ou know that scene in where Doctors Grant and Sattler explore the island in Jeeps? To a swelling John Williams score, the camera pans from gaping jaws to astonished eyes as the scientists first encounter living dinosaurs. That’s how I felt the first time I saw wild elephants. We students sat squished in the back of a Land Rover Defender, our sweaty legs tangled between bench seats, as we travelled a dirt track in Laikipia, Kenya. Through the dusty rear glass, I glimpsed a herd of grey behemoths – impossibly large, improbably graceful – among picturesque umbrella thorns. In that moment, childhood nature magazines and documentaries became
