Attitudes towards elephants

"Lions? You can get away from lions."

Ask a local what is the most feared beast on the plains and in the forests of TransMara, and you will always get the same answer (and it it's neither lions nor buffalos).

As you may have guessed, the most feared animal is the elephant. And by fear, we mean a genuine, mind numbing, petrifying fear. Noah tells the story of the the first time he took Leonard close to an elephant... "I asked him to take a photograph for the records, and his hands were shaking so much he just couldn't do it."

A true fear held by many
Leonard has since got to be more familiar with the great gray goliaths, but many of his fellow Maasai, and especially the immigrants from outside the region, have not.

One older tribal lady on seeing an elephant covered her head as if a bomb had exploded, and implored Leonard, who was with her at the time, to "take it away."

Most loved, and most feared
It's a sobering thought for many of us in our cosy industrialised settings to see the elephant for its higher level of intelligence, its loyalty to its kin and, above all, its charisma.

To then have this great beast described with such fear. To hear of it as a beast that kills or maims people. To know that parents lock their doors to keep their children at home because of them, is something the majority of us would never have guessed.

Why elephants are so dangerous
Noah describes it like this... after decades of persecution, of being hunted indiscriminately, an elephant's instinctive reaction on coming across a human is the same as if we would ourselves come across a wasp that may sting us. First we swat, then we stamp.

Why man is so dangerous
Despite living in close proximity, many people, and especially immigrants to the region, have had little or no contact with elephants at close quarters. add to this the level of fear that people have of this large animals, and humans too err towards that instinctive reaction to kill.

What complicates matters further, is that the newly arriving immigrants are placing their fresh fields in areas not settled by Maasais - and this means those fields are usually in the natural corridors that elephants seem to pass through, and which the Maasais naturally avoid.

Will the Human Elephant Conflict Project change attitudes?
A key question to Noah is if his work has helped improve the attitudes of the local people towards elephants.

The answer is not a simple one.

Noah places great emphasis on the respect which the Maasai already have for their environment. Although he doesn't claim to change people's attitudes, he feels that, in those areas where he has been doing his experimental trials, people have become more tolerant of elephants, because they have found ways to minimise the conflicts they had with them in the past.

This is why Noah feels his next and final 3 year phase is so important. It is where he is hoping to promote his methods to the wider local communities across the affected areas of the TransMara. And doing so, he feels he can show these people that it is possible for them to live next door to elephants, in something approaching a kind of harmony, and with a certain degree of tolerance.