I am not a hunter, but I love seeing animals in their native environment. On my recent trip to Africa, I got to see animals in the wild and I captured on camera as much as my limited photography abilities allowed. Having now returned from safari, I am pleased to say that we managed to see ‘The Big Five’ during the course of a series of two-night stays in various lodges in Zambia and Botswana.
Before my trip I didn’t know how these five animals – the lion, elephant, buffalo, rhinoceros and leopard – came to be called the Big Five. It turns out that it was originally a term used by the so-called ‘great white hunters’, i.e. Europeans and Americans, back in the heyday of big-game safaris in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Professional hunters were focused on bagging as many trophies as possible as quickly as possible. Considered a rite of passage for seasoned travelers, everybody from American presidents to European royalty and heads of state came to Africa to shoot large, dangerous animals. While I had seen photos and videos of these five and even seen some specimens in zoos, nothing prepared me for the thrill, and sometimes fear, of being within a few feet of these lethal predators as we sat in our open sided Jeep. The guides reassured us that as long as we didn’t panic and sat quietly, these animals would not perceive us as a threat, but instead as a sort of benign mechanical presence which they were conditioned to largely ignore. However, if we left the Jeep we would be “toast” and probably dead within seconds. To say that I was out of my comfort zone is an understatement, and I was especially terrified of being so close to lions, but I was determined to check these experiences off my bucket list.
While the lions were frightening, the giraffes amazingly tall, the rhinos huge, and leopards quietly menacing, if I had to pick my favorite of the BigFive, it would be the elephants – specifically the African bush elephant which is the largest of all elephant species and sadly classified as endangered. The African elephant has large sail-shaped ears unlike the Asian elephant which has smaller ears. These ears are a cooling mechanism which create airflow by flapping, and which crucially have many blood vessels which dilate and bring blood closer to the surface, allowing heat to dissipate into the air. We were lucky enough to see elephants on several occasions, most memorably at a water hole drinking and spraying themselves. These huge animals often grow to 13 feet and can weigh over six tons. It is believed that elephants evolved from extinct mastodons and mammoths and watching them move and interact it was not hard to imagine prehistoric times when their ancestors roamed the earth.
The matriarchal society of elephants travel in female groups along with a few young males. They nurture their young within a family unit of female aunts, grandmothers and sisters, and we witnessed this phenomenon including small elephants being nursed by their mothers and protected from lions and other threats. There are no adult males (“bulls”) in these families; they only associate with females for mating. The oldest and typically largest female elephant (“cow”) is the leader. Pregnancies take 22 months, the longest gestation period of any mammal and usually result in one calf, which is raised and protected by the entire herd. If the calf is male, it will leave the family unit at about 14 years of age to either live singly or with a herd of other bulls.
Elephant trunks are one of the most versatile organs to have developed among mammals. The trunk is a combination of the upper lip and nose; the nostrils are located at the tip, and the trunk weighs nearly 300 pounds in an adult male. The trunk is powerful but also very dexterous, mobile and sensitive. At the end of the trunk are flaplike projections enabling it to perform amazingly delicate functions, such as cracking a peanut open, blowing away the shell, and putting the kernel in the mouth. African elephants have two such extremities (one at the top and one at the bottomof the end of the trunk, while Asian elephants have only one. An African elephant uses the “pinch” to pick up objects in a manner similar to that ofour use of the thumb and index finger. When elephants meet, one may touch the face of the other, or they will intertwine trunks. I could have watched them using their amazing trunks to eat, drink, cool themselves and interact with each other for hours.
There is a lot more information at www.britannica.com
As we lost Robert Redford recently, I will leave you with an evocative quote from his 1985 movie Out of Africa. His co-star, Meryl Streep, says as the lead female role of Karen: “If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me?”
God Bless America!
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Lesley grew up in London, England and made Georgia her home in 2009. She can be contacted at lesley@francis.com or via her full-service marketing agency at www.lesleyfrancispr.com.
