creatures have senses far superior to ours, and more acute life forces. What have we lost in our human bubble?
"We also have to understand that there are things we cannot understand. Elephants possess qualities and abilities well beyond the means of science to decipher. Elephants cannot repair a computer, but they do have communication, physical and metaphysical, that would make Bill Gates’s mouth drop open. In some very important ways they are ahead of us."
Lest one get the wrong idea, reading this story is definitely not wading through didactical musings. It is for the most part presented as an engrossing adventure in an edge of the seat manner. Could you retain your cool with a charging bull elephant bearing down on you, or for that manner on finding yourself face to face with a black mamba, or even confront poachers that would happily shoot you? What is depicted are varying mesmerizing situations the author has experienced that the reader may glean the relevance of. The occasional opining is hardly noticed as such.
"Every wild thing is in tune with its surroundings, awake to its fate and in absolute harmony with the planet. Their attention is focused totally outwards. Humans, on the other hand, tend to focus introspectively on their own lives too often, brooding and magnifying problems that the animal kingdom would not waste a millisecond of energy upon. To most people, the magnificent order of the natural world where life and death actually mean something has become unrecognizable."
In closing I should note that in March of 2012 the author Lawrence Anthony passed away. As reported by the CBC on July 25, 2012, "After his death, although they were not alerted to the event, a group of wild elephants Anthony helped to rescue and rehabilitate travelled to his house in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal. They stood around the house in an apparent vigil for two days, and then dispersed. Today, the elephants are 'completely wild and doing fine' according to Graham Spence, Anthony's brother-in-law and co-author of three books."
The imaginative concoctions of too much of storytelling these days don't elicit anyway near the real life emotional swings and metaphysical aspects inherent in this book.
“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.” ― Henry David Thoreau
Fascinating memoir of the adventurous life of wildlife conservationist Lawrence Anthony, head of Thula Thula game reserve in Zululand, Kwa-Zulu Natal province, South Africa. In the early years of his custodianship of Thula Thula, he took in a herd of troubled elephants who were about to be destroyed. This is the story of how he developed a special relationship with these animals to help them get over their belligerent dealings with humans. He lived in the bush next to them as they adapted to life in the wilds of the reserve. It shows how humans and animals can form close bonds and how animals communicate in ways we do not always understand.
This book is so much more than a “book about elephants,” though they play a starring role. It covers interactions with a wide range of other wildlife, including the leopard, hyena, kudu, lion, rhino, cape buffalo, crocodile, and more. His pet dogs are featured, and human interactions are not neglected. It was particularly interesting to read of his dealings with poachers, rangers, officials, and Zulu leaders. In fact, it includes a great deal of history, culture, traditions, spiritual beliefs of the neighboring Zulu tribes, as well as the impact of the former apartheid policies.
This book contains story after story of wild adventures that take place over an undefined number of years, which are well-chosen for their level of significance, adventure, danger, or comedic effect. For example, there are stories of trying to herd a mfezi (Mozambican spitting cobra) out of his and his wife’s bedroom and an escaping cape buffalo that chases one of the reserve staff around a vehicle. The book flows in a “never-a-dull-moment” style, though the writing is choppy at times and the book is really more a series of short episodes rather than single a cohesive story. The elephants are the “characters,” and each has a distinct personality. The author employs humor but does not shy away from the gut-wrenching and sad parts of the life in the African wilderness.
I was so enthralled that I kept telling my friends and family about these anecdotes and was inspired to do further research. This book will appeal to anyone with a passion for animals, concern about wildlife conservation, or desire to find out what it is like to operate a game preserve in Africa.
“But perhaps the most important lesson I learned is that there are no walls between humans and the elephants except those we put up ourselves, and that until we allow not only elephants, but all living creatures their place in the sun, we can never be whole ourselves.” – Lawrence Anthony