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An international ban on ivory trading has cut poaching in Southern Africa, and led to rapid elephant population growth. (Robyn Dixon / Los Angeles Times) |
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Reporting from Katubya, Zambia -
Here's how to pitch this (true) story to Hollywood: Ordinary guy named John, ordinary Sunday, cycling home into a setting sun. Monster roars out of the bushes!
John abandons his bike, flees in terror. The creature smashes the bicycle, catches him in a few short strides, grabs him by the shirt. But he slides out of his shirt and falls to the ground.
It picks him up again and he slips out of his trousers. Naked, too afraid to even scream, he scrambles away. But he doesn't get far. The shrieking monster smashes him against a tree.
Camera pans to an elderly woman approaching, unaware of the danger.
Within minutes she'll be lying on the path, crushed.
The Hollywood twist? These people live in a bizarre universe where the rampaging monsters (and there are thousands of them) are protected and the people are not.
Cut to the killer creatures grazing peacefully (cue close-up of gentle, intelligent eyes with 3-inch lashes) along with their unbearably cute offspring.
Of course, to sell it, you'd need to change a few details: Lose the African villagers; make them suburban Americans. And the monster couldn't be that beloved giant, the elephant. Who would believe it?
::
The man killed was John Muyengo, a 25-year-old from a village called Katubya in southern Zambia. The woman was Mukiti Ndopu, highly respected in the village, the wife of the chief.
A neighbor, Muyenga Katiba, 44, saw the elephant charge the young man on that April day. He gathered his wife and children, and they cowered inside his hut.
"The boy didn't even scream," Katiba said of Muygeno. "He just died quietly."
Deaths like these are increasing in southern Zambia and northern Botswana, where people are crammed in with a growing elephant population. There are no reliable statistics on fatalities in southern Africa, but in one region of southern Zambia alone, five people have died this year, compared with one last year, according to Zambian news reports.
Elephants, endangered in Central Africa, are common in the south, mainly because an international ban on ivory trading drastically has reduced poaching.
Today, Botswana has 151,000 elephants, and Namibia about 10,000. In southern Zambia, the elephant population has more than doubled, from 3,000 to 7,000, many of them "immigrants" from Zimbabwe, where poaching and hunting are rife.
The animals capture the imagination because they're intelligent, emotional creatures. They mourn their dead and try to help tribe members who get sick.
But as next-door neighbors?
You pit yourself daily against highly intelligent, dangerous thieves. You go hungry as they eat your crops. You're afraid to send your children to school, or your wife to the clinic. But at some point you have to go to town for food, and you walk the dusty red paths with fear in your heart.
If you get fed up and shoot an elephant, you'll be jailed, because the animals are protected. They're seen as valuable to Zambia, because they attract tourists, bringing millions in revenue.
But people aren't protected. Nor are their crops, or houses. There's no compensation when someone is killed. So people living in elephant country complain that governments and tourists like elephants more than people.
John abandons his bike, flees in terror. The creature smashes the bicycle, catches him in a few short strides, grabs him by the shirt. But he slides out of his shirt and falls to the ground.
It picks him up again and he slips out of his trousers. Naked, too afraid to even scream, he scrambles away. But he doesn't get far. The shrieking monster smashes him against a tree.
Camera pans to an elderly woman approaching, unaware of the danger.
Within minutes she'll be lying on the path, crushed.
The Hollywood twist? These people live in a bizarre universe where the rampaging monsters (and there are thousands of them) are protected and the people are not.
Cut to the killer creatures grazing peacefully (cue close-up of gentle, intelligent eyes with 3-inch lashes) along with their unbearably cute offspring.
Of course, to sell it, you'd need to change a few details: Lose the African villagers; make them suburban Americans. And the monster couldn't be that beloved giant, the elephant. Who would believe it?
::
The man killed was John Muyengo, a 25-year-old from a village called Katubya in southern Zambia. The woman was Mukiti Ndopu, highly respected in the village, the wife of the chief.
A neighbor, Muyenga Katiba, 44, saw the elephant charge the young man on that April day. He gathered his wife and children, and they cowered inside his hut.
"The boy didn't even scream," Katiba said of Muygeno. "He just died quietly."
Deaths like these are increasing in southern Zambia and northern Botswana, where people are crammed in with a growing elephant population. There are no reliable statistics on fatalities in southern Africa, but in one region of southern Zambia alone, five people have died this year, compared with one last year, according to Zambian news reports.
Elephants, endangered in Central Africa, are common in the south, mainly because an international ban on ivory trading drastically has reduced poaching.
Today, Botswana has 151,000 elephants, and Namibia about 10,000. In southern Zambia, the elephant population has more than doubled, from 3,000 to 7,000, many of them "immigrants" from Zimbabwe, where poaching and hunting are rife.
The animals capture the imagination because they're intelligent, emotional creatures. They mourn their dead and try to help tribe members who get sick.
But as next-door neighbors?
You pit yourself daily against highly intelligent, dangerous thieves. You go hungry as they eat your crops. You're afraid to send your children to school, or your wife to the clinic. But at some point you have to go to town for food, and you walk the dusty red paths with fear in your heart.
If you get fed up and shoot an elephant, you'll be jailed, because the animals are protected. They're seen as valuable to Zambia, because they attract tourists, bringing millions in revenue.
But people aren't protected. Nor are their crops, or houses. There's no compensation when someone is killed. So people living in elephant country complain that governments and tourists like elephants more than people.
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