The Rhino with Glue-On Shoes (14 page)

My decision to climb into a dry pool to examine a fully awake giant crocodile occurred at the beginning of my career. It remains a vivid memory; even years later, I often tell this story to friends and colleagues. Now, after working with a variety of potentially dangerous animals over the years, I would not go into the pool under similar circumstances. This case taught me to assess each animal and situation differently. At the time, I didn't have the experience or maturity to say no to the procedure, though I never felt completely safe. Eventually, I learned to think about my well-being—and sometimes not to listen to other people. I still plan to put my tortoises in my will.

Tracking a Snared Elephant

by Sharon Deem, DVM, PhD

V
eterinarians face the same questions every day: What is wrong with this animal? How will I solve its problem? Should I treat it, and if so, when? How can I prevent the problem from happening again? This is true of our job whether we take care of dogs and cats or hermit crabs and elephants. Our patients don't tell us what they need or where they hurt, and we can't tell them that we're there to help. Often, just getting started is half the battle. In my experience, a dart gun loaded with anesthetic is the only way to convince an injured wild elephant, for example, that it needs to see a doctor.

When I took the call from the woman in a nearby town, I knew we were in for a challenge. She described a free-ranging bull forest elephant with a snare wrapped around his lower left leg. At the time, in 2005, my husband, my son, and I were living in Libreville, in the central African country of Gabon. I was working as a research veterinarian for the Smithsonian's National Zoo. My husband, Steve, was a field biologist for the Wildlife Conservation Society. Our two-year-old son, Charlie, was busy growing up in one of the most beautiful countries on earth, learning English and French with youthful enthusiasm and ease.

Together, Steve and I had studied the behavior and movements of healthy forest elephants, anesthetizing several of them for the placement of GPS tracking collars—work that was part of a larger ecological study led by Steve to gather much-needed data on forest elephant home ranges and habitat use. We had not, however, treated an injured free-ranging elephant within the forest. This was a whole new ball game.

The woman asked, “Would it be possible to remove the snare before the elephant becomes aggressive to people—or before someone in the village kills him because he is an easy target?”

The African forest elephant,
Loxodonta africana cyclotis
,lives only in the rain forest of central and west Africa. Threatened by poaching for ivory and meat and by habitat fragmentation due to logging and mining, this subspecies of elephant faces an uncertain future. Here in the dense jungle of Gabon, snare hunting is an all-too-frequent method of capturing a number of wildlife species. The indiscriminate snare often results in a slow, painful, and horrific death.

Steve and I discussed the situation. We were willing to give it a try. Our major concern was that we lacked an essential tool: a team of trackers. Our philosophy had always been that if you can't find your elephant after you have anesthetized it, you shouldn't anesthetize it in the first place! The Pygmy people of central Africa have exceptional tracking skills. During our earlier elephant work, we'd been assisted by a team of BaAka Pygmies, but there was no way to reassemble them quickly enough for this patient. Fortunately, we found two Gabonese guards working for the World Wildlife Fund who agreed to help with tracking. Without them, I doubt we would even have tried to dart the elephant.

We flew to the coastal town of Gamba, set up our gear at the building that would serve as our home and laboratory, and met with local people to hear what they knew about the lame elephant's condition and current whereabouts. In late afternoon, the team started its search; several hours after sunset, we caught our first glimpse of the injured elephant, limping across the savanna about thirty feet from where we stood. Using our flashlights, we could see he was a beautiful adult bull elephant in the prime of life (we estimated him to be in his midtwenties), standing approximately eight feet at the shoulders with short, straight tusks. More important, we could see a band of constricted skin and muscle around his lower left front leg.

I knew instantly that we didn't have much time before the animal would develop a bone infection, osteomyelitis, or irreversible tissue damage to the foot from lack of blood flow. At that point, treatment would be futile. As soon as possible, I had to get in a position where I could safely dart this elephant.

We spent our second day searching for him. As night fell, he reappeared, walking out from the forest into the savanna. He was almost within range, in a clear area, and my dart gun was loaded. All I had to do was get a bit closer. I felt incredibly lucky. Just twenty-four hours after the search began, we'd soon have our patient on the “operating ground,” anesthetized for snare removal and wound treatment. Or so I thought.

Unfortunately, the elephant saw us and limped away as quickly as his painful leg would allow. The remaining daylight was fading fast. Though I knew my position now was less than ideal, I fired—and missed. At that point, I had no choice but to accept the fact that evening conditions were not safe for either people or elephants. I elected not to shoot again. It was a blow to our team. No one spoke as we walked back to the truck; I wondered if the others were thinking,
How could she miss a target the size of an elephant?

During the next four days, we covered a great deal of ground on foot and by truck, hoping to find the elephant again so I could safely dart him, ideally in a clearing away from water during daylight hours. We followed tracks and various leads given to us from people living in the area. We looked specifically for signs of our lame bull. From the size and spacing of the footprints, we could differentiate a forest elephant with a normal gait from one with a limp.

On several occasions, we sat for hours near patches of forest where we had calculated that the elephant had entered, or where we thought he would exit. Despite our efforts, we could not find him. Maybe he wouldn't give us that second chance. Frustrated, tired, and worried, we knew we were running out of time. We had lost our elephant.

On the evening of the fifth day, the elephant found us. Limping badly, he walked out of the forest and through a clearing about one hundred feet from our truck, just as the team was preparing to end the day's search. I had been standing, ready and waiting with my dart gun, near this spot for hours prior to the elephant's bold move. As he walked past me in the fading light, we all knew there was no chance of safely darting him. Thirty seconds later, he had entered the forest on the far side of the clearing and again disappeared from sight. I disassembled my gun and packed up my equipment; this was the end of yet another frustrating day. Could the elephant be smarter than our entire team?

The elephant must have been waiting among the dense trees, watching us. Maybe he chose that particular time to cross the clearing because he knew that as darkness fell, I would not again attempt to dart him. Maybe he knew that we could no longer follow his tracks for the rest of the night. Did he also know that my gun and anesthetic drug were part of a plan to help, rather than cause him harm? I wanted to believe that this animal understood—on some level—what we were trying to do for him. Maybe he'd come out from the forest to let us know he was still alive. Or maybe he was simply ready to walk from one side of the clearing to the other, and our presence had nothing to do with it. We resumed our search the next morning.

Two days later, we closed in on our patient once again. His movements had slowed, and he now spent most of his time in, or near, a small lake. I sat for hours on the water's edge watching him from a distance. He would swim into the center, presumably to take weight off the painful leg. Then he would return to the shore, fill his trunk with lake water, and squirt it over the wound, cleaning it—his own method of administering hydrotherapy. He repeated this treatment many times throughout the day. I watched in amazement and admiration. The elephant showed me something we very rarely observe: self-treatment by an animal patient. Sadly, he couldn't remove the metal snare on his own. It was also obvious that his lameness had worsened and that the swelling had increased significantly in the area around the snare. I was determined to help him, no matter what it took.

We could no longer wait for the perfect opportunity; there might never be one. After much discussion, Steve and I decided that darting the animal on the lake's edge was our only option. Our biggest concern was that, once darted, the elephant would immediately rush into the center of the lake. If this happened, we would have to somehow force him to change course before the anesthesia took effect. Otherwise, he would surely drown. We would need to devise a plan.

The following day, with Steve and one of the trackers, I moved into a patch of forest on the lake's edge. There we sat and waited, watching the elephant resting in the lake as he had the day before. After several hours, he moved to the bank and began to feed on the vegetation within reach of his trunk. We knew this was our best chance. I would have to take this shot if we were to have any chance of saving our patient's life.

Slowly advancing along the edge of the lake, using the trees for cover, I cut the distance down to about 175 feet. Not ideal—half that distance would have been better—but good enough, I hoped. The elephant looked in my direction; he sensed my presence and seemed almost as nervous as I felt. It was time to pull the trigger. I fired and the dart hit him in the middle of the left thigh muscle. From where I stood, it appeared that the anesthetic had been injected. A perfect shot!

Now my mind was racing. We had to track him from a safe distance, but close enough to ensure we could reach the elephant soon after the drug took effect. Most important, we needed to keep him out of the deep water. The elephant ran straight toward the center of the lake, just as we'd anticipated. But Steve had devised an ingenious plan the night before. He radioed the second tracker, who was waiting in a small motorboat around the bend in the lake. As the boat sped out into the open lake, the elephant changed his course and swam away from the boat, toward the forest edge.

We struggled to keep up with him, running in hip-deep water, our adrenaline pumping. When he disappeared into the trees, we raced after his footprints. The next forty-five minutes felt like hours and seconds all in one. Without Pygmy trackers, Steve and I had worried that our own tracking skills would not be sufficient to lead us to the elephant. We ran through the thick forest unable to see our patient, sweat blurring our vision, branches cutting our faces and limbs. It was only from the sounds of breaking trees and rustling bushes ahead that we knew he was not yet anesthetized.

Most forest elephants we've darted go down under the effects of the drug within twenty minutes. Thirty minutes into the chase, I decided to make a second dart, concerned that the first one might not have injected the drug properly and that we were in fact chasing a fully awake, injured elephant. Standing in a small clearing as I prepared my equipment, I could hear him moving just inside the forest cover. Then there was no sound. Had he moved on? Was he standing there by the forest edge waiting for us to come in after him? Was he okay? Why hadn't they taught me this in vet school?

When the second dart was ready, we all headed back into the trees. The elephant had disappeared once again. We raced after his footprints. Forty minutes after I'd fired the first dart back at the lake, we heard heavy breathing and the rustling sounds of branches just a few feet ahead of us. Then we spotted the elephant lying down but attempting to stand. It appeared that the anesthesia I'd used was not a high enough dose. The elephant was fighting the effects of the morphine-like drug. Severe pain combined with high levels of stress can override this anesthetic. His adrenaline levels—like ours—must have been off the charts by this time.

Cautiously, I approached the elephant from the rear and hand-injected a second dose of anesthetic. Two minutes later, our patient was finally ready for treatment.

We removed the snare, cleaned the wound, applied topical antibiotic, administered a tetanus vaccine, and gave him an elephant-sized injection of long-acting antibiotic. His foot appeared viable: the tissues bled easily and there was no bone exposed—both excellent signs. I also collected a blood sample that we later analyzed to assess his general health. Once the team was a safe distance away, I gave the elephant his anesthetic reversal.

Three minutes later, he was standing and walking away from us. For the first time, he was doing exactly what we wanted him to do.

Had my patient been in a zoo, I would have scheduled twice-daily treatments and daily antibiotic injections. But of course, elephants don't run into poaching snares in zoos, nor do they require their doctors to track them for eight days in the jungle. Here we could only rely on a onetime dose of medicine, the elephant's self-treatments, and time. With the snare off, at least he had a chance. I'm thankful that my veterinary skills could help save at least one animal from this terrible and cruel fate.

The elephant, whom I'd named Tobbie Deux after my twenty-one-year-old three-legged cat, was seen later the same day of treatment as well as many times since. He no longer has a limp, but the scar remains, a reminder to him—and to us—of the snare that could have killed him. When he looks at the scar, I wonder if it reminds him of the humans who set the snare, or the four-person team who chased him for eight days and saved his life. I'd like to believe it's the latter.