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Laure Honigsberg
The Elephant Whisperers is a 2022 Indian documentary film directed by documentary filmmaker Kartiki Gonsalves. The documentary is about the bond that develops between a couple and an orphaned baby elephant, Raghu, who was entrusted to their care. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film at the 95th Academy Awards,[3][4] making it the first Indian film to win an Academy Award in that category.[5]
The Elephant Whisperers tells the story of an indigenous couple named Bomman and Bellie who are entrusted with an orphaned baby Indian elephant named Raghu. They take great pains to ensure that the fragile, injured infant survives and grows to be a healthy juvenile. A strong bond develops between the couple and the elephant. They adopt another elephant Ammukutty and eventually have to give up Raghu. Set in the Mudumalai National Park in the border of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu states of India, the documentary also highlights the natural beauty of the location. It explores the life of the tribal people in harmony with nature.[6][9]
The documentary follows the story of Bomman and Bellie, elephant caretakers belonging to the Kattunayakan tribe. Director Kartiki Gonsalves stated, "I met Raghu when he was exactly three months old," she added, "I spent about a year and a half with him when he was a tiny baby before this became a documentary."
The team spent nearly five years living the ongoing story of these caregivers and their baby elephant, working in a verite mode of letting the daily life and events of Bomman and Bellie tell the story of a life of an orphaned baby elephant (and his sudden unlikely sister, Amu!).
Our intention in the process of documenting the journey of the protagonists was to create a fully immersive experience of the traditional elephant caregiver mahouts of southern India, in a way that honours the lifestyle and traditions of the Kattunayakan people, an ancient tribal community that Bomman and Bellie belong to who have been living with elephants for centuries.
Join us for an enlightening interactive elephant experience; meet our five magnificent African elephants and learn about their extraordinary behaviour and physiology, observing first-hand how the elephants have developed trust in the kindness and care they receive from the team.
Visitors to the Centre experience life-changing moments when they encounter the elephants, the Elephant Whispers Team work hard to translate this into an understanding of the need for long-term, sustainable wildlife conservation, and elephant conservation in particular.
There are about 220 elephant sanctuaries throughout Thailand. I visited four camps and an elephant hospital. Here are some highlights from the time I spent observing and interacting with those wondrous animals whose memory, they say, is better than mine.
Into the Wild is an awesome place to learn about these amazing, majestic and intelligent creatures. Once you get off the highway, you follow dirt roads to a very rustic jungle setting near a river that gives the elephants plenty of room to roam. The staff is primarily from the nearby Karen hill tribes. Aside from preparing food and feeding the elephants, you can walk with them through the jungle and up the nearby hills, give them a mud bath or brush them clean in the river. The caretakers are always present and serve as a guide. We fed the elephants herbal medicine balls consisting of tamarind, turmeric, banana, rice, sea salt and a mixture of Thai herbs.
While we were interacting with the elephants, the staff prepared a delicious Thai lunch in a hut with a very barebones kitchen. Lunch was served on big wooden outdoor tables overlooking the elephants playing in the water. The staff delighted in regaling us with elephant stories and teaching us about these animals. They enthusiastically demonstrated how to make the herbal medicinal balls and explained how some herbs found in nature that are used as vitamins for elephants can also be used by humans. For example, the guides suggested rubbing a piece of turmeric on top of a mosquito bite to stop the itching. And they suggested using a mixture of lemongrass and water as an insect repellant. They even demonstrated how to make a sudsy soap from tree vines found in the wild.
For an even more in-depth understanding of elephants, consider a visit to the Elephant Conservation Center, a veterinary hospital in Lampang, near Chiang Mai. This is where you learn things about elephants you never would have thought to ask.
Some elephants get serious illnesses, including cancer and can require almost a year of chemotherapy. Others need sophisticated instruments like endoscopes or need to be fed intravenously if they develop periodontal disease preventing them from opening their mouths to eat. Still others can develop osteoarthritis and severe knee pain, making it difficult to stand. The center has machines that help. They even provide botox treatments to relieve muscle strain.
The elephant is an iconic symbol in Thailand; as you travel around the country, it is apparent how revered the elephant is. Traditionally, many people considered them sacred animals, representing the divine and symbolizing good luck. They are admired for their strength and intelligence. Visiting the elephant hospital and talking to the vets gave me additional insight into how important elephants are in Thai culture and how dedicated so many people are to preserving their future. The Thai government is actively involved the global discussion about elephant welfare, how to best care for them and protect them. Government agencies are sponsoring round tables and working with scientists and elephant experts to improve education, review regulations, and determine how to best enforce standards of care.
While spending time with the elephants may not transform you into a full-fledged elephant whisperer, you will have a remarkable experience. And while we will never know if the elephant will remember us, one thing is for sure: we will remember them.
Raised together in a small German circus town, a boy and an elephant formed a bond that would last their entire lives, and would be tested time and again: through a near-fatal shipwreck in the Indian Ocean, an apprenticeship with the legendary Mahout elephant trainers in the Indian teak forests, and their eventual rise to circus stardom in 1940s New York City. As the African Sun-Times put it, Modoc is "heartwarming...probably the greatest love story ever told".
Intelligent, majestic, and loyal, with lifespans matching our own, elephants are among the greatest of the wonders gracing the African wilds. Yet in the 1970s and 1980s, about 1,000 of these captivating creatures were slaughtered in Zambia each year, killed for their valuable ivory tusks. When biologists Mark and Delia Owens, residing in Africa to study lions, found themselves in the middle of a poaching fray, they took the only side they morally could: that of the elephants.
When South African conservationist Lawrence Anthony was asked to accept a herd of "rogue" wild elephants on his Thula Thula game reserve in Zululand, his common sense told him to refuse. But he was the herd's last chance of survival: they would be killed if he wouldn't take them. In order to save their lives, Anthony took them in. In the years that followed he became a part of their family. And as he battled to create a bond with the elephants, he came to realize that they had a great deal to teach him about life, loyalty, and freedom.
The Memory of an Elephant is an epic saga told by an aging African elephant as he makes a last, perilous journey to find the humans who rescued him as an orphan some fifty years ago. Interwoven with his narrative are the tumultuous lives of the family who raised and then lost him.
After apartheid ended in 1994, Lawrence bought the Thula Thula game reserve with help from his partner (wife) Francois,[2] and they committed to changing it from a hunting ground to an eco-reserve. When the Elephant Managers and Owners Association called Anthony to let him know that a nearby reserve planned on killing their herd of elephants because of aggressive behavior and break out attempts, he volunteered to take them in.
As someone who is not familiar with wildlife management, this offer entailed an enormous level of responsibility and care which I would not have expected. First, the elephants had to be kept in a boma, a sort of large electrified holding cage in order to acclimatize the animals to their new area as well as to teach them to treat fences as objects to avoid. However the elephants were able to use their strength to knock over a tree which disabled the electrical system and made a dash for it. This level of inductive reasoning coming from a herd of animals was amazing. It required deducing the effects of several physical events and consequences: pushing over tree -> falling tree in this direction -> weakens fence -> break through fence.
Eventually the elephants were ready to be integrated into the large reserve. However the challenges did not end there. Thula Thula had enemies from both within and outside the reserve. Corruption is endemic throughout South Africa, including in the staff that Lawrence employs. In the first instance, Lawrence and David (his most trusted officer and a fellow white South African) had to break up an antelope poaching ring that was being carried out by the security guards, the Ovambos, who were former soldiers from Namibia. They had to build up sufficient evidence and then bring in the South African police the carry out wide scale arrests. While it all went smoothly, I can easily imagine it ending with a shoot out, all of which highlights the dire security situation in South Africa. We also are given two instances where Lawrence, David, and some of his other (non-corrupt) security staff chase down poaches and have to shoot (non-fatally) some of them. Firefights are not what I expect on an animal sanctuary, but in a desperately poor region with a chance to make significant money from meat or ivory it may be inevitable. Lawrence also has to meet with a tribal leader who wants (from cattle-ranching reasons) to have him killed and he is able to use his sheer force of presence to intimidate his opponent into submission.
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