WELGEVONDEN GAME RESERVE, SOUTH AFRICA — Samson, otherwise known as Elephant No. 1, is twisting his trunk around some succulent young tufts of grass, tugging them up and throwing them into his mouth, perfectly aware we have sneaked up on him but willing to nonchalantly ignore us, for now.
We crouch on a rock about 40 yards away -- about as close to a wild bull elephant as it is safe to get on foot. Even though Samson shows no signs of irritation, it's nice to be with David Powrie, who is something of an elephant whisperer.
The tall, blond, sunburned ranger is always elated to find himself in a cloud of small flies, the telltale sign that an elephant herd is near. He knows each one of the 120 elephants here in the Welgevonden Game Reserve, identifying them by the nicks in their ears, their tusks and the unique patterning of their tails -- almost like a fingerprint. He sniffs the air for the bulls in must (they exude an oily secretion when they are looking for females) and follows their dinner-plate-sized footprints. He knows a turn of the wind can change an elephant's mood instantly.
He also knows that elephants hate loud noises. Samson, like most, does not like thunder, or helicopters, given the bad habit those shrieking metal beasts have of swooping down unexpectedly and leaving one forever changed, as happened last year.
Samson was darted, fell unconscious, was lifted by crane onto a flatbed truck and driven to a clearing in his home at the reserve. There, a group of American vets from Disney World's Animal Kingdom performed a vasectomy, a highly complex operation given the bush location and the difficult anatomy of the elephant. (Their testicles are located deep in the body, on either side of the spine, requiring a specially made laparoscope for the operation.)
Powrie's task is to study the effects of the vasectomies on the behavior of four sterilized bulls and the reactions of 42 female elephants to a contraceptive recently administered by darts from a helicopter. He spends his days with a tracking antenna getting as close to the Welgevonden pachyderms as possible, observing their behavior.
It is part of a national research effort to answer pressing questions about South Africa's elephant population: In short, given the animals' humongous appetites and destructive habits, is the 20,000-strong population threatening the habitat of other species? If so, how do you control population growth?
