Mainly About Elephants

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32210, 31 January 1970, Page 4

Mainly About Elephants

The White Impala. By Norman Carr. Collins. 190 pp. Photographs. Prince Bernard of the Netherlands (as president of toe World Wildife Fund) in the foreword neatly sums up this book: “Mr Carr’s remarkable career confirms toe old dictum that the best gamekeeper is a converted poacher ... while we cannot all visit Africa, we can all derive both information and pleasure from a book such as this one.” He is referring to the author’s first activities in Africa as an elephant poacher. This period was short, however, and he was soon an official Elephant Control Officer with toe Government of Northern Rhodesia. The book is mainly about elephants —the white impala of the title is given but a chapter—and about toe experiments now going on in Africa to control the elephant population by selective shooting and driving the animals from an area where they are not wanted. Mr Carr makes elephant tracking interesting reading: how to judge their speed, the size of the tusks of an elephant long since moved on, the difficulty of following elephants over dry ground because, for all its bulk, toe animal trends very lightly and its large spongy feet leave

little impression. The author gives facts such as that an elephant needs 16 to 18 hours of the 24 for feeding—small wonder, when it eats 6501 b a day. The hunt and toe kill are tense and exciting. The marauder-bulls, on toe run, get mixed up with a cow herd. “Militant mothers and irascible aunts” forever trying to maintain discipline among an incredible number of calves keep up an unnerving squeal. The gun-bearer and tracker lose their earlier determination; even the thought of meat is overcome by the urge for self-preservation. : But toe bulls move on and toe hunt , resumes until, with the Africans'in the- - comparative safety of a large tree, the Control Officer manoeuvres close enough for “a reasonable chance- of a- brain shot.” The bull drops-instantly. . This is a manly book. It is not a tale of safaris and big game hunting for trophies. It gives a vivid impression of toe wildlife and it tells, by toe author's deeds rather than any sermonising, of the need for conservation of toe fauna, of East Africa in particular. The photographs are interesting, action shots for the most part, and toe book is wisely short. It is finished while toe reader would like still more.