South African conservationist Lawrence Anthony (known as “The Elephant Whisperer”) formed a famous bond with a traumatized herd of wild elephants at the Thula Thula Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
A group of “rogue” elephants had repeatedly broken out of previous reserves and faced execution. Anthony agreed to take them in to save them from being culled.
In 1999, after camping out, speaking and singing to the stressed animals, Anthony earned the trust of the matriarch, Nana, who touched his head with her trunk. Anthony chronicled this experience in his memoir, The Elephant Whisperer.
In 2003, Anthony launched a dramatic, self-funded rescue of the Baghdad Zoo during the initial days of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Once the largest zoo in the Middle East, it had been caught in active crossfire and devastated by rampant looting. — only 35 of the zoo’s 650–700 animals had survived. Using his own funds, he and a small team secured basic food and water. Beyond the zoo itself, the team rescued animals trapped in private enclosures elsewhere in the city, including abandoned exotic animals and lions from the palace of Saddam Hussein’s son, Uday. Just four months after the rescue effort began, the Baghdad Zoo officially reopened.
Anthony died of a heart attack on March 2, 2012, at the age of 61. Two days later, a herd of 21 elephants, having traveled miles across the reserve, arrived at Anthony’s home. The elephants stood outside his house in a quiet, solemn vigil for about two days before returning to the wild, mirroring how elephants naturally gather to mourn their own.
