What was Mandlovu thinking?
The elephant moved a long way today, right from the eastern boundary all the way to Chimize. That’s quite something for a little Chipfongwe.
It was nerve wracking driving on those clays all day and on several occasions I nearly went down. I would be driving in what looked like normal grassland and suddenly thick black sticky mud.
(I remember when I was in the army with the Mounted Infantry. One day our whole company, about 60 horses, went for an outride. The area was rolling grasslands. We saw a Steenbok on the far rise. In between it and us was a little valley but it was all grassland. Our commander gave us the order to charge after it. 60 horses at full gallop across the grasslands. It was quite exhilarating, until CRASH! In the bottom of the valley, covered in grass, was a seep and mud. All the horses went down in a mass pile up. Only 4 were left standing. Somehow the horses were all fine but there were riders with broken collar-bones, broken noses, broken arms and many cuts and bruises. A real mess and one laughing Steenbok)
Earlier today Mandlovu seemed to be having a bad day.
A bull was at a pan and she charged in butting him out the way. And then when I approached she charged. It was just a mock charge and she backed off.
Then she did something really strange. She went down on her front legs on top of a little bush trashing it before rolling over on her side. This was obviously some sort of display to threaten me? But it also meant she was in a very vulnerable position which she obviously intended. So what was she telling me? Just telling me to stay away or that she’s not scared of me?
It really was strange. And then only a minute or so later she ambled on a few meters past me.
They are just like people, we never will be able to understand them fully. (Take note, I didn’t say women)
Wow! What a day for you! And, I felt fairly sure that as one who has watched “who is bringing home the bacon” in the wild animal world, you wouldn’t make a sexist comment, and you didn’t!
But, what a puzzle. What are animals trying to say to us? Those in the wild; those in zoos or other captive places; Koko, the gorilla who supposedly communicates through
sign language; even my own house cat……
Even though my cat and I have developed our own little communication system. I tell her, “I’m sorry I’m not able to understand everything you are trying to tell me.” I guess we can only look our wild animal friends in the eye and say the same thing. The cat seems to have a resigned feeling — “OK, I’ve tried. Damn human.”
Clearly, the animals you are closely involved with are trying to send some sort of message to you. You probably understand them far more than 99.9% of humans do. Some day, and it will be because of you, or people like you, we are going to find that if we listen very carefully, the animals will talk to us - in their own way.
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