With the elephants lying on the trailers, we were each wider than a normal load, which meant that our escort at the head of the convoy had to warn oncoming vehicles of the danger ahead and get them to pull off the road to avoid us. Mindful of the crazy accidents that occur on African roads, it was unnerving to have to rely on the common sense of other drivers for our own safety, but the journey proceeded safely. As we slowly approached the roadside stalls, the proprietors and customers looked on in bewilderment, but this rapidly turned to a feverish excitement when they identified our cargo. Whoops, claps and waves of approval were showered in our direction, creating a ripple effect as they passed down the line of stalls and then died away as our surroundings turned to forests, fields or game reserves. The reactions were even more exaggerated as we passed through Hoedspruit. Even for a town in a central game reserve region, this was clearly an unusual sight. The delighted surprise was replicated on the faces of the drivers that pulled up next to us at traffic lights, the pedestrians walking the streets, restaurant diners enjoying a quiet lunch, the shoppers leaving the supermarket or those filling up with petrol at the garage. It was all a weird if temporary form of eminence that once again brought home how privileged I was to be a part of it.
Leaving Hoedspruit, we turned onto the R40 for the final leg of the journey before arriving at the reserve. This wide, open road is the main artery from north to south on the west side of Kruger, but fortunately we were travelling on it at a quiet time and despite the occasional car whistling past us at 70 mph, the road was fairly deserted. And so at last, at 12.30 p.m., after six hours of hard and dangerous work, we turned off the R40 into the Balule Nature Reserve, immensely relieved that the journey had nearly reached its conclusion and we were off the highways. An expectant crowd had gathered at the park’s entrance to cheer us in. These three escapee elephants were very popular within the reserve and had been sorely missed, and as the weeks had turned into months, concern was growing that they might never be safely returned.
Silke’s voice came across the radio. ‘All OK with your elephant?’ she asked. ‘Apparently it’s fifteen minutes to the airstrip where we unload them.’
‘Great, thanks, and yes he’s all fine.’
‘Good job.’
A long, straight, undulating, dusty road lay ahead, flanked by the perimeter fence on our right and the bush to our left. The sun, now high in the sky, gave the road a golden colour, and with the full entourage stretched out in front and behind us, we looked like an important military convoy on the move. However intimidating we might have looked to human eyes, a female lioness basking by the side of the road barely acknowledged our presence. Up and down we went – this final stretch of road seemed interminable – but then suddenly Lyle turned onto the airstrip, a large expanse that opened to our right and the journey was complete: all three elephants, Wayne, Derek and Lotter, had safely arrived, still asleep and completely oblivious to the epic journey they had been on. One by one the crane unloaded them. The crowd probably numbered a hundred now. Admiring their size and beauty, people feverishly bustled around them for a last picture, a final touch of a tusk, or a feel of their skin, and then it was time to wake them up.
Lyle, Johan and Michelle took charge to evacuate people and vehicles to a safe distance, about 100 metres behind us, with the elephants facing the opposite direction. It was more than likely they would just wake up and head into the bush, but the possibility that one might turn and charge could not be overlooked.
Laura, Silke, Ben and myself were all who remained to wake them up. Determining the total amount of Etorphine our elephants had received allowed us to calculate the amount of Naltrexone we each needed to administer. This drug begins to take full effect within about a minute, so it was critical that we injected our respective elephants at exactly the same time to ensure that none of our patients woke up before we had all safely vacated the area.
‘Everyone ready?’ Silke enquired as the three of us stood poised over our elephants, loaded syringe at the ready.
‘Yup,’ Ben and I replied in unison.
‘OK, find your vein.’
‘I’m in,’ Ben replied moments later.
‘So am I,’ I followed.
‘OK, inject.’
I depressed the plunger and 12 ml of Naltrexone entered Lotter’s ear vein to flood his system. Each molecule of the drug would start displacing Etorphine molecules that occupied the opioid receptors throughout the brain and spinal cord and with that he would regain full consciousness. It was time to head to the safety of the vehicles.
Moments later they started to stir. Wayne was the first to raise his head, and quickly rocked himself onto his chest and then his feet; Derek and Lotter were slightly slower, taking several attempts to sit up. Concerned for his friends, Wayne wandered over to Lotter to help him up, and in the meantime Derek staggered up. The three of them took a moment to steady themselves, and then nonchalantly headed into the bush and out of sight as though the last four hours had never happened. As we turned to congratulate each other, I felt a tear roll down my cheek. That moving interaction between those three elephants as they woke up had been a special finale to what had been an astounding and unforgettable experience.
Elephants: fast facts
Loxodonta africana: The African elephant
Distribution: The largest of the three extant species, it is scattered across sub-Saharan Africa, with the greatest populations in the south and east of the continent. The other two species are the African forest elephant (found in the Congo Basin) and the Asian elephant (found in South and South-East Asia).
Names: The male is called a ‘bull’, the female a ‘cow’, and their young a ‘calf’. A group of elephants is called a ‘parade’ or ‘memory’.
Life span: About 60–70 years.
Habitat: Elephants live in a diversity of habitats, from dry savannahs, deserts, marshes and lake shores, to mountain areas above the snowline.
Diet: As predominantly browsing herbivores, they eat leaves, twigs, fruit and bark, but will also eat grass and roots, consuming as much as 150 kg of food and 40 litres of water a day.
Gestation: 22 months, with a calf being born every 3–5 years. Sexually mature males up to 25 years old enter ‘musth’, a state of increased testosterone around mating, which can last up to 4 months at a time, when a fluid is secreted from their temporal glands down their face and they become noticeably aggressive. The female’s cycle lasts 16 weeks, during which time a male will follow and guard her until she is in oestrus. A female reaches sexual maturity at 12–16 years, her fertility decreasing from aged 45 years.
Size and weight: A calf is about 120 kg at birth, growing to about 6,000 kg as an adult.
Growth: Weaning at 5–10 years old, they are fully grown by their late twenties.
Body temperature: 36.5 °C.
Anatomy: An elephant’s trunk is a muscular proboscis formed from a fusion between the nose and upper lip, connected to a bony opening in the skull. It is their most versatile appendage, allowing them to breathe, smell, touch and produce sound. It is capable of lifting a weight up to 350 kg, acts as a snorkel in water, allows them to reach heights of about 7 metres, as well as the ability to perform very delicate tasks such as cracking a peanut, as well as less subtle ones like uprooting small trees. Like horses, they are hindgut fermenters, their intestines measuring about 35 metres. The male’s testes are located internally near the kidneys, making surgical castration a very complicated procedure. Tusks are modifications of the second incisor teeth of the upper jaw, and ivory is the dentine layer that remains when the enamel wears off. Just like our teeth, the majority of the tusk has a nerve supply, and the pulp extends about a third of the way down the trunk. Removing the tusks is therefore as painful as extracting teeth. The poaching of elephants for their ivory has already led to the extinction of the genetic pool of so-called ‘large tuskers’: at the turn of the twentieth century it was common for tusks to weigh in excess of 90 kg, but now most are no more than 45 kg.