“I have to choose the wonderful Loxodonta Africana, or African bush elephant, as my favourite animal to photograph. They’re extremely interesting, due to their matriarchal society, their family units, their migratory patterns and empathetic tendencies, not only to family but towards other species.

What also endears us all towards the African elephant is their incredible intelligence. Elephants have very similar life cycles and longevity to us. Their brains are not only large but extremely active and aware of their surroundings, including those creatures who bear bad will towards them, such as lions, hyenas and human hunters.

Anyone who has been around these graceful giants knows they’re gentle at heart, but exude a power that can even keep a famished lion at a distance. Their trunks can delicately pick-up grasses and strip branches of only the needed leaves, stroke others in the herd or show tender loving care to a baby elephant. They can also bowl over trees as if they are merely splinters from a toothpick.

They’re full of unknown knowledge and intuition, which leads me to ponder if they know something humans don’t or have long since forgotten. Generations of elephants know where to travel in the dry seasons. Landscapes constantly change, yet they follow the same paths unless they’re permanently interrupted. Surely, this isn’t just memory but an almost hereditary storytelling and guidance system that we can’t comprehend or understand. In the centuries that come, I hope we continue to learn from these animals and preserve them.

Times may change and obstacles may appear, but elephants will persevere and continue to follow ancient pathways with handed-down knowledge. We must do our part to assist when and where we can but mostly by staying out of their way. Elephants have just as much right to a future on this earth as any of us do.”

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My Big 5

Elephant
Hyena
Lion
Leopard
Cheetah