Free The Elephant Whisperer: My Life With the Herd in the African Wild by Lawrence Anthony, Graham Spence

other slumbering beasts got the same treatment and he methodically checked each one for injuries. Fortunately none had fallen awkwardly, breaking bones or tearing ligaments.
    The ground team arrived and immediately reversed up to Nana. As the matriarch, they wanted her loaded first. This is done by unceremoniously winching the animal up into the air feet first and depositing the body at the rear entrance of the huge purpose-built truck. Then it is pulled and pushed into the truck by teams of men where it is revived by Dave with an injection of M5050. A five-ton slab of meat, muscle, blood and bone, hanging upside down is not a pretty sight, but it was done as gently and rapidly as possible. However without the specialized equipment this process took much longer than normal. While the larger animals were laboriously being loaded the effects of the drug started to wear off in some of those waiting their turn. When a drugged elephant starts waking up, you don’t waste time hanging around. As trunks started to twitch and elephants attempted to raise their heads, Dave was kept busy running from one to the next, administering additional drugs intravenously into a large vein pulsing in the ear. Once all were aboard and awake, the trucks revved off to Thula Thula. The animals recovered during the ninety-minute journey and
although a little wobbly, Nana again led her family into the boma , followed by Frankie looking as defiant as ever. Their bid for freedom had, if anything, increased their resentment of captivity. I knew we would have a rough few months ahead of us.
    As the capture team drove off, one game ranger shouted over his shoulder, ‘See you soon!’
    This was no polite goodbye. His meaning was clear. He was saying these animals were bad news. He had no doubt that the herd would break out again and he would be back; this time with bullets, not darts. I felt like making an angry retort but couldn’t think of one quick enough.
    The next day the wildlife dealer phoned, doubling his bid to $40,000 and repeating the offer of a tamer replacement herd. Again it sounded unreal, just too good to be true. Again I stalled, saying I would consider it. And again, I felt irritated by the offer. I couldn’t shake the belief that fate had a hand in all of this. Fate had sent me these elephants – I hadn’t asked for them. And maybe some things were meant to be.
    Just before nightfall I took a drive down to the boma , parked some distance away and with great caution walked towards the fence. Nana was standing in thick cover with her family behind her, watching my every move, malevolence seeping from every pore. There was absolutely no doubt that sooner or later they were going to make another break for it.
    Then in a flash came the answer. I decided there and then that contrary to all advice, I would go and live with the herd. I knew the experts would throw up their hands in horror as we had been repeatedly instructed that to keep them feral, human contact in the boma must be kept to the barest minimum. But this herd had already had too much human contact of the very worst kind, and their rehabilitation, if such a thing was even possible at all, called for
uncommon measures. If I was to be responsible for this last-ditch effort to save their lives, I should do things my way. If I failed, at least I would have done my best.
    I would remain outside the boma , of course, but I would stay with them, feed them, talk to them, but most importantly, be with them day and night. These magnificent creatures were extremely distressed and disorientated and maybe, just maybe, if someone who cared about them was constantly with them, they would have a chance. There was no doubt that unless we tried something different, they would continue trying to break out and would die in the attempt.
    It boiled down to this: we had to get to know each other or else all bets were off. We didn’t have time for the ‘stand-off’ measures proposed by the experts.