The Elephant in the Room

Photo of the week

Highlight of the week: Kakumbi clinic bids us farewell. Food. Dancing. Company. All good.

Lowlight of the week: Mzungu sulks. A flat battery steals a Sunday morning game drive.

Maximum temperature: 37 degrees Celsius

Rainfall: On our wish list

Kapani is on high alert. There have been four break ins. One rogue elephant is on the rampage. His tusks rip bars out of windows. Doors off their hinges. Soon enough…..there is an elephant in the room!

Tonight, as Keith stirs the rice, there is an almighty crash. We assume the worst. Keith rushes to the scene of the carnage. Ready to hit the elephant with a frying pan. But he is both disappointed and relieved. Our bathroom curtain rail has leapt from the wall. Onto our sink. No tusks. No trunk. No need to panic. It’s just another day in the doc house. Entropy surrounds us.

Elephants draw us. Elephants repel us. A day in South Luangwa cannot, by definition, be good without us seeing an elephant. They have a gravitational pull. Especially for Keith, who has come close to divorce on a number of occasions. He keeps choosing to direct Mzungu, the Honey badger, or the Blue beast, in their general direction, against my better judgement.

It’s Wednesday afternoon. 14:00 hours. We are deep in the park. On a workday. Our commute takes us to a distant camp. To see a sick tourist. We glimpse a leopard as we approach camp. But we can’t linger. We have work to do. Our patient needs care. But after duty, we return to the bush. The hunt is on. The ebony grove entices us. Surely that leopard can’t be far away…

Entering the ebony grove, the track ahead looks inviting. We spot a distant lone bull elephant. Feeding with gay abandon in our peripheral vision. Not small, just far away. We continue the leopard hunt. But the track soon peters out. This is not our neck of the woods. We have come this way before, but always with a chaperone. A guide who knows the terrain. When to press on. When to turn around. The fact that the track that has petered out, means that we are now off road. Contravening Park regulations. Up sh*t creek without a paddle.

A 3-point turn and we retrace our breadcrumbs. But that lone elephant is now on the move. Movious in local parlance. Slowly ambling our way. There is plenty of open ground around us. To our left, and to our right. We decide to stop and stay put. Turn off the engine. Wait for the elephant to commit to his route. Surely, we are not in his way. The elephant is calm. No ear flapping. No ears pinned back ready to charge, for that matter. Eating as he walks. But it slowly dawns on me why this track exists. It’s not a track. At least not a car track. It’s an elephant track. And we are parked slap bang in the middle of where our bull wants to walk.

Elephant behaviour is worth paying more than just lip service to. You can usually tell if an elephant is unhappy. Or if one is about to ruin your whole day. But just like humans, you can read some elephants. Some you can’t. Their actions can be based on an indelible memory. My policy is to mistrust all elephants. I don’t know their forensic past. And I have certainly witnessed their mistreatment at the hands of humankind. I usually prefer to keep big grey hulking creatures in the distance. Keith likes to be up close and personal. Perhaps the headlines and newsreels sway me? Earlier this year an elephant chased a safari vehicle in Zambia’s Kafue Park. A video shared by WhatsApp showed the moment of impact. An unfortunate tourist died. That elephant remembered something indelible. He settled the score.

The elephant comes closer. He eyes us. We eye him. He marches on. I become an ostrich. And remove my gaze from his. Naively, I ease myself down into the footwell of the car. If I can’t see him, he can’t see me. Keith meantime is videoing the elephant. Apparently carefree. But even his hand is starting to shake. The sunlight is blocked from the front of the car. We are in a stand-off. We have nowhere to go. Backwards to a non-existent road? Certainly not forwards. After what feels like an age, our new best friend shakes his head lightly. He lets out a small rumble. And sulkily steps around the car. To continue onwards along the indistinct path. Clearly, he had chosen his exact route. And we made him step off it. Change his way. As he treads his peaceful path, Keith starts the engine. And we head home. I slowly creep back on to my seat. Shaking. Sweating. Swearing. Flooding therapy doesn’t work. Elephant phobia as large as ever. The leopard left incognito. Unspotted and unchanged. She does not change her spots.

It is with a heavy heart that we write this week’s blog. Our work here has now petered out. We enter a period of transition. For 3 weeks we will become secret shoppers. Explore what it’s like to live as a tourist in our Valley. Call it a holiday if you like. But the last 4 months have been so intense that we need not feel bashful about enjoying the bounty of our Eden. Our Valley will pay us back. In carnivores hopefully. And small elephants. Distant ones. Father Ted style.

So, let’s find an excuse to talk about the elephant. We surely have room for it here. We will miss our misrepresented friends when we return to Blighty’s November weather. Our Kapani home is a waypoint for elephants. Part of their circuit as they head towards ill-gotten gains. They amble through camp, heading from the river. Towards the fields and the orchards. Dip marks betray their past.  Anarchy on their minds. They know that they are unwanted guests near the village crops. They look shifty.

Elephants to the South of the Luangwa river are shifty for good reason. They are in conflict. In conflict with humans. Their historical access rights to these lands overwritten. By previous culls and trade in elephant meat and tusks. And now photographic safaris are in the ascendancy, elephants regain value. A modicum of protection. Of freedom. The elephants don’t exactly get a free pass. But they are unlikely to be shot in Mfuwe village. The elephants remember that the trees to the South of the Luangwa river belong to them. And they find fast food irresistible.

It has been a hard year. For animals and village people alike. The lack of rain has meant that the bush has less bounty. A 7-tonne elephant needs to eat 350 kg of food per day. And drink 120 litres of water. We all like fast food once in a while. And a single elephant can pilfer a villager’s livelihood in an hour. Is our hungry friend going to walk nonchalantly by, and leave a field of thriving maize? Or will he let Prudence and Prosper keep their crop of delicious mangos? That maize and those mangos have alternate futures. Dependent on the vigilance of Prosper. And the determination of a hungry elephant on a supermarket sweep.

There is a circle to square. A stone to bleed. There has to be a way to allow elephants and humans to live side by side. Cheek by jowl. It’s crucial that we try. We have already almost annihilated this precious iconic species. Within the last 100 years, 10 million African elephants have become 425,000. Barely enough to fit into a mini. Poaching. Ivory. Food. Expanding human settlement. Loss of natural animal corridors. Loss of elephant habitat. Conflict is occurring more and more. Ten people have died in Livingstone this year due to elephants. In Mfuwe, we are faring a little better. Only 2 people so far.

We have several organisations in our village to support villagers. Without antagonising the big fellas. Conservation South Luangwa, Chipembele and Project Luangwa lead the way. Manage human-wildlife conflict. Educate villagers. Stop children throwing stones and chasing elephants. They champion acceptable ways to deter elephants. Electric fencing. Chilli plants. Bees.

You don’t see many elephants in Yorkshire. So we will sneak a little elephant into our bags to remind us of our Kapani home. Not a real elephant you understand. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species would have something to say about that. But instead an effigy. A wrought iron facsimile destined for a wall in Kwetu. As you can see we have become a little obsessed by elephants. Elephants and Valley doctors are becoming increasingly intertwined.

For better, or for worse, we have been involved in caring for 3 orphaned elephants now. All orphans are precious in our books. But there is something totally beguiling about an orphaned elephant. Especially the ones that are so diddy that they don’t know what to do with their trunks.

In our first year as Valley docs, we were called to see Kakumbi – a 2 year old elephant, found abandoned in a deep pit was Cheyne-Stoking (the death rattle) when we arrived. https://keithandginnybirre.wixsite.com/intoafrica/post/doctors-doolittle The medics and vets amongst you will recognise the herculean challenge we faced in trying to bring Kakumbi back from the brink of death. We have an appalling record of providing veterinary care to date. In our defence nobody calls the doctor to a dying elephant until the real vet has exhausted all the realistic possibilities of resuscitation. And only then when the vet is otherwise indisposed. And our measly intravenous fluid collection is not designed to deal with a 200 kg elephant who is 10% dehydrated. Do the maths.

Despite our best efforts, Kakumbi died. We both wept. We wept again this year when an unnamed, one week old elephant, died. Soon after we had tried to feed him. We presume that he died of a broken heart. A common cause of death for a lonely, bereft, oh-so-young elephant. But there are success stories too. Our friends Anna and Steve Tolan, founders of the Chipembele Wildlife Education Trust have nurtured their share of orphaned elephants over the 25 years since they set up their wonderful labour of love. I say labour of love because Anna and Steve have invested their love in the people and the wildlife of South Luangwa. They empower local people to champion the importance of balancing that crucial relationship between man and beast. They harvest the value of the natural world to a community that exists to serve nature and tourism. The walls of the classroom at the Chipembele education centre are adorned with success. Individuals who have been sponsored by donations to Chipembele. Individuals who are now leading lights in conservation and education.

But I digress. Anna and Steve care for orphaned animals. Only to reintroduce them to the wild. Elephants are more deserving of their support than most orphans, since typically they only become orphans at man’s whim. Human animal conflict is the only reason that Anna and Steve can step in, in locum parentis.

Mother elephants never willingly abandon their babies. The mother may have been poached for her ivory. Or for her meat. A family of elephants might have be disturbed in a village whilst stealing food. They run out of fear. The baby gets left behind. Young elephants need maternal milk for the first 2 years of their life. Beyond this, they need guidance and a family around them to grow and thrive. Anna and Steve offer a foster service for abandoned elephants. Short term. As quick as a flash, a keeper comes from the main elephant orphanage in Lusaka. Chipembele has a holding facility, ideal for the elephant, and for their new keeper-cum-foster-person, to bond and thrive together. Prior to a tricky road-trip to Lusaka. Or prior to a magical flight. Some of those little fellas with big ears can even fly to Lusaka! Dumbo eat your heart out.

Imagine sitting in a classroom full of 20 other people who also revere elephants. People whose working lives revolve around elephants and other bush inhabitants. If that is not exciting enough, we are all present at a Chipembele educational day, led by Anna and Liz O’Brien. Liz is a world-renowned elephant expert. We are in the company of legends, and about to develop our veterinary skills. Conservation groups. Wildlife rangers. Vets. Conservation wildlife Educationalists. All people who are on the front line. People called when an orphaned animal is found. That includes us! We concentrate on elephants.

This is a resuscitation course with a difference. A BASICs or first aid course for those who are likely to be available when a baby elephant loses it’s mum. We are of course no adequate substitute for a mother elephant. But we are all willing to step into the breech.

Step one: assess the situation.

How sick is your elephant?

We touch on normal ranges:

• How many breaths per minute does an elephant take?                  6-10
• How do you count this?                                                                                      With a blade of grass at the end of its trunk.
• What happens to an elephant’s heart rate when it lies down?    It goes up – counter to what you might expect.
• How much of what fluid should we give in the first stage?            10 litres of ORS.

In a previous life, I managed young people with eating disorders. I became a bit of an expert on re-feeding syndrome. This week, I learnt that starving elephants get refeeding syndrome too. The principles of caring for a starved elephant are the same as the principles of caring for a starved human. I can already see real potential for my future career as a better vet. Things can of course only get better when your first two veterinary patients expire within hours of receiving your care.

Our wary love of elephants means that we are now in effect elephant paramedics. On call, and now trained, to give appropriate first aid, to a needy abandoned hairless mammoth. We know to give the big ones a wide berth, but we now also know how to approach and assess a lonesome orphan.

Father Ted knew this too: It’s all a matter of perspective. The small ones are large, when they are up close and personal. They get right under your skin.

Large - or near?

Small - or far away?

Learning about elephants

Even the baboons are rapt with Liz's teaching

Party time with the bosses - Saulos and Kaseba