Review: "The Elephants of Thula Thula" by Françoise Malby-Anthony

The Elephants of Thula Thula by Françoise Malby-Anthony
Published April 2023 via St. Martin's
★★★★

Nothing in my early life had prepared me for the difficult decisions I had to make every day in the bush. I grew up in Paris. I knew my way around the arrondissements and where to get the best pain au chocolat for breakfast. I had no formal training in conservation. Everything I knew, I learnt on the job, from Lawrence or from people around me. (loc. 650*)

Did you know that elephants are right or left tusked (loc. 265), the same way that humans are right or left handed? Mind. Blown.

This is Malby Anthony's second book about the Thula Thula game reserve and the animals on it, and I realized midway through that I actually have two of her late husband's books on my to-read list as well. (I very nearly paused to go read those first, but...there were holds at the library, and I'm not that patient.) I suspect that An Elephant in My Kitchen has somewhat more linear storytelling; The Elephants of Thula Thula> feels a bit like catching up on the lives of distant relatives—the highlights of who's gotten engaged and who divorced, whose son is out of rehab and doing well, and who was caught in flagrante delicto with the neighbor's wife. Except, of course, in this case it's all animals.

When I think about conservation work, I usually think of preserving landscape to limit human encroachment on wild lands, and it's sad and at times shocking to read about the lengths that have to be taken to not only do that but also to deter poachers. Malby-Anthony describes, for example, dehorning the rhinos every 14 or so months—because otherwise the risk that poachers will kill the rhinos for their horns is too high. (I didn't know that rhino horns grow, or grow back—I guess I tend to think of them as something like elephant tusks, when in fact they're more akin to fingernails.) So while the stories sometimes feel a bit scattered, the close focus on animal rather than human drama makes for engrossing material, and there's a lot to learn. It makes me want to read more about elephants in particular (conveniently, The Elephant Whisperer is one of the books on my list).

Late in the book, Malby-Anthony mentions a letter that she received from a reader of her first book—someone who had dreamed of opening her own wildlife reserve but had, since reading the book, refined her vision to visiting a game reserve. That's close to where I land, too—I'm never going to run a wildlife reserve(!) and might well never visit one, but it's always a pleasure to step through the pages of a memoir into someone else's life for a while.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes may not be final.