Kathi's post, Killer Jumbo Shot Dead (CLICK HERE), got me thinking back to my one and only experience with raiding elephant.

OUAT, when I was in Zambia Sept 04, elephants were raiding the villages in the Malama Chiefdom. Each night, they would seem to target a different group of villagers, who were keeping their maize in their huts instead of in a storage facility as in previous years these were raided and cleaned out.

National Parks sent scouts from the local camp to stay overnight at various villages reporting problems, however, they were never in the camp that was hit that particular evening. By all accounts, it appeared as though the elephants knew exactly what they were doing.

This went on for a few days, and each morning we'd drive past a village where all the people were excited and agitated, demanding that we do something. In one village, pictured below, the elephant had dragged off a family's mattress and destroyed it. I can only assume they were keeping grain in it.

The villages were terrified of what the night would bring, although come morning they rebounded well and were their chipper selves. Until it started to get dark again...

I of course was all for targeting the problem animals, but this was not an option. One morning some people met us on the dirt track saying that a man had been killed. He was an elderly man who apparently wondered out, perhaps disoriented (or drunk) and was indeed at the wrong place. After a day, his son went looking for his father, and located him by following the circling vultures. Or, at least what was left of him.

Outraged, the villagers demanded action and rightly so. Later that morning, about a dozen scouts, armed w/AK's plus one .375, proceeded to set off after the bandits. Unaware of this, while stalking an impala for scout rations, we heard the gunfire and thought is was poachers, and went to check it out.

The sharp cracks were from the AK's as they tried to scare the rest of the ele away from a dead cow, which very well may have been the matriarch of the herd. When asked how they knew it was the same group of elephant, the scouts replied that they had tracked the marauding elephants from the area but that there was so many tracks that they could not follow the spore. However, they believed that they had crossed the Luangwa and went back into the South Luangwa Park. So, being resourceful, they found a different group of elephant, and shot a seemingly innocent cow.

The villagers were content as they got some meat, and had a huge bash the day of the old mans funeral. African justice had been served. The end.

Villagers in the Malama Chiefdom on the morning after a night of elephant raids. The woman we are smiling at is reenacting the events. After we left, one of the trackers somberly and resolutely commented "Never marry a woman from that village...", to which they all agreed.


A hut that was torn apart by elephant looking for stored maize:


Another hut hit by elephant and abandoned by the owners:


Anybody else with similar experiences to share?

Good story Bill, thanks.

As usual Bill great reading...Some people think they have it tough when the trash man misses them....

Mike

Bill, I also enjoyed your story and photos. I know I'm anthropomorphizing, since concepts of "guilt" and "innocence" do not apply to wild animals, but you have described an "elephant lynching!"

Let's face it, given the degree of crop raiding and other depredations caused by elephant and suffered by the local population, most of the locals would be ecstatic if the government would just kill all of the elephant, instead of picking off a symbolic one or two of the worst "offenders" now and then.

Then, as you point out, there's also hunger! That will motivate a fair bit of killing all on its own.

If we think about it, we quickly realize that the same logic as these Africans are using caused our forbears to rid our Great Plains of bison and wolves in a very short period of time. Over a longer period of time, such logic also drastically thinned the numbers of large fauna in Europe and Asia.

And just think of how much more destructive power an elephant possesses as compared with that of a mere bison or wolf! Free-ranging elephant, and also lion, for that matter, are a public menace. They are a plague on the local people.

That is why African governments have to reserve some funds from tourist hunters, or other sources, to pay local people just compensation for the inevitable damage they will always suffer from the depredations of the wild game animals that live with and all around them.

If governments adopt policies that value and promote indigenous wildlife, then they must fairly compensate people for the damage that wildlife causes. But of course, as a general rule, they don't. Or when they do, the compensation paid is a fraction of the damage suffered.

This course of action is not only unfair, but because of the resentment and anger it arouses in the people, it is counterproductive.

Protecting wildlife without compensating its victims among the local population runs the risk of causing the people to take matters into their own hands, to kill the wildlife that the government, and we, too, value so highly.

Very insightful mrlexma. I agree totally.

Geronimo

Bill....In reading your other excellent hunt reports, I remember you mentioned how you really worked out to prepare for your 2005 hunt, and in the process lost 25lbs. With the above photo of you in 2004, and comparing it to your photo's of 2005, I must congratulate you on your achievement. You look outstanding!. Don't worry, I am not into any of that "Broke Back Mountain" stuff, I am just using you as motivation to get into better shape myself. Keep up the good work Bill.

Rob - Thanks, it was more like 35lbs doing the math. More challenging to drop and just maintain during our cold winter months…but the "next hunt" to train for is always right around the corner!

Regarding the "short story", I want to be clear, there is no moral to it. It is hard not to take sides in the growing human/wildlife conflicts. It is easy for me personally to root for the animals who are doing what comes natural, after all the people are invading their space. However, when you spend time with the people, like from the Malama villages, it is not quite that simple. No easy answers...