The Good Friday Elephant
Newsweek

The Victoria Falls is one of Africa's greatest natural wonders. But as
tourism and political instability change the face of the region, the
thundering waters are becoming a treacherous spot for the local pachyderms.
By Rod Nordland
By Web Exclusive
Newsweek
Updated: 12:00 p.m. ET April 13, 2007
April 13, 2007 - They say an elephant never forgets. But the one who tried
to cross the Zambezi on Good Friday would have had to be very old to
remember the last time he saw the river running this high. And as he picked
his way across from Zimbabwe, swimming from island to island along an
ancient elephant corridor, a changed world was waiting on the Zambia side of
the border as well: a sprawling five-star hotel along the banks in the
national park. With poachers and hunters at his back, and tourists sipping
sundowners ahead, the elephant foundered and was washed downstream, plunging
over the 130-meter-high (about 430 feet) Victoria Falls, Africa's mightiest
cataract. He wouldn't have had a chance of survival.

Word soon spread around this town downstream, named for David Livingstone,
the white Scottish missionary who discovered the falls during his
exploration of Africa. And the talk soon took on a political dimension. In
recent years, as tourists with social consciences have spurned Zimbabwe
under Robert Mugabe's harsh authoritarian rule, visitors have headed for the
Zambian side of the falls instead. That's been a blessing for the tourist
industry in this southern African nation, prompting a boom in small hotels
and game lodges along the Zambezi. But not all the locals appreciate the
visitors. The Royal Livingstone, a Sun International property built six
years ago in the Victoria Falls National Park at the top of the falls, is
the only five-star establishment here, and "it would be fair to say, widely
resented," said a tour guide. When the story of the elephant became known,
residents said they'd heard that the doomed creature had been shooed from
the grounds by guards firing in the air--and pointed out that a single drink
on the hotel's riverside sundeck could feed a family of five for a week.
They also heard, they said, that tourists were laughing as the pachyderm was
swept over the falls.
The reality was different, to a point. "None of the rangers are armed," says
the hotel's public relations officer, Jackye Nsovo. "Nobody's allowed to
carry firearms. Basically with elephants, they will come toward the hotel
but they don't harm anyone." Nor did anyone shoo the animal away," said
Nsovo. "Elephants never come on the hotel grounds."

Zambian Wildlife Authority (ZAWA) Ranger Kenneth Nyambe, who is stationed on
the grounds of the Royal Livingstone to keep guests from wandering into the
hindquarters of zebras and to protect them from mugging by troops of
baboons, said he heard a commotion from the hotel's riverfront sundeck about
4.20 p.m. last Friday. A crowd had gathered to watch what witnesses
described as a 6-ton bull elephant (medium large, as they go) leading two
smaller elephants, a male and a female, across the river. Elephants are
good swimmers, but as the river cascades toward the falls, the current goes
at almost 25 miles per hour. The elephant got as far as the last islet in
front of the hotel and then swam the channel, making it almost to the hotel
side, according to accounts from several eyewitnesses. "He almost made it
and we were all cheering," said senior waiter Kelvin Ng'andu, who was on
duty that evening. The site is a popular place to watch the sunset, and the
falls are close enough to see mist forming above the precipice, rising
directly into cloud formations. But in front of the elephant was a bank of
sharp rocks, topped by the hotel's electrified fence; the elephant turned
back and tried to swim the channel a second time, but was swept downstream,
constantly trying to swim back against the current.

As Nyambe and Ng'andu described it, a hush descended over the scores of
spectators. "It was a very sad struggle, we could all put ourselves in the
boots of that animal," Ng'andu said. "Some people were crying, no one was
laughing." Occasionally the animal would get a grip on the rocks or a spit
of island, then lose it. The struggle went on for half an hour, with the
elephant screaming piteously whenever it could blow the water from its
throat, through the trunk. Its companions returned the calls, but remained
on the island on the other side. "Tons and tons of flesh and bones, and
exhaustion just occurs," said Isaac Kanguya of the Zambian National Heritage
Conservation Commission. "We just watched helplessly as it went over," Nsovu
said.

At 4:55pm, ranger Nyambe said, the elephant disappeared over the main part
of the falls, tumbling more than 400 feet into the Boiling Pot, as it's
called, at the bottom. "I swear we could see the splash a moment later,"
Ng'andu said. "It's an endangered animal and if we lose one we never get it
back."

The Good Friday elephant wasn't the first to perish that way this year.
Officials at the local warden's office of ZAWA, who asked not to be named
because they were not authorized to speak to the press, said they had three
confirmed cases of live elephants being washed over Victoria Falls this
year, all since the recent rainy season ended. Their carcasses were found by
ZAWA rangers and stripped of their valuable ivory, in one of the gorges many
miles below the falls. "This has never happened before this year that
anyone can remember," one said. The ZAWA officials say the presence of the
Royal Livingstone on an established elephant corridor, plus the high water,
and increased movement from Zimbabwe, were all to blame. The Livingstone
hotel spokesman disputed that the hotel was on a corridor, saying the main
elephant crossing in the area is more than three miles farther upstream. But
elephants are often seen in the dry season crossing even at the lip of the
falls in front of the hotel. Many more elephants are making the
Zimbabwe-to-Zambia crossing now, as well, as Zimbabwe's economic collapse
has led to widespread poaching on that side, and Mugabe's government has
thrown open the doors to big-game hunters in a desperate search for hard
currency from those prepared to pay as much as $50,000 for an elephant
trophy. Such hunting is banned in Zambia. "In the dry season we'll have 300
elephants now, where we used to have five or six," said Doug Evans, who runs
the Chundukwa River Lodge about 15 miles upstream from the falls, and last
week had his gardens and ponds trampled by elephants. His lodge is also on
an elephant corridor. "We just put up with it. But over the long term, we
can't handle 300 animals, it's just too many. But five kilometers [three
miles] inland, there's a big human population, so where can they go? It's a
problem. As always, the wildlife seems to get the short end of the stick."
Evans is often called on to run capture and cull teams for elephants when
locals complain that they're ravaging farms, or endangering populated areas.
"Every time we go out on the river, we hear gunshots from the Zimbabwe side.
I call friends who work with wildlife over there, and they say, there's
nothing we can do, it's political."
Kanguya of the Heritage Commission acknowledged that hotels like the Royal
Livingstone were built on elephant corridors, but says that measures such as
fold-down fences have managed to alter their routes so they could safely
cross. But with the river as high as it is now, the electrified fences of
the hotel grounds are right at river's edge. Some wildlife officials have
called for expanding the national parkland along the river to protect them
better, while at the same time major hotel operators have proposed building
golf courses and sprawling complexes in existing parkland. "It's something
we can manage by striking a balance," he said. "No overdevelopment at the
expense of conservation, and no overconservation at the expense of tourism."

Finding that balance won't be easy, especially if more and more elephants
vote against Mugabe with their feet. The Easter drama didn't end with the
bull's plunge. His companions turned back, but one was stuck on another
island until Easter Day. "That same day that our Lord Jesus died for us,"
said Ng'andu, "that elephant sacrificed for his friends to live." Elephants
never forget. I'm sure when they come back this way another year, they'll
have a moment of silence for him." Elephant lovers might add a prayer.

Will the biggest liar please stand up?