Plague of pachyderms

Laikipia

‘That elephant is almost human,’ my wife Claire said. ‘That,’ I replied, ‘is the problem.’ I called him Stomper. Like people, elephants are sly and voracious. When I bought a farm I became set against elephants. I love big trees. Elephants are to Africa’s fine trees what gales are to England’s oaks. When a 200-strong herd passes through the farm, they bark-strip trees for fodder. Then they bulldoze them for fun. They may assist with the germination of young trees, but they leave the landscape resembling the battle of Passchendaele. When Britain had mammoths, I bet there were no old oaks.

When I planted a garden our greatest enemy was the elephant. With the agility of racehorses, Stomper and his young bulls leapt over the five-foot perimeter dry-stone walls. They barged around eating everything. At first, illumination flares scared them off. Then Stomper thought he could hide behind midsized trees by sucking his stomach in and being grey in colour. He chased us many times, which was scary. He knocked over all the remaining big trees around the house except three. One night a shotgun was produced and a no. 9 cartridge was aimed in the general direction of his testicles. The pellets bounced off, but Stomper evacuated the area swiftly. We laughed so much at the sight, it hurt. He returned the following night, after our bananas.

Stomper had large tusks. I daydreamed about his ivory being turned into little figurines of Chinese grandmothers. I began to quote the words of Robert Mugabe when commenting on the ivory trade and pachyderms: ‘If you can’t use it, lose it.’ My attitude began to reform four months ago. Young Pokot raiders came along and shot one of Stomper’s askaris, one of his cohorts.