THE ELEPHANT NEVER FORGETS

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 167, 16 July 1937, Page 8

THE ELEPHANT NEVER FORGETS

It is Only by an Organised Killing Expedition That Raiding Elephants Can be Driven Away From Villagers’ Crops Into The Uncultivated Areas

jyjANY PEOPLE have probably had first spring lettuces eaten by rabbits; ami probably did not feel too kindly disposed towards those rabbits, says Mr. M. T. Stephens in the Listener. Yet in parts of Africa raiding elephants wall come down and destroy the entire crops of an African villager, representing till the next seed-time all his food and all his wealth. This is something rather more than the nibbling of a few lettuces: it is the ruin and starvation of hundreds of human beings. Obviously something has to be done. Elephant shooting for private profit as in the days of the great professional hunters has been stopped. You may only shoot two or three elephants in the year at the present time. Now all the while the herds are increasing at tne rate of about live per cent, per year. And since wo brought peace and comparative prosperity to the African native the population lia-s risen enormously and tivation. Tho result is that the herds have to ration. Tho result is that the herds have to be reduced in size and kej)t away from cultivated areas, as far as possible. To-day tho Government “controls” elephants, shooting them when necessary and taking what profit accrues from the sale of ivory, a fairly largo one. This practice has been most fully developed in Uganda, and to a somewhat lesser extent in Tanganyika, and it is about to be introduced into Northern Rhodesia. It has two very definite advantages over the private shooting of elephauts. It eliminates tho element of killing for profit, the bugbear of all preservationists. And it means that control can bo applied as and where it is wanted, and viewed as a whole, not spasmodically by individuals going here and there trying to shoot tho big bulls. I want to describe to you a good day carried out by an expert, Captain E. J. D. Salmon, one of the Game Bangers of Uganda. My own unaided efforts might bo as stirring and would probably be as amusing, but they would not be half as instructive, for Salmon is to elephant shooting what Michelangelo was to painting, Shakespeare to letters. and Beethoven to music. We were on this occasion out in Bunyoro, a part of Uganda where there is a lot of trouble with elephants from time to time. Quite soon we got a losson in what a herd of elephants can do. Messengers, urgent pressing messengers, came an at regular and frequent intervals telling us to (Tome and come quickly. The next morning we were on what the police report call “the scene of the outrage,” and we got an object lesson in what an elephant herd can do. Wo were greeted by the lamentations of a dozen miserable natives, on whose little patch of cultivation some forty elephants had been making merry all night. It ds completely wiped out: trampled down as if it were Passehendaelo. To those natives that little patch represented six months’ food and livelihood. We set off in pursuit. This was to be Salmon’s day. lie had promised to show me how control could be effectively and efficiently carried out; for we must near in mind that elephant shooting is one of tho mo-st highly finished arts in the world. To mention just two points: the elephant has the most acute sense of smell, and one puff of wind up to a thousand yards away may set him off. After all he has the longest

nose in tho world. On the same principle I always think what a splendid sense of taste a giraffe must have. Then again you may think that if you are shooting at an elephant }'ou are trying to hit something the size of an elephant. You aro not. You aro trying to hit something rather smaller than the ordinary sort of cushion. For unless you hit him in the heart or the brain your shot is worse than useless. No other target is any good. What Salmon wanted to show mo was how to try and “stall” or stampede tho

cloud of ashes to see if the wind was still right—bloving generally from the elephants to us. Fortunately it was. Silently we approached to within thirty yards of that bull; wo began to make out the vague shapes of others behinft him. The herd was still unsuspecting. And twenty to thirty y ards is the right range to kill elephants. Suddenly Salmon fired two shots at one of the further elephants on the flank, and almost before I realised that tho acute silence had been broken he had changed to his second rifle, threw it up like a shot-gun, and the giant in front of us suddenly buckled up, back legs first, and came crashing down. It was as if ono was standing by the Queen Anne statue, and the pillars of St. Paul’s subsided and let down the dome slowly and deliberately to the ground. Salmon fired again and another flanker dropped the three outside elephants ail uead, shot through tho brain, tho threo which would have led tho getaway. I should perhaps add here that if an elephant is shot through the heart he gallops about sixty yards before he drops. If he is shot in or near the brain ho falls at once, front legs first if stunner, back legs first if killed. To return to our herd. As the flankers dropped there took place the most perfect “stall” or stampede imaginable. Tho whole herd, moved by some unknown gregarious impulse seemed to close on the centre, and there in front of us was a seething mass of packed elephant sterns, all struggling to break away, and yet only wedging themselves the tighter by the effort. Salmon ran round to a Hang, firing as he went perhaps ten shots. All round elephants seemed to De dropping on us from the sky. They are so enormous, looming up above you at that point blank range. All tho time one is looking up. Salmon was ahooting with precision and an unholy calm. Meanwhile 1 suddenly remembered that I, too, was carrying a rifle. It had been arranged that on this particular day 1 was not to shoot till Salmon had opened the tall to my satisfaction. 1 ran round to the flank. An elephant was lumbering off about ten yards away. I fired —both barrels. He collapsed. I turned round to take my second rifle from the native who was carrying it. He was only a temporary gun-bearer, and he had made a discreet retreat from tho Beene of active operations. I don’t blame him. I reloaded, but 1 had to fire three shots before I found the brain of the next elephant, and we both, Salmon and I, ran on after the herd which had straightened out from the original jam, and was broken and scattering. We followed for two hundred but Salmon did not want to shoot more. He is no butcher, and he had taught that herd a real lesson. It had been a wonderful demonstration of what an expert could do. Now let me tell the aftermath of that story. The herd travelled twenty miles that night crossing the main road, where we found their tracks. Tho night after, still travelling, they raided a village forty miles away, and the next day they retired into the waste area, to which the game staff was trying to restrict them, so our piece of control was a really effective one, and probably the kindest thing for that herd in tho long run, saving them much intermittent harry-

A Veteran of the Jungle herd. This means shooting the leaders or outside elephants of the herd, so that the remainder panic and can be taught a lesson before they make off. We soon found tho great broad track of the elephants, and off wo set down it at a steady pace. There in the gap in the trees, perhaps sixty yards in front, was a bull elephant slowly nodding his head, the picture of dignified contempplation. Salmon was carrying, as he always does an old sock in his hand from which every few minutes or so he shook a little