King of the Elephants | Free Documentary Nature

he came on cushioned feet his step regal and full of purpose a gentle giant who touched the hearts of all whose path he crossed big boy an elephant like no other [Music] this was his home zambia's lowes and busy valley a beautiful wild place where life keeps pace with the steady flow of the river a place where the spirit of africa lives and breathes [Music] a place of elephants a place of man now [Music] elephants have had to share the value with humans since the times of the ancient ones this has been an uneasy relationship in spite of the fact that they have so much in common [Music] fear and mistrust kept distance between [Music] them man hunted elephants for their precious [Music] ivory contact between them invariably ended in the death of one or both and so elephants soon learn to avoid human beings at all cost [Music] but big boy changed all that [Music] his intelligence was matched by his curiosity so when man began to live alongside him he did not move away but rather watched and listened and [Music] learned [Music] so boot and chris liebenberg who set up a safari camp in big boy's favorite territory where the chongqi river meets the zambezi watched and listened back [Music] big boy pretty much was here when i arrived and that would have been the end of 95. this alberta grove was always full of elephant and he was always he was yeah he was a prominent elephant when we first arrived here we came back what 15 years plus and myself and a friend of mine gary brown we came in here pretty green and unexperienced and all we had was one vehicle and we kind of set up a bit of a camp and there was ellie's coming through this alberta grove constantly all day so you know we were a little bit nervous or whatever not very experienced in the bush and big boy was here pretty much as when we got here the relationship between big boy and his human neighbors grew steadily and with it an incredible level of trust was formed he was just well not just big but had a certain noble manner about him he never sort of with the other youngsters would constantly want to wrestle and grapple he kept peace and they got out of hand he would go across and sort them out [Music] he just seemed to be a bit of a calming influence on on the other elephants and he was the least aggressive and and sort of seemed to be the least phased by by our presence you're just such an amazing animal besides the fact he was magnificent specimen i mean great big tusks and far bigger than any other elephant around the valley [Music] yeah we noticed he was special straight away just because of his of his size and good looks really um big ivory and his huge elephant it was a pleasure to have him in the camp all the time he was certainly a lot bigger than any other elephants around even the other sort of fully grown bulls he was it was just a really good specimen he had such a way about him he couldn't help but warm to him [Music] when butt and chris met him big boy was the mentor of nine younger bulls [Music] such is the way of life for male elephants who leave their families when they become sexually mature forming small bachelor groups which are tutored by an older wiser bull under this tutelage the young bulls nicknamed askaris a swahili word for soldier learn the intricacies of acceptable elephant behavior before they finally split up and go their separate ways eventually passing the knowledge onto bachelor groups of their own [Music] there are echoes of our own social structures in this behavior as well as in many other aspects of elephant society just like us they love [Music] play fight and grieve their families are headed up by a single dominant female a matriarch [Music] she is the cornerstone of family life meeting our discipline where it is needed while maintaining absolute order [Music] elephants are tactile creatures constantly touching one another reassuring playing and showing affection in the loas and busy days begin the same for elephant and humankind dawn is a magical time of stillness as nights submit slowly and reluctantly to the onset of day the first rays of the sun gently kiss the mighty river awake and all those who live in it and on its banks begin their daily routine [Music] so [Music] so [Music] as the sun steadily rises the elephants make their way to water [Music] the seemingly random ramble to the river is in fact a coordinated march to an ancient rhythm which governs the lives of big boy's kin they follow in the footsteps of those who have gone before a rite of passage passed on from mother to child wisdom and knowledge constantly shared in low inaudible rumbles which enable the herds to communicate over huge distances [Music] [Music] so [Music] life for big boy began this way after 22 months in his mother's womb he entered the world as a tiny new addition to a large extended family his day spent suckling on mother's milk [Music] and discovering that his trunk seems to have a mind of its own like all babies it will have taken him a few months to learn how to properly control the thousands of muscles it contains months of exploring stretching curling [Music] swatting and caressing until finally the elongated appendage is under his command and able to perform a seemingly endless variety of roles on cue [Music] [Music] but its most important role is that of feeding because they digest only 40 of what they eat elephants feed constantly whether grazing on the succulent grasses at the river's edge or browsing on leaves and branches from the trees which line the banks [Music] days for young elephants are spent learning about the world around them [Music] playing with one another and the creatures and plants which share their world [Music] [Music] [Music] just like us they are adventurous mischievous and excitable often needing the firm trunk of an older family member to set them back on their feet [Music] it's not just elephants who benefit from the bounties the zambezi provides [Music] so hippos spend their days in the water which protects their sensitive skins from the sun in this way they conserve precious energy feeding occasionally on water hyacinth and other aquatic plants as the sun sets they emerge to graze spending their hours of darkness on land searching for the soft grasses and other vegetation which makes up the bulk of their diet [Music] the buffalo also makes use of the river's waters cooling off in the heat of the day in muddy pools along its edge where they are buffalo there are lions lethargic during the daytime heat by night the lower zambezi prides are transformed into spectral hunters shadowing the herds of buffalo and impala under cover of darkness waiting for the opportune moment to strike the zambezi shares its riches freely there is one who has not yet learned to share [Music] man [Music] days in the village of mugura mena begin much as they do for the elephants of the lower zambezi the women's first job is to fetch water from the river ensuring that everyone has enough to last the day [Music] they spend their days watching over their children and preparing food their lifestyle a curious mirror image of their elephant counterparts at times life is seemingly idyllic but all is not as harmonious as it would appear [Music] there is conflict here the elephants raid the crops and their ivory is much sought after bringing death to the valley in the form of the poacher's gun we knew poachers were in the valley mike stark who is the manager of a camp upstream from here and i the week before found 11 elephant on this first plane between us and the next camp which is chihuahua that have been shot in one week so you can imagine that sort of slaughter there was a you know there was certainly ramp poaching going on i think it was 96 or 95 96 i can't remember the exact year but i mean we we counted in excess of about 60 to 80 i can't remember again the exact figures those elephant carcasses on our game driver loops that we actually saw so what was often the deeper bush that we never knew about you know you can only only guess but there's easily in excess of 100 120 or maybe even more elephants poached in this area in that one year alone during the dry season we can control it because there are camps operating and the operators themselves their presence in the park stops the poachers but once november and the rains come everybody closes up for the rainy season and that's when chris would go off to do his ski operations overseas and the moment you vacate the spark then it's open season with the poachers so came about the fear and mistrust between elephant and man the fight for food and space and man's greed for ivory driving a wedge between them but big boy seemed immune to the dangers around him his calm gentle nature was that of a peacebringer not a warmonger he kind of had a little bit of a regal error about him because he'd always have these oscars around him and i suppose his his peaceable nature and his you know is the way he behaved was in contrast to these young bulls also who were always nervy and and running around sort of getting a bit agitated whereas he was always just this picture of of um of sort of a leaf calm funny enough he had an affinity to man you know like so many elephants do and yet what is it man is there any person or animal on the earth that kills elephant elephants have really got no other predators as such he grew to trust these strange upright creatures which lived in his favorite winterthorne grove they spoke to him in soothing voices and seemed interested in everything he did and i mean we just started speaking to him because really there was nothing else to do and gary and i are tired of speaking to each other and you know you can you notice that you know the you know the elephants are coming and looking sniffing around your food or or whatever it is so you're talking to them and we just thought there was not only and it's not any uh a case of trying to warn them off or discourage them from doing things you also they also just just chat to them and greet them and he was around so much he just and he had such a sort of presence about him he just felt that it was only good manners to say good morning big boy became a sort of buddy and we had a put a pole fence up around the camp just two inch poles and uh it's quite strange he got the other young bulls didn't like it and would walk through it but he never did he would walk up to the fence and stop there you just that sort of animal yeah he's just sort of you just spent a lot of time very near us big boy was unaware that not all men are the same it's time it was the 16th of december 1996 because we were busy backing up the camp and ready to leave to go back to janus but when our shower in where the shots came off and i thought no you could hear there were a couple of heavy hits and realized it must be elephant and not very far away mike stock who running the camp upstream from us came on the radio and picked up the only two scouts available at the time and picked them up and four of us went in and looked for them and we found the fresh spur where elephants that you could see they'd been running in panic and they split into two groups we let the scouts follow the one group and mike and i followed the other group again in spite of the rain the night before it was extremely hot steamy and somewhere along the line we suddenly there was such silence and you know i don't know if you it's a sixth sense or what but you know something is a miss and we sat down and we just looked and looked with the binders couldn't see anything and looking back mike said what is that about 50 meters behind us and you looking through the miners i could see a bit of ivory sticking under the bush but what they'd done it they'd shot an elephant and then cut shrubs quickly covered the elephant so we nearly we'd actually walk past it we didn't realize it was there but what warned us that there was something wrong we have no idea we lay there for an hour without anybody moving just hiding suspecting something was going on and eventually we thought well they'd probably come back later and we went to go and check the elephant and then when we moved the bushes off the elephant only then we realized it was big boy and then all hell broke loose the guys as we suspected there was someone with this they were on the other side of this clearing they started firing and then we were sort of protected by a big boy because all the bullets are just something into him we managed to give them a cover fire and let the two scouts run and then we followed and we went back to camp and we got on the radio to the main control of the zawa department and they sent six more guys down with guns and we went back later that often much later and you could hear them hacking away at chopping the tusks out and then these guys started firing and then all they all broke losers our six guys firing mike and i and anyway eventually they were routed and uh we got there and they'd already moved the one task and that the second task was sort of halfway out and but by now it was starting to rain and it was late afternoon and well at that stage mike and i just wanted to follow these guys because you're so annoyed about big boy and upset oh i still had difficulty talking about it but was faced with a terrible dilemma how to tell his son that big boy was dead how to break his heart in the end he left it to his family's matriarch chris's mother sue i was a coward i left it to see let me tell you i just got them back and um and yeah my mom told me when i got together yeah i took a walk down the bottom of the garden [Music] and no no just upset big boy was gone his death a monument to human greed but as is the way of the african bush his death gave birth to new life as the sadness and anger felt by butt and chris slowly formed into the seed of an idea which was to chase the shadow of the poacher's gun far from the lower zambezi valley conservation loya zambezi is big boy's legacy to the valley that was his home a way to move on and protect those who he left behind and those who have come after him formed by bhutan chris and other tourism operators in the valley its main task was to eradicate poaching but over the years clz has become much more valuable it has become a bridge builder establishing new levels of understanding between elephant and man we had to do something and you couldn't just leave the valley uh to the poachers we were running rampant yeah it had already been in existence and it just started and then hadn't taken any traction or hadn't gotten going for whatever reason zawa at that time was battling financially they had no vehicles and if they did have they didn't have fuel in the beginning it was just the operators supporting there's our officers who had no vehicle you know no boats no rations to go on patrol no equipment to go on patrol with there was just the need for for some sort of body from that time on we kept our game control operations going throughout the wet season not just the dry season and i think that made all the difference if you look at the animals in the park now i mean just hundreds of kadu and elephant everywhere big boy's death spurred everybody into into sort of stopping squabbling and and and most importantly putting the anti-poaching um as priority one now clz is helping to ease the conflict which still exists a conflict without guns a conflict over food [Music] the old chief is troubled as he builds a new home for his family he worries about the crops in the fields he is angry with the elephants and very scared of them the elephants come at night and raid the crops they break open the grain stores and feed on the precious maze which sustains the village anyone who tries to stop them is in mortal danger [Music] emotions run high fear and anger mix together with desperation some would kill the elephants but others realize that they are worth more alive attracting more and more tourists with each passing season [Music] and with the tourists comes money and [Music] opportunities slowly the villagers are learning that their future is vested in the survival of big boy's brethren and his legacy [Music] it's more than a decade since big boy's untimely death had he lived he would have seen his beloved valley filled with his kind watched over and guarded by the men he trusted so willingly [Music] not far from where big boy fell and close to the camp he made his home clz base is now a center of learning where those who protect also teach sharing their wisdom and knowledge the way elephants always have here is where hope lives hope for a better future for humans and elephants together in harmony conservation loya zambezi has triumphed over the poachers [Music] it scouts constantly patrolling policing [Music] protecting [Music] now it's time to focus efforts on finding a solution to the crop rating and helping humans to better understand elephants and the other creatures they share the valley with for now at least tranquility has returned to the lower zambezi mother africa is at peace [Music] and the spirit of the mighty river the nyami nami protector of the life-giving waters and those who depend on it is pleased bringing bounty to this beautiful land [Music] [Music] my [Music] the wheel of life turns steadily the demise of the old and weak giving way to the rise of the young and healthy [Music] each day the rituals of survival play out everything imperceptibly linked together interdependent intertwined [Music] [Music] and cushioned feet once more treads softly to the water's edge the river whispering its age-old secrets and visions of things past and yet to come [Music] in the winterthorne grove the wind stirs softly through the canopy dislodging the seed pods so loved by [Music] elephants if you close your eyes you can almost hear the gentle flapping of giant ears and a soft rumble of contentment big boy may be gone but his son still roamed the valley [Music] so often you get a young bull who looks at you and you you know that look in his eye and you think oh i know who your daddy is yeah there's a there's a few sort of big bulls in that in the area now that remind me of him but there's nothing quite like him [Music] his spirit is everywhere in every ripple at the river's edge every breath of the warm afternoon breeze and every ray of the setting sun like the mighty zambezi the memory of big boy is eternal you

Channel: Free Documentary - Nature

Views: 186,785

Keywords: Free Documentary, Documentaries, Full documentary, HD documentary, documentary - topic, documentary (tv genre), nature documentary, Free Documentary Nature, Africa, Zambia, Zambezi, Zambezi River, Wildlife, Wildlife Documentary, Animal Documentary, Animals, lower zambezi national park, Elephant, Elephant Documentary, Big Boy, Big Boy An Elephant's Story, Nature, African Elephant, Elephant Poaching, Southern Africa, safari, Big Boy: King of the Elephants

Id: GzZTpmytzpE

Length: 42min 4sec (2524 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 05 2021