The Elephant Whisperer: My Life with the Herd in the African Wild

by Lawrence Anthony

Thula

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

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.

Poachers.

nyala

savannahs

veldt

loamy

juggernaut.

boma.’

tyre

mirth.

obsidian

slamming into the fence in front of us. He instinctively

shouldered the concrete-embedded poles out of the ground

Gallic

boma,

vervet

Mpumalanga.

guffaw.

cojones.

puff adder

atavistic

mfezi

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.

kudu

nyala

ablutions

pariah

Ovambos

African game reserve.

eagle

martial

tawny eagle

nyala

onomatopoeic

As I had learned, elephants transmit infrasound vibrations through unique stomach rumblings that can be received over vast distances.

These ultra-low frequencies, which cannot be detected by the human ear, oscillate at similar wavelengths to those transmitted by whales; vibrations that some believe quaver across the globe. But even if those wavelengths only vibrate for hundreds

There is a concrete link between advanced congenital intelligence and long-distance communication. For example, a frog’s communication skills consist solely of primal mating croaks as its pond constitutes its entire universe. It has no need to expand further.

But elephants are communicating across vast distances, which shows that these giants of the wilderness are far more developed than we ever believed. They possess a vastly greater intellect than previously thought. If you doubt this, consider the following: would elephants have evolved

thornveld,

pachyderm

impertinence.

sardonic

chromolaena

petulant

imperial

atavistic

Communication is not the preserve of humans; it is the one thing that is truly universal.

internecine