The Elephant Whisperer by Lawrence Anthony with Graham Spence

This is the true story of rescue, perseverance and the remarkable communication between elephants and man. Lawrence Anthony (died in 2012) along with his wife Francoise owned a 5,000 acre reserve in Zululand, South Africa when they received word that a herd of troubled elephants would be killed unless someone could provide them a home. Scrambling to fence the preserve in time for their arrival, they barely finished their work just in time. But almost as soon as the elephants arrived, they escaped – a race against time and those who wanted to kill them, plays out in dramatic fashion.

Anthony bonds with the elephants through a series of events over the years. There is never a dull moment on the reserve including the time when he and his rangers got into a firefight with poachers leaving the perpetrators severely injured, run-ins with crocodiles and poisonous snakes, wild storms and unsettled local residents.

Anthony also was in charge of helping to rescue animals from the Bagdad Zoo during the war in the early 2000s but that is another book for another time (Babylon’s Ark). Remarkably Anthony survives all this – only to die from a heart attack at age 61 in 2012.

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