African Wildlife & Environment Issue 76 FINAL

FAUNA, FLORA & WILDLIFE

I scrambled to my feet and was hit in the small of my back as I turned to get out of the way. A moment later a second heavier blow sent me flying into the thorn scrub, and before I knew it, I was under Tshokwane's body and his feet were flying around me. "Trying to get out of the way and avoid being stood upon, I clinched like a boxer, grabbing hold of one of the elephant's forelegs and hanging on for dear life. I recall looking at the toenails on his feet and thinking how ugly theywere!Tshokwane stilled, then steppedback and stood on my left calf muscle before reaching down with his trunk, grabbingmy right ankle, and hoistingme overhead. He then slammed me back into the ground, dislocating my hip with the wrenching impact and thus immobilising me. Then I saw one of his huge tusks coming straight for my face and I pulled aside, taking a glancing blow to the side of my head which fractured the skull and knocked me senseless. "I regained consciousness about an hour and a half later, and to cut a long story short, dragged myself to where I could see my revolver lying in the dirt. The Kruger authorities insisted I be armed when they gave us permission to walk in the park, and Tskokwane had torn a camera bag and my holster from a belt around my waist. I fired a distress signal of three shots in the air. Sharna was waiting in the vehicle back on the road, heard the shots, realised I was in trouble, and eventually found me where I lay in the bush. She managed to load me into the back of the pickup and drove me to Skukuza, from where I was airlifted to hospital in Nelspruit. Perhaps the biggest lesson from the event was that a mock-charge can turn profoundly serious in an instant. The only predictable thing about a wild animal is its unpredictability. Luckily, the film was recovered unscathed from both the Nikon cameras I was carrying, despite Tshokwane having stomped on them really well!" Leading a wilderness trail in the Napi area in the southern KNP, we were viewing a small breeding herd of elephants when the wind suddenly changed, and they

got our scent. They immediately took off running in the opposite direction. I had put the trail group on a rocky outcrop, so I knew that they were safe. One of the trail group had an expensive upmarket camera and as we watched the elephants, they stopped with their trunks scenting and did an about turn and charged back towards our position. I was standing in front of the rocky outcrop and shouted and clapped my hands to try and turn the elephants. All of them turned apart from the matriarch with a small calf in tow. At remarkably close quarters I fired a warning shot at an oblique angle into the ground in front of the cow. She came to a skidding halt about five meters from me and showered me in dirt and stones. I had the rifle ready for a brain shot because I knew that I could not let her past me to my trail group. Fortunately, she spun round and ran away trumpeting madly with her herd in tow. The photographer had kept his cool and recorded the whole incident from his elevated perch. Unfortunately, one of the ladies in the trail group had tried to run and caught her foot in the rocks and brokenher leg. She had only two hours before asked for excitement, and she got more than she had bargained for! We had to evacuate her to hospital. When I was working for Dr Gus Mills as his field assistant in the south-eastern part of the Kruger National Park, I took numerous still photos with a film camera with a telephoto lens. Working with lions and following them to see what they are eating in a predator/prey study meant that there are long periods where you just watch lions sleeping. One afternoon I was next to a pride of sleeping lions and the light was perfect for some photos. Getting down to ground level always gives an interesting perspective, so I slowly opened the Land Rover door and lay down next to the vehicle. I had a clear view, of the sleeping lions looking under the chassis of the vehicle towards them, which offered me some protection. Lying on my stomach half under the

15 | African Wildlife & Environment | Issue 76 (2020)