“I first saw an elephant in Kruger National Park when I was a child, back in the 1950s, but I came to know them really well after I left university and came out to do a job studying elephants’ feeding behaviour. I had about 500 elephants in a small park called Lake Manyara National Park in Tanzania. I was able to get to know by sight every single one.

Elephants have such an extraordinary shape, with their enormous size, and huge trunk and big ears. Their extraordinary trunk is one of the most versatile organs in the animal kingdom.

Elephants are so obviously intelligent and conscious. If you watch an elephant, you can sense that its thinking. They are very emotional. I have seen them over many years and registered all their emotions, from grief to anger to love for each other.

I love to see elephants in pictures. I’m very excited about how photography has been opened up with these incredible devices, like little cameras that you can put right next to an elephant’s foot crashing down on the ground or drones, which can give you beautiful aerials where the camera moves very gently and slowly in the right direction. I think we’re going to see wonderful pictures coming out of new techniques.

Elephants face an existential threat. It’s absolutely vital to get rid of the demand for ivory. We want to stop the killing, stop the trafficking and decrease the demand for ivory. We have to change people’s behaviour and we have to ramp up the anti-poaching.”

www.savetheelephants.org
www.instagram.com/savetheelephants

My Big 5

Elephant
Gorillas
Orangutan
Polar Bear
Howler Monkey