The Elephant Whisperers of Livingstone
For many of the tens of thousands of tourists who visit the Zambian town of Livingstone each year, seeing an African savannah elephant is the highlight of their trip. Yet in the town's suburbs, a conflict is raging between humans and their elephant neighbours. And in recent years, a combination of urban expansion and successive poor rainy seasons has led to a dramatic escalation.
Every evening through the long months of the dry season, when fodder in the nearby national park is scarcest, elephants trundle over the tangled remains of the park fence and enter the town to raid gardens, vegetable patches and fruit trees. Homes are damaged, livelihoods lost. When elephants are surprised, harassed or confronted, the situation can quickly turn dangerous. In 2024 at least eleven people were killed by elephants in the town. Residents deploy a range of deterrents such as "reflector fences", firecrackers, and noxious "chilli-bricks", yet none of the measures is foolproof.
Amid growing tension and mutual suspicion, the task of keeping the peace falls on a three-man team of overworked volunteers who rely on little more than flashlights, a battered Toyota pickup truck and a deep understanding of elephants in their struggle to keep both people and animals safe. At times they receive as many as 30 calls a night to their elephant incident hotline, and have to deal with herds of elephants up to 80-strong.
The job requires extreme skill and nerves of steel. In the latter half of the dry season, the team rarely sleeps, eats on the go, and takes extraordinary risks, all for a minimal volunteer's stipend. And there's little end in sight. With the climate becoming ever more erratic, human populations growing across Southern Africa, and elephant numbers on the rise in several countries, human-wildlife conflict is likely to become an increasing concern in the years to come.
In the meantime, what keeps the team going, they say, is the close-knit bond that has formed between them, the drive to protect their community, and their shared love of the lumbering pachyderms who share their land.
For many of the tens of thousands of tourists who visit the Zambian town of Livingstone each year, seeing an African savannah elephant is the highlight of their trip. Yet in the town's suburbs, a conflict is raging between humans and their elephant neighbours. And in recent years, a combination of urban expansion and successive poor rainy seasons has led to a dramatic escalation.
Every evening through the long months of the dry season, when fodder in the nearby national park is scarcest, elephants trundle over the tangled remains of the park fence and enter the town to raid gardens, vegetable patches and fruit trees. Homes are damaged, livelihoods lost. When elephants are surprised, harassed or confronted, the situation can quickly turn dangerous. In 2024 at least eleven people were killed by elephants in the town. Residents deploy a range of deterrents such as "reflector fences", firecrackers, and noxious "chilli-bricks", yet none of the measures is foolproof.
Amid growing tension and mutual suspicion, the task of keeping the peace falls on a three-man team of overworked volunteers who rely on little more than flashlights, a battered Toyota pickup truck and a deep understanding of elephants in their struggle to keep both people and animals safe. At times they receive as many as 30 calls a night to their elephant incident hotline, and have to deal with herds of elephants up to 80-strong.
The job requires extreme skill and nerves of steel. In the latter half of the dry season, the team rarely sleeps, eats on the go, and takes extraordinary risks, all for a minimal volunteer's stipend. And there's little end in sight. With the climate becoming ever more erratic, human populations growing across Southern Africa, and elephant numbers on the rise in several countries, human-wildlife conflict is likely to become an increasing concern in the years to come.
In the meantime, what keeps the team going, they say, is the close-knit bond that has formed between them, the drive to protect their community, and their shared love of the lumbering pachyderms who share their land.