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"There was once a man who worked with elephants. He rescued them from zoos and circuses in the States, where they’d been living for much of their adult life and brought them back to Africa, the continent of their birth.
Of the first three he brought back, the trip involved two Trans-Atlantic voyages on a cargo ship – his elephants conducting strange and unexplained communications with whales along the way – one died in Kenya, struck down by Salmonella poisoning, but the other two – Durga and Owalla – were released into the Pilanesburg Game Reserve in South Africa. Decades after they were captured as babies and taken half-way across the world, they were finally back home and in the wild. After spending time with them, helping them to readjust to their new freedom, he turned them loose and walked away.
16 years later this man received a phone call from the Pilanesburg Parks Department. They told him that one of his elephants, the one once known as Owalla but now just by a number, had been badly injured. She had been attacked at a watering hole by a hippo and had a large gaping wound on one of her front legs. Driven mad with infection, in great pain and with her calf at her side, she was now in serious distress. For days, the Parks Department had been darting her from a helicopter, trying to bring her down with tranquilizers so they could treat the wound and attempt to save her life. It was becoming traumatic for elephant, calf and the Parks staff alike.
Can you help, they asked him, he flew to South Africa the next day. Upon arrival, they took him straight to where Owalla stood. The vehicle was parked some distance away and the man got out. On his own with nothing between him and an elephant that had been wild for 16 years, he walked towards her. “Trunk up Owalla, trunk up”, he said softly as he approached. She stood motionless staring at him. On foot and in front of her massive bulk, this diminutive figure kept talking, kept repeating old circus commands that was once all she knew.
As he talked, she turned completely to face him and lifted her trunk high, Trunk Up Owalla, trunk up. With him standing by her side, she allowed the vets to come close and clean her wounds, without tranquilizers, without helicopters and men afraid of what this crazed elephant might do. Instead, she stood quietly whilst obviously in considerable pain, as they cleaned and stitched the wound.
After days of this, when her wounds had healed sufficiently well and the infection had abated, the man said his farewell and walked away from her for the second time. This story has a happy ending, unlike many others, she continues to thrive in the Pilanesburg as the matriarch of her own herd.
I have been privileged to spend time in the company of elephants and this is just one of many stories that I’ve heard and witnessed about their courage, their compassion, great sense of humour, sense of grief and of course their memory."
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