Nature (1982–…): Season 34, Episode 4 - Soul of the Elephant - full transcript
Ironically, every dead elephant with its ivory intact is a reason to celebrate. It means an elephant died of natural causes, not bullets, snares or poison, and a soul was allowed to be celebrated and mourned by its herd. Award-win...
♪
They emerged from the
swamps 50 million years ago
and became creatures that
ruled the world from coast to coast,
mountains to deserts.
Dereck and Beverly
Joubert are many things...
Award-winning filmmakers,
explorers, and dedicated
conservationists.
Now they've set
their sights once again
on the elephants of Botswana...
But from a whole new angle.
We've lived in the wild
in Botswana for 30 years,
telling the stories
of this place.
But we haven't seen it all.
We're still searching
for something.
Journey with the Jouberts
to one of the most
remote places in Africa,
where they'll explore
one of the last remaining
herds of elephants
and contemplate the inner lives
of these iconic creatures.
Did they know the dead elephant?
Is this a curiosity
or remembrance?
What is the very
soul of the elephant?
♪
The story of elephants is
a timeless story of ghosts.
They leave us messages...
Ancient footprints
in the sands of time.
In some places, it's the
message of extinction
as 35,000 elephants
are poached each year,
purely for their ivory.
But in other places, there
are messages of hope...
Like where we live,
where they are still giants.
Seven-ton giants in full sail.
Their movements
are a meditation.
Their eyes shine with
a deep intelligence.
We've lived in the wild
in Botswana for 30 years,
filming, exploring, researching,
telling the stories
of this place.
But we haven't seen it all.
We're still searching
for something.
And often, what
we find surprises us.
I often think of
myself as an elephant.
I try to think their thoughts,
live life with their values.
This all started one day
while exploring the
backwaters of the bush.
This place is endless.
We stumbled across
something intriguing...
A sun-bleached skull
from a bull elephant
who'd died two years earlier,
but with tusks so heavy,
I could barely lift them.
♪
It's rare to find a carcass
with its ivory still intact.
What's so exciting about
that is in what it represents.
It means that no one has
been here for at least two years.
But something
just didn't add up.
We had too many bones
for this to be
from one elephant.
As we looked around,
we found enough to make
up two huge bull elephants,
a literal killing field,
but with a difference...
Absolutely no sign of man.
♪
You can age an
elephant by its molar teeth,
and these bulls were old.
But still, at around 70, they
had a few years left to live.
They both died in exactly the
same place at the same time.
Usually, that would
mean poaching.
But why would these two
bulls still have their ivory?
It was a mystery that would
change the course of our lives
over the next few months.
We decided to
reconstruct their lives.
As we left the grave
site, we didn't feel sad.
Out here, you learn that
a natural death like these,
elephants that
die with their ivory,
is rare and a celebration,
as it should be.
Dust to dust.
The soul of the
elephant at peace.
♪
This is a magical place,
the Selinda Spillway,
a wave of rivers that snake
away from the Okavango Delta
and join the northern
rivers in Botswana,
ultimately feeding
into the great Zambezi.
So, to understand the
lives of the two bulls,
we've decided to paddle from
one end of this river to the other.
It would have been
their home range
from their birthplace to
their final resting place.
Very shallow here.
Starting to get into
that yellow water
that we saw from the air.
We'll also survey
the carcasses we find
to thoroughly understand
poaching levels, hunting,
and other influences of man.
For the next few months,
we'll paddle and walk,
explore the river and its banks
as it cuts through the
largest elephant populations
in the world.
The mystery of the two bulls
still works inside my head.
♪
They were born over 70 years ago
into a very different world.
There would have been
over 5 million elephants then.
We were waging a world war
as a 250-pound baby
fought his own first
battle against gravity
to stand
and his mother diligently
cleaned away the placenta
to hide the scent
and to protect him
from lions and hyenas.
♪
Each baby born then had
less than a 10% chance
of making it past
our guns and snares
to the age of the two old bulls.
But both somehow survived.
I've also been thinking
about those first steps.
Soon after birth, a mother
takes her newborn into the herd.
The family gently adjusts pace
for the smallest,
shortest, newest legs.
Within hours, he is their
much-celebrated new baby
that everyone wants to greet
and to get to know and to protect.
♪
This social world
he is introduced to
will help him develop into
one of the most intelligent
and sensitive
beings on the planet.
♪
The pace of a herd
is misleadingly slow.
They cover huge distances
at an apparent stroll.
But a quick nap
while standing up
disorientates him.
That's the time to panic.
He's a miniature elephant
in a world of giants
and on strange,
slippery terrain.
Even at his age, days old,
he would have understood
the ways of elephants,
to recover from any
indignity with aggression.
Charge at egrets,
charge at shadows, but
charge whenever you can.
♪
At his mother's side, an
amazing lesson begins.
He wants milk now,
having survived his
near-death experience
with shadows and demons,
but she withholds
his privileges.
♪
He needs to strengthen
his bond with her.
And with elephants, that
early imprinting is vital.
He is frustrated.
He wants that milk.
But colossal legs
outsmart his every move.
It's only when his
temper tantrum passes
that he is allowed in.
His constant pounding
away yields results,
and milk squirts out.
These are the intimate lives of
elephants we often forget about
when we see them just as
falling numbers on a chart.
The water's deep
enough for the hippo here.
It's on the next bend.
It's two weeks in, and we
have a problem already.
We know enough from
30 years of filming them
exactly what is going on.
There, up ahead...
Hippos fighting.
This narrow channel
is not big enough
for us and angry hippos.
Better go around them.
It's time to get out
of the deep water.
Dereck is always
keen to give it a try.
But it really is time to
find an alternative route.
Our reluctant captain
checks the GPS
and plots another course,
except there isn't
really an alternative
but to pull our canoe and
gear through the backwaters
and shallows, where we can,
at least, see hippos coming.
Very shallow here.
So much for paddling
down the river.
If anything goes wrong,
we'll need to be airlifted
by helicopter from here.
It's over five days'
drive to the nearest town.
All right, well done.
All right.
In the backwaters,
we find another skull.
A submerged skull gives
us very little to go on.
It's like coaxing stories
out of spirits.
But the clues are all there.
The lower jaw indicates it
was only about 25 years old.
We always replace each bone
exactly as we find
it, out of respect.
The sloping forehead
tells us it was a young bull.
The tusks have not
been chopped out.
We write it up as
another natural death
in a watery grave.
There is a
richness to life here,
but none quite as dramatic
as what we finally come
across downstream.
♪
Just ahead, we see our
first living elephants in weeks.
The phantoms of this expedition
are actually real at last.
♪
We also get a rare private
view of wild elephants.
A little like looking in
through a bedroom window.
And actually,
elephants do snore.
The wind changes, swirling
our scent towards them,
and it seems they
know that smell.
Our only defense
in this shallow water
is to keep dead still.
And perfectly quiet.
There's always a heavy sleeper.
Caught off guard, they're
the most dangerous...
More prone to
panic and to charge.
♪
Now, these are moments I love.
There is something hypnotic
about being in the path
of a charging elephant...
Something dangerous,
but peaceful, beautiful.
Time warps.
You focus on the
dance of their ears.
And sound dulls because
you believe he'll stop,
but you don't know it for sure.
It's strange that you feel most
alive when you face death.
And when it's over,
I find myself strangely relaxed,
privileged at having been
face-to-face with an elephant.
Any disturbance
ripples through the herds,
and they stop as one
in what we call a freeze.
The leader gives an
order and releases them
with another ultrasonic
call to move on.
That order sends them
back our way.
But it breaks our hearts to
see each herd we approach
disappear like ghosts
before we can even
get to know them
or even count them.
♪
Perhaps it isn't
entirely our fault.
Within minutes, we find
out that the animals here
may be upset for
a different reason.
There are lions
hunting in the dusk.
Lions are unafraid of the
most dangerous of prey
and the largest.
But old bull elephants
are the true omnipotent
rulers of the savannas,
not even pausing to
look at the carnage.
Certainly it wasn't lions that
brought down the two old bulls
we found over a month ago now.
♪
Our nights under a flimsy tent
are filled with sounds that
light up the imagination.
We dream of giants
moving as silently as
ghost ships under sail.
Looks like there's
a skull over there.
The skull of an
elephant. Looks typical.
Yeah, let's go down there.
We heard them calling all night,
and now we understand why.
It's one of those gatherings
we think are like burial rituals
or wakes.
Let's see what happens here.
That looks like
the... over there
'cause there are all
those females next to it.
♪
We want to be quiet, respectful,
but we still feel like intruders
on a family in mourning.
When she lifts the body,
she may be looking,
searching for the cause of death.
So much attention
is given to the ivory,
as if it is the very
symbol of that elephant...
The embodiment
of an elephant's soul.
♪
Their brains are almost
five times the size of ours.
There is no doubt that
they are feeling emotions,
and I wonder what
information they are getting
as their trunks delicately
hover over the remains.
♪
Did they know the dead elephant?
Was it a family member?
Is this curiosity
or remembrance?
As we intrude
just a little longer,
we can see that it
was a young bull.
Cause of death could have
been just like many a young bull...
Raging testosterone.
There is a saying in Africa
that when two elephants fight,
it's the ground beneath
them that suffers the most.
But a misplaced
tusk, a broken leg,
and either young
bull will end up
as bleached skin and bones
under the harsh African sky.
♪
The threats are not
just from humans.
As we leave, we understand
that for our two old
bulls to have survived,
they would have had to also
make it through this
intense phase of their lives.
It's sizzling hot now... Over
100 degrees Fahrenheit.
That should make
everyone lethargic.
Or so you'd think.
In some cases, it just
makes them cranky.
When elephants
really mean to attack,
they approach
with a side-on strut
and then dip their
heads for the charge.
While they're flapping ears
and trumpeting, we're okay.
It's when they go
quiet and drop that head
that it could go either way.
There is a subtle
language to all of this.
Gotta be careful
if we're underneath
the bird's perch...
Like that one.
You see that under my feet.
We're drifting over a
submerged acacia tree.
It breaks the silence.
The herd's suddenly wary.
We can't backpedal
without becoming even
more obvious to them.
♪
Beverly's instinct
is to crouch down
and record the sound
of the bulls coming in
'cause she knows this
is gonna be very loud.
♪
Too close.
There's only one thing to do...
stare him down.
Elephants are so
used to being dominant
that when something
doesn't run off,
they sometimes feel
intimidated, unsettled.
Confidence is the
only weapon we have.
These elephants
are wild and angry,
unlike earlier ones
that just disappeared.
They're charging like
crazy from every direction,
around every bend in the river.
Whew, that was close.
Not far downstream,
we understand exactly why.
Piles of skulls lie
scattered all around.
Look at this... From the teeth,
it doesn't look very old.
This one's got lots of teeth.
Look. Look at
this one, too, this...
Wow.
He was shot...
Until 2014, hunting of
elephants was legal here.
Have been in here.
Hunters were only
allowed to shoot males,
but we uncover
female skulls as well.
Given what we now know,
it must be deeply
traumatic for elephants
when they stumble across
these piles of discarded bones.
This is a killing field.
It explains why
at the start of each
hunting season,
elephants would
leave hunting areas.
They must know
what we do to them.
♪
The two old bulls were lucky
to escape this era as well.
♪
It feels like we're
in hostile territory.
We decide to quietly
follow the family just ahead.
If the Egyptian geese
can navigate hippo waters,
so can we.
Hippos tend to go
to the deep water...
and then come up anywhere.
It's like walking
through a mine field.
We both silently
push back the words
swirling around in our heads...
that hippos kill more people
in Africa than other animal.
Staying calm is our best weapon.
We try not to look
into the black water
for monsters that
may not even be there.
But this river is
full of surprises.
♪
They emerged from the
swamps 50 million years ago
and became creatures
that ruled the world
from Africa to Asia,
and even into the Americas,
from coast to coast,
mountains to deserts.
♪
And today, they are as at
home in the water as ever.
These water dances
are playful games,
but with an undercurrent
of testing wits and strengths.
♪
They're not used to people
approaching on water,
so we decide to drift in
while they're distracted
by the calm bulls
playing nearby.
The story of elephants
is also the story of water.
Botswana has over one-third
of the world's elephants today,
thriving here for many reasons.
Abundant water may be
the most important of them.
Even the big males barely
give us a second glance
as they glide by.
♪
And as the heat relaxes
its grip on everything,
we sit silently, reluctant
to return to normal,
and realize that what we've
been affected by all of this as well.
It's intoxicating.
Oh, this will guide us in.
This is bliss.
Truly, yes.
Our camp tonight will
be under the full moon
and in the company
of magical beasts
in fairy tale moonbeams...
Remnants of a
time past, perhaps.
We realize that
we have tapped in
to that ancient
heartbeat of the elephant,
the very soul of who they are.
And we definitely know
that when we spend
time with elephants,
we come away somehow better.
♪
Go forward on your side?
It's hard to see.
The water's so black.
We're driven by the
hope that today will be
at least as good as yesterday.
So no dawn is left
to rise without us.
We're more than a month in.
From early morning
through the midday heat
and until late at night,
the river is packed
with elephants.
As we drift alongside them now
day after day,
we seem to have cracked
some kind of elephant code,
and we can get in close.
We can see details
we didn't before.
We soak up the closeness,
the smell, the trust,
and feel the beat of their
silent calls in our chests.
It's euphoric
being in the accepting
presence of these animals.
With the elephants this calm,
Dereck wants to experience
that closeness even more.
The more we do this,
the more we embed
ourselves into their culture,
we imagine for a moment
that we thoroughly
understand them.
And then, for some reason,
they all suddenly head away
from the river at this point.
♪
We're now close
enough to get our plane
to get an overview
and find out exactly why.
Floating over
Botswana is magical.
I love Africa from the air.
What looks like random
paths from the ground
magically form into
well-organized patterns
from the air.
Ancient networks of paths
once connected water
holes across the continent.
They lead elephants
out across the grasslands,
herd after herd following
behind their mothers
and the memories
of their ancestors
in the never-ending search
that drives elephants.
♪
We can now recognize
individual elephants,
like this one-tusker
and her family,
as they etch their own stories
into the paths with their feet.
Botswana's elephants
have very small tusks.
The water here has
little mineral value,
so tusks are brittle.
It may be a saving grace.
Being a tuskless elephant
may actually be an advantage
in the future.
Virtually every family here
has at least one
tuskless female.
They leave the rivers here
for something
other than water...
Salt.
Elephants need almost a
quarter-pound of salt every day,
and this is the
only place to find it.
They probe and
prospect for tiny crystals,
an almost impossible
task without fingers,
you would think.
But with at least 60,000
muscles in their trunks,
elephants can pick out a
crystal and work it loose.
If need be, they use
heavier equipment.
Then they just work whole
clods into their mouths
to swallow, and rely
on efficient stomachs
to filter out the good stuff.
The trunk defines elephants.
It's their tool for
digging, breaking,
smelling, investigating...
Always alive, always moving...
just like them.
♪
We can sense the two bulls
leaving these ancient digs.
20 years ago, they would have
been in search of something
even more important than
salt to securing their future.
To mate, both males and females
need to be in sync.
The male musth
happens once a year.
The tiny tuskless
calf is also in heat,
and he's not about
to let her get away.
22 months from now,
he could have an heir.
She may still be a teenager,
but she knows how to send
secret messages of seduction.
The only clues are in
her soundless open mouth
and flapping ears.
A series of six calls,
so low in frequency we
can't normally hear them.
This will attract every mating
male within 10 miles of here
to contest for the right
to pass his genes on to the next
generation of Selinda elephants.
Elephants create a ripple
effect of advantage to others.
A pied kingfisher finds
them useful as a perch.
She's watching
out for small fish,
but elephants
have sensitive skins.
They hate biting flies...
and, apparently, the
feel of a kingfisher.
There is a time for
babies to just follow along
and a time for them to play
and enjoy the slippery feeling
of fine mud under their feet.
But this is not one of them.
We know from working with lions
just how quickly the see
an opportunity and react.
The baby is down,
floundering, drowning.
♪
The lions are waiting here.
They know the hazards.
And these lions are
not afraid of water.
♪
Lions don't give up easily.
They'll circle back to
this crossing point later.
Despite the swirling
scent of lions,
the calm crossings
are methodical.
Elephants just don't
like congestion, stress.
Each herd leaves enough
space ahead and behind.
♪
These gatherings and long
lines of elephant families,
floating across the landscape
in and out of the
sparkling floodplains,
are very typical of the freedom
of Botswana for elephants...
the freedom to come
and go almost endlessly,
to feel the weightlessness
of their huge bodies in water.
This opportunity gives us a
rare chance to see them at play,
but from inside their world
as swamp creatures.
They always maintain
the integrity of
their family groups,
keeping separate by just enough
so their young don't
mingle and get lost,
and yet close enough to
stay in touch as a herd...
As a clan of elephants.
At times, these clans
will gather at crossings
in numbers of well
over 400 elephants
along the Selinda Spillway.
♪
Keeping those families intact
in a huge herd like
this can be a challenge.
A cow has lost her calf
right at the vulnerable
crossing point.
After doing the very
first studies and films
on lions attacking elephants,
we can virtually
replay it from memory.
First, a lost calf
panics and calls out.
The lions respond.
They circle and
attack from behind.
The mother, just like this
one today, goes frantic.
It only adds to the confusion.
And confusion is
exactly what lions want.
Today, it is different.
And the nightmare is prevented
when the mother gets there
just in time to mount
a daring rescue.
With the rescued calf in tow,
she now has to make up ground
to join the rest of the herd.
But elephants are nothing if not
compassionate and understanding.
The herd has waited for
her to resolve her problem
and sets off again.
After the excitement
with the lions,
there is a palpable
change in atmosphere,
as if the herd understands
the need for balance.
It goes from high stress
to a little fun.
Of course, it's about covering
themselves against biting flies
and cooling.
But from down here,
it looks almost tempting
and definitely fun.
There is not much
of the world left
that can make you feel like this
at this relaxed place
where elephants are what
they have always been
on their terms.
A coating of dust dries the mud.
When it cracks and falls off,
it takes the ticks and
other parasites along with it.
The security of being
in the fold once again
allows the calf to shake off
his encounter with the lions
and cover his
superficial wounds.
Following that unending
cycle of dust to dust,
one day we find some
elephants veering off track.
The leaders pad across
country with purpose.
Her soul long departed,
she lies as a gentle reminder
to her clan of who she was,
her long life, her successes,
her rescues, her compassion,
and the days spent together
in the mud and the dust.
♪
How she died, we'll never know.
Perhaps she just
ran out of time.
As they bob and
weave around her,
we're reminded that
they are sentient beings,
thinking thoughts, having ideas.
Touch, smell, remember, think.
All you ever need to know
to be inside of an elephant's
head at these moments.
♪
Herd after herd come in,
with just enough time
between each wave
for us to place some cameras
and to disguise our scent.
At the last minute, I remember
that actually turning the
camera on may be useful.
♪
We were able to capture
the most intimate views
we've ever seen of
an elephant wake...
So close, neither of
us wants to breathe,
break the spell.
♪
And right here, we've seen
that something special
that we both love
about Africa at its best,
a skull with its ivory intact...
Pure, the way it should be,
absolutely worthless.
I like that ivory is worthless.
The only value should
be as a beacon of memory
to the elephant clan
she was once a part of.
♪
What legacy is left behind?
As I stand and think about
the romance of our lives,
these magical moments remind me
of the ripples we
cause around us.
I hope that our own legacy
walking in the
footsteps of these bulls
can make a difference.
They could have walked
right by here one day,
even fed on the tree
I'm standing under.
After the sixth set
of molars wears out,
their lives are over.
As it nears that time,
they pick food carefully,
saving those precious teeth.
The story of elephants
may be all about ivory,
but it should only
be about their teeth.
The lashing rain triggers
respite for elephants
and their teeth.
They scoop up
the soft green grass
and shovel it down
for 16 hours a day.
We remember the
teeth of the bulls.
They still had years to go.
As we follow the
elephants into the open,
we have a flash of inspiration.
Elephants often go to water
to get out of the stinging
rain on their sensitive skins.
They could have been struck
down instantly by lightning.
It's the best answer we can find
for two bulls struck
dead together
with their tusks intact.
These phantoms have
somehow become real to us...
No longer apparitions
in the half-light.
They're living beings
with full lives
and even, quite possibly, souls.
It feels like we knew
them as newborn babies,
at play in the
fields of paradise.
We've filled in the
gaps of these gentle
seven-ton giants' lives,
companions for life.
Over and over, we
find the same evidence.
Botswana is one of the
few places on the planet
where elephants can
still live out a natural life.
We're obsessed now
with coaxing these secret
stories from the bones.
She was probably a matriarch
with unusually long tusks.
Like others here, she enjoyed
the vast freedom of a
protected land in Botswana.
But we were also
shocked by the fact
that since you started
watching this film,
five elephants were killed
simply for their tusks.
It's not their ivory
that will enrich us.
We'll find far
greater enchantment
in the journey of life
they will lead us on.
Whether they survive long enough
for us to really
get to know them
depends entirely
on what we can learn
about the very
soul of the elephant.
♪
To learn more about what you've
seen on this "Nature" program,
They emerged from the
swamps 50 million years ago
and became creatures that
ruled the world from coast to coast,
mountains to deserts.
Dereck and Beverly
Joubert are many things...
Award-winning filmmakers,
explorers, and dedicated
conservationists.
Now they've set
their sights once again
on the elephants of Botswana...
But from a whole new angle.
We've lived in the wild
in Botswana for 30 years,
telling the stories
of this place.
But we haven't seen it all.
We're still searching
for something.
Journey with the Jouberts
to one of the most
remote places in Africa,
where they'll explore
one of the last remaining
herds of elephants
and contemplate the inner lives
of these iconic creatures.
Did they know the dead elephant?
Is this a curiosity
or remembrance?
What is the very
soul of the elephant?
♪
The story of elephants is
a timeless story of ghosts.
They leave us messages...
Ancient footprints
in the sands of time.
In some places, it's the
message of extinction
as 35,000 elephants
are poached each year,
purely for their ivory.
But in other places, there
are messages of hope...
Like where we live,
where they are still giants.
Seven-ton giants in full sail.
Their movements
are a meditation.
Their eyes shine with
a deep intelligence.
We've lived in the wild
in Botswana for 30 years,
filming, exploring, researching,
telling the stories
of this place.
But we haven't seen it all.
We're still searching
for something.
And often, what
we find surprises us.
I often think of
myself as an elephant.
I try to think their thoughts,
live life with their values.
This all started one day
while exploring the
backwaters of the bush.
This place is endless.
We stumbled across
something intriguing...
A sun-bleached skull
from a bull elephant
who'd died two years earlier,
but with tusks so heavy,
I could barely lift them.
♪
It's rare to find a carcass
with its ivory still intact.
What's so exciting about
that is in what it represents.
It means that no one has
been here for at least two years.
But something
just didn't add up.
We had too many bones
for this to be
from one elephant.
As we looked around,
we found enough to make
up two huge bull elephants,
a literal killing field,
but with a difference...
Absolutely no sign of man.
♪
You can age an
elephant by its molar teeth,
and these bulls were old.
But still, at around 70, they
had a few years left to live.
They both died in exactly the
same place at the same time.
Usually, that would
mean poaching.
But why would these two
bulls still have their ivory?
It was a mystery that would
change the course of our lives
over the next few months.
We decided to
reconstruct their lives.
As we left the grave
site, we didn't feel sad.
Out here, you learn that
a natural death like these,
elephants that
die with their ivory,
is rare and a celebration,
as it should be.
Dust to dust.
The soul of the
elephant at peace.
♪
This is a magical place,
the Selinda Spillway,
a wave of rivers that snake
away from the Okavango Delta
and join the northern
rivers in Botswana,
ultimately feeding
into the great Zambezi.
So, to understand the
lives of the two bulls,
we've decided to paddle from
one end of this river to the other.
It would have been
their home range
from their birthplace to
their final resting place.
Very shallow here.
Starting to get into
that yellow water
that we saw from the air.
We'll also survey
the carcasses we find
to thoroughly understand
poaching levels, hunting,
and other influences of man.
For the next few months,
we'll paddle and walk,
explore the river and its banks
as it cuts through the
largest elephant populations
in the world.
The mystery of the two bulls
still works inside my head.
♪
They were born over 70 years ago
into a very different world.
There would have been
over 5 million elephants then.
We were waging a world war
as a 250-pound baby
fought his own first
battle against gravity
to stand
and his mother diligently
cleaned away the placenta
to hide the scent
and to protect him
from lions and hyenas.
♪
Each baby born then had
less than a 10% chance
of making it past
our guns and snares
to the age of the two old bulls.
But both somehow survived.
I've also been thinking
about those first steps.
Soon after birth, a mother
takes her newborn into the herd.
The family gently adjusts pace
for the smallest,
shortest, newest legs.
Within hours, he is their
much-celebrated new baby
that everyone wants to greet
and to get to know and to protect.
♪
This social world
he is introduced to
will help him develop into
one of the most intelligent
and sensitive
beings on the planet.
♪
The pace of a herd
is misleadingly slow.
They cover huge distances
at an apparent stroll.
But a quick nap
while standing up
disorientates him.
That's the time to panic.
He's a miniature elephant
in a world of giants
and on strange,
slippery terrain.
Even at his age, days old,
he would have understood
the ways of elephants,
to recover from any
indignity with aggression.
Charge at egrets,
charge at shadows, but
charge whenever you can.
♪
At his mother's side, an
amazing lesson begins.
He wants milk now,
having survived his
near-death experience
with shadows and demons,
but she withholds
his privileges.
♪
He needs to strengthen
his bond with her.
And with elephants, that
early imprinting is vital.
He is frustrated.
He wants that milk.
But colossal legs
outsmart his every move.
It's only when his
temper tantrum passes
that he is allowed in.
His constant pounding
away yields results,
and milk squirts out.
These are the intimate lives of
elephants we often forget about
when we see them just as
falling numbers on a chart.
The water's deep
enough for the hippo here.
It's on the next bend.
It's two weeks in, and we
have a problem already.
We know enough from
30 years of filming them
exactly what is going on.
There, up ahead...
Hippos fighting.
This narrow channel
is not big enough
for us and angry hippos.
Better go around them.
It's time to get out
of the deep water.
Dereck is always
keen to give it a try.
But it really is time to
find an alternative route.
Our reluctant captain
checks the GPS
and plots another course,
except there isn't
really an alternative
but to pull our canoe and
gear through the backwaters
and shallows, where we can,
at least, see hippos coming.
Very shallow here.
So much for paddling
down the river.
If anything goes wrong,
we'll need to be airlifted
by helicopter from here.
It's over five days'
drive to the nearest town.
All right, well done.
All right.
In the backwaters,
we find another skull.
A submerged skull gives
us very little to go on.
It's like coaxing stories
out of spirits.
But the clues are all there.
The lower jaw indicates it
was only about 25 years old.
We always replace each bone
exactly as we find
it, out of respect.
The sloping forehead
tells us it was a young bull.
The tusks have not
been chopped out.
We write it up as
another natural death
in a watery grave.
There is a
richness to life here,
but none quite as dramatic
as what we finally come
across downstream.
♪
Just ahead, we see our
first living elephants in weeks.
The phantoms of this expedition
are actually real at last.
♪
We also get a rare private
view of wild elephants.
A little like looking in
through a bedroom window.
And actually,
elephants do snore.
The wind changes, swirling
our scent towards them,
and it seems they
know that smell.
Our only defense
in this shallow water
is to keep dead still.
And perfectly quiet.
There's always a heavy sleeper.
Caught off guard, they're
the most dangerous...
More prone to
panic and to charge.
♪
Now, these are moments I love.
There is something hypnotic
about being in the path
of a charging elephant...
Something dangerous,
but peaceful, beautiful.
Time warps.
You focus on the
dance of their ears.
And sound dulls because
you believe he'll stop,
but you don't know it for sure.
It's strange that you feel most
alive when you face death.
And when it's over,
I find myself strangely relaxed,
privileged at having been
face-to-face with an elephant.
Any disturbance
ripples through the herds,
and they stop as one
in what we call a freeze.
The leader gives an
order and releases them
with another ultrasonic
call to move on.
That order sends them
back our way.
But it breaks our hearts to
see each herd we approach
disappear like ghosts
before we can even
get to know them
or even count them.
♪
Perhaps it isn't
entirely our fault.
Within minutes, we find
out that the animals here
may be upset for
a different reason.
There are lions
hunting in the dusk.
Lions are unafraid of the
most dangerous of prey
and the largest.
But old bull elephants
are the true omnipotent
rulers of the savannas,
not even pausing to
look at the carnage.
Certainly it wasn't lions that
brought down the two old bulls
we found over a month ago now.
♪
Our nights under a flimsy tent
are filled with sounds that
light up the imagination.
We dream of giants
moving as silently as
ghost ships under sail.
Looks like there's
a skull over there.
The skull of an
elephant. Looks typical.
Yeah, let's go down there.
We heard them calling all night,
and now we understand why.
It's one of those gatherings
we think are like burial rituals
or wakes.
Let's see what happens here.
That looks like
the... over there
'cause there are all
those females next to it.
♪
We want to be quiet, respectful,
but we still feel like intruders
on a family in mourning.
When she lifts the body,
she may be looking,
searching for the cause of death.
So much attention
is given to the ivory,
as if it is the very
symbol of that elephant...
The embodiment
of an elephant's soul.
♪
Their brains are almost
five times the size of ours.
There is no doubt that
they are feeling emotions,
and I wonder what
information they are getting
as their trunks delicately
hover over the remains.
♪
Did they know the dead elephant?
Was it a family member?
Is this curiosity
or remembrance?
As we intrude
just a little longer,
we can see that it
was a young bull.
Cause of death could have
been just like many a young bull...
Raging testosterone.
There is a saying in Africa
that when two elephants fight,
it's the ground beneath
them that suffers the most.
But a misplaced
tusk, a broken leg,
and either young
bull will end up
as bleached skin and bones
under the harsh African sky.
♪
The threats are not
just from humans.
As we leave, we understand
that for our two old
bulls to have survived,
they would have had to also
make it through this
intense phase of their lives.
It's sizzling hot now... Over
100 degrees Fahrenheit.
That should make
everyone lethargic.
Or so you'd think.
In some cases, it just
makes them cranky.
When elephants
really mean to attack,
they approach
with a side-on strut
and then dip their
heads for the charge.
While they're flapping ears
and trumpeting, we're okay.
It's when they go
quiet and drop that head
that it could go either way.
There is a subtle
language to all of this.
Gotta be careful
if we're underneath
the bird's perch...
Like that one.
You see that under my feet.
We're drifting over a
submerged acacia tree.
It breaks the silence.
The herd's suddenly wary.
We can't backpedal
without becoming even
more obvious to them.
♪
Beverly's instinct
is to crouch down
and record the sound
of the bulls coming in
'cause she knows this
is gonna be very loud.
♪
Too close.
There's only one thing to do...
stare him down.
Elephants are so
used to being dominant
that when something
doesn't run off,
they sometimes feel
intimidated, unsettled.
Confidence is the
only weapon we have.
These elephants
are wild and angry,
unlike earlier ones
that just disappeared.
They're charging like
crazy from every direction,
around every bend in the river.
Whew, that was close.
Not far downstream,
we understand exactly why.
Piles of skulls lie
scattered all around.
Look at this... From the teeth,
it doesn't look very old.
This one's got lots of teeth.
Look. Look at
this one, too, this...
Wow.
He was shot...
Until 2014, hunting of
elephants was legal here.
Have been in here.
Hunters were only
allowed to shoot males,
but we uncover
female skulls as well.
Given what we now know,
it must be deeply
traumatic for elephants
when they stumble across
these piles of discarded bones.
This is a killing field.
It explains why
at the start of each
hunting season,
elephants would
leave hunting areas.
They must know
what we do to them.
♪
The two old bulls were lucky
to escape this era as well.
♪
It feels like we're
in hostile territory.
We decide to quietly
follow the family just ahead.
If the Egyptian geese
can navigate hippo waters,
so can we.
Hippos tend to go
to the deep water...
and then come up anywhere.
It's like walking
through a mine field.
We both silently
push back the words
swirling around in our heads...
that hippos kill more people
in Africa than other animal.
Staying calm is our best weapon.
We try not to look
into the black water
for monsters that
may not even be there.
But this river is
full of surprises.
♪
They emerged from the
swamps 50 million years ago
and became creatures
that ruled the world
from Africa to Asia,
and even into the Americas,
from coast to coast,
mountains to deserts.
♪
And today, they are as at
home in the water as ever.
These water dances
are playful games,
but with an undercurrent
of testing wits and strengths.
♪
They're not used to people
approaching on water,
so we decide to drift in
while they're distracted
by the calm bulls
playing nearby.
The story of elephants
is also the story of water.
Botswana has over one-third
of the world's elephants today,
thriving here for many reasons.
Abundant water may be
the most important of them.
Even the big males barely
give us a second glance
as they glide by.
♪
And as the heat relaxes
its grip on everything,
we sit silently, reluctant
to return to normal,
and realize that what we've
been affected by all of this as well.
It's intoxicating.
Oh, this will guide us in.
This is bliss.
Truly, yes.
Our camp tonight will
be under the full moon
and in the company
of magical beasts
in fairy tale moonbeams...
Remnants of a
time past, perhaps.
We realize that
we have tapped in
to that ancient
heartbeat of the elephant,
the very soul of who they are.
And we definitely know
that when we spend
time with elephants,
we come away somehow better.
♪
Go forward on your side?
It's hard to see.
The water's so black.
We're driven by the
hope that today will be
at least as good as yesterday.
So no dawn is left
to rise without us.
We're more than a month in.
From early morning
through the midday heat
and until late at night,
the river is packed
with elephants.
As we drift alongside them now
day after day,
we seem to have cracked
some kind of elephant code,
and we can get in close.
We can see details
we didn't before.
We soak up the closeness,
the smell, the trust,
and feel the beat of their
silent calls in our chests.
It's euphoric
being in the accepting
presence of these animals.
With the elephants this calm,
Dereck wants to experience
that closeness even more.
The more we do this,
the more we embed
ourselves into their culture,
we imagine for a moment
that we thoroughly
understand them.
And then, for some reason,
they all suddenly head away
from the river at this point.
♪
We're now close
enough to get our plane
to get an overview
and find out exactly why.
Floating over
Botswana is magical.
I love Africa from the air.
What looks like random
paths from the ground
magically form into
well-organized patterns
from the air.
Ancient networks of paths
once connected water
holes across the continent.
They lead elephants
out across the grasslands,
herd after herd following
behind their mothers
and the memories
of their ancestors
in the never-ending search
that drives elephants.
♪
We can now recognize
individual elephants,
like this one-tusker
and her family,
as they etch their own stories
into the paths with their feet.
Botswana's elephants
have very small tusks.
The water here has
little mineral value,
so tusks are brittle.
It may be a saving grace.
Being a tuskless elephant
may actually be an advantage
in the future.
Virtually every family here
has at least one
tuskless female.
They leave the rivers here
for something
other than water...
Salt.
Elephants need almost a
quarter-pound of salt every day,
and this is the
only place to find it.
They probe and
prospect for tiny crystals,
an almost impossible
task without fingers,
you would think.
But with at least 60,000
muscles in their trunks,
elephants can pick out a
crystal and work it loose.
If need be, they use
heavier equipment.
Then they just work whole
clods into their mouths
to swallow, and rely
on efficient stomachs
to filter out the good stuff.
The trunk defines elephants.
It's their tool for
digging, breaking,
smelling, investigating...
Always alive, always moving...
just like them.
♪
We can sense the two bulls
leaving these ancient digs.
20 years ago, they would have
been in search of something
even more important than
salt to securing their future.
To mate, both males and females
need to be in sync.
The male musth
happens once a year.
The tiny tuskless
calf is also in heat,
and he's not about
to let her get away.
22 months from now,
he could have an heir.
She may still be a teenager,
but she knows how to send
secret messages of seduction.
The only clues are in
her soundless open mouth
and flapping ears.
A series of six calls,
so low in frequency we
can't normally hear them.
This will attract every mating
male within 10 miles of here
to contest for the right
to pass his genes on to the next
generation of Selinda elephants.
Elephants create a ripple
effect of advantage to others.
A pied kingfisher finds
them useful as a perch.
She's watching
out for small fish,
but elephants
have sensitive skins.
They hate biting flies...
and, apparently, the
feel of a kingfisher.
There is a time for
babies to just follow along
and a time for them to play
and enjoy the slippery feeling
of fine mud under their feet.
But this is not one of them.
We know from working with lions
just how quickly the see
an opportunity and react.
The baby is down,
floundering, drowning.
♪
The lions are waiting here.
They know the hazards.
And these lions are
not afraid of water.
♪
Lions don't give up easily.
They'll circle back to
this crossing point later.
Despite the swirling
scent of lions,
the calm crossings
are methodical.
Elephants just don't
like congestion, stress.
Each herd leaves enough
space ahead and behind.
♪
These gatherings and long
lines of elephant families,
floating across the landscape
in and out of the
sparkling floodplains,
are very typical of the freedom
of Botswana for elephants...
the freedom to come
and go almost endlessly,
to feel the weightlessness
of their huge bodies in water.
This opportunity gives us a
rare chance to see them at play,
but from inside their world
as swamp creatures.
They always maintain
the integrity of
their family groups,
keeping separate by just enough
so their young don't
mingle and get lost,
and yet close enough to
stay in touch as a herd...
As a clan of elephants.
At times, these clans
will gather at crossings
in numbers of well
over 400 elephants
along the Selinda Spillway.
♪
Keeping those families intact
in a huge herd like
this can be a challenge.
A cow has lost her calf
right at the vulnerable
crossing point.
After doing the very
first studies and films
on lions attacking elephants,
we can virtually
replay it from memory.
First, a lost calf
panics and calls out.
The lions respond.
They circle and
attack from behind.
The mother, just like this
one today, goes frantic.
It only adds to the confusion.
And confusion is
exactly what lions want.
Today, it is different.
And the nightmare is prevented
when the mother gets there
just in time to mount
a daring rescue.
With the rescued calf in tow,
she now has to make up ground
to join the rest of the herd.
But elephants are nothing if not
compassionate and understanding.
The herd has waited for
her to resolve her problem
and sets off again.
After the excitement
with the lions,
there is a palpable
change in atmosphere,
as if the herd understands
the need for balance.
It goes from high stress
to a little fun.
Of course, it's about covering
themselves against biting flies
and cooling.
But from down here,
it looks almost tempting
and definitely fun.
There is not much
of the world left
that can make you feel like this
at this relaxed place
where elephants are what
they have always been
on their terms.
A coating of dust dries the mud.
When it cracks and falls off,
it takes the ticks and
other parasites along with it.
The security of being
in the fold once again
allows the calf to shake off
his encounter with the lions
and cover his
superficial wounds.
Following that unending
cycle of dust to dust,
one day we find some
elephants veering off track.
The leaders pad across
country with purpose.
Her soul long departed,
she lies as a gentle reminder
to her clan of who she was,
her long life, her successes,
her rescues, her compassion,
and the days spent together
in the mud and the dust.
♪
How she died, we'll never know.
Perhaps she just
ran out of time.
As they bob and
weave around her,
we're reminded that
they are sentient beings,
thinking thoughts, having ideas.
Touch, smell, remember, think.
All you ever need to know
to be inside of an elephant's
head at these moments.
♪
Herd after herd come in,
with just enough time
between each wave
for us to place some cameras
and to disguise our scent.
At the last minute, I remember
that actually turning the
camera on may be useful.
♪
We were able to capture
the most intimate views
we've ever seen of
an elephant wake...
So close, neither of
us wants to breathe,
break the spell.
♪
And right here, we've seen
that something special
that we both love
about Africa at its best,
a skull with its ivory intact...
Pure, the way it should be,
absolutely worthless.
I like that ivory is worthless.
The only value should
be as a beacon of memory
to the elephant clan
she was once a part of.
♪
What legacy is left behind?
As I stand and think about
the romance of our lives,
these magical moments remind me
of the ripples we
cause around us.
I hope that our own legacy
walking in the
footsteps of these bulls
can make a difference.
They could have walked
right by here one day,
even fed on the tree
I'm standing under.
After the sixth set
of molars wears out,
their lives are over.
As it nears that time,
they pick food carefully,
saving those precious teeth.
The story of elephants
may be all about ivory,
but it should only
be about their teeth.
The lashing rain triggers
respite for elephants
and their teeth.
They scoop up
the soft green grass
and shovel it down
for 16 hours a day.
We remember the
teeth of the bulls.
They still had years to go.
As we follow the
elephants into the open,
we have a flash of inspiration.
Elephants often go to water
to get out of the stinging
rain on their sensitive skins.
They could have been struck
down instantly by lightning.
It's the best answer we can find
for two bulls struck
dead together
with their tusks intact.
These phantoms have
somehow become real to us...
No longer apparitions
in the half-light.
They're living beings
with full lives
and even, quite possibly, souls.
It feels like we knew
them as newborn babies,
at play in the
fields of paradise.
We've filled in the
gaps of these gentle
seven-ton giants' lives,
companions for life.
Over and over, we
find the same evidence.
Botswana is one of the
few places on the planet
where elephants can
still live out a natural life.
We're obsessed now
with coaxing these secret
stories from the bones.
She was probably a matriarch
with unusually long tusks.
Like others here, she enjoyed
the vast freedom of a
protected land in Botswana.
But we were also
shocked by the fact
that since you started
watching this film,
five elephants were killed
simply for their tusks.
It's not their ivory
that will enrich us.
We'll find far
greater enchantment
in the journey of life
they will lead us on.
Whether they survive long enough
for us to really
get to know them
depends entirely
on what we can learn
about the very
soul of the elephant.
♪
To learn more about what you've
seen on this "Nature" program,