Have you ever had that feeling where you wish for something but know it will not happen? I was wishing that Thandora would connect with the girls but knew deep down it would not happen. It was almost as if Thandora had told my deeper conscious that she was not interested. The concept of her living in a reserve, sustaining herself just did not fit with her.
Standing in the exact same position I was in when I released Bonnie and Thembile, I waited as Thandora tentatively approached the invisible line that separated her holding-boma space from 10 000 hectares of reserve. The gate was open and all she had to do was walk out, but the moment was to big for her and she was clearly not happy about taking this next step.
Thandora does not like elephants
Bully lost interest in Thandora after 15 minutes of circling the Boma. Thandora remained motionless during the entire Bully visit and my daughter was most distressed. She simply said to me in her childlike honesty that Thandora did not like elephants. Thandora seemed to be a human in an elephants skin.
Reserve Life
The holding Boma is situated a few kilometres from the main lodges and within the 11 000 hectare reserve where Thandora was to be released. At this stage I was with Thandora 24/7, and with life returning to normal on the reserve, my support group had whittled down to two reserve staff who relieved me when I needed a break. My team had whittled away slowly, with the behavioural specialists having left, leaving me alone with her. It was important to have consistency in the staff working with her as we built up to the release date.
Who put who to bed?
It was a warm night and the sun set to a kaleidoscope of colours with Thandora setting a lone figure with a backdrop of beautiful mountains. I was checking mails on my phone and drifting off in thought when I felt a thud, and the car jolted and shook. I startled and turned to see that Thandora was leaning against the vehicle, a 4×4. She was using the vehicle as her sleeping pillar. Then she started snoring and I then realised she was just a scared little soul that wanted to be close to another being.
Moral dilemma
It was at that moment that I knew my life was about to change. The moment I reported that I knew a plan was going down to take young elephants from their mothers to enter the tourism industry, I would be targeted. I knew that at some stage I was going to report the facts that I knew of and that hell would follow this. I would be accused, threatened, and emotionally assaulted by the culprits when they found out that I was the whistleblower.
This one simple example is representative of how some of the places get wild elephants into captive environments.
Not all of them, but some of them.
After six years of working intimately with captive elephants, interacting with some of the world’s top vets, meeting leading elephant researchers and being invited to write the code of conduct for captive wild elephants in South Africa, I thought I had a grasp on the subject.
Thandora however taught me otherwise.