How Sharon Pincott survived Zimbabwe with the Presidential Elephants 

How Sharon Pincott survived Zimbabwe with the Presidential Elephants reviewed by Beth Clifton

Source: How Sharon Pincott survived Zimbabwe with the Presidential Elephants – Animals 24-7

 Elephants

52 minutes.  Free view at:

https://stirr.com/movies/5831/all-the-president-s-elephants

Reviewed by Beth Clifton

Upset by alleged land grabs and poaching involving people well-connected within the Robert Mugabe government,  Australian elephant researcher Sharon Pincott on April 16,  2014 e-mailed to ANIMALS 24-7 that she was reluctantly leaving Zimbabwe,  giving up a 13-year effort to protect the herd known as the Presidential Elephants,  about whom Pincott wrote two books.

(See Elephant researcher Sharon Pincott gives up on Zimbabwe and Elephant Dawn,  reviewed by Johnny Rodrigues,  founder of the now defunct Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force.)

The Presidential elephant herd during Pincott’s years of close-up observation of the members,  2001-2014,  included as many as 400 elephants in 17 family groups.

Explained Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force founder Johnny Rodrigues,  “The Presidential Elephants roam in an area called Kanondo,  near Hwange National Park.  A few years ago,”  actually in 1990,  2009,  and 2011,  “President Mugabe promised to take these elephants under his wing and stated that nobody would ever be allowed to shoot them.  Sharon Pincott has spent the past 13 years living in the area and studying these elephants. She named them and spent many hours getting to know them,  and has done everything in her power to protect them.”

(See Johnny Rodrigues,  69,  fought to save wildlife in Zimbabwe.)

The Presidential Elephants today

Unfortunately,  elaborated Alex Ball of SW Radio Africa on March 26,  2014,  “A woman who calls herself either Elisabeth Pasalk or Elisabeth Freeman has claimed ownership of the land in the Kanondo area,  despite a 2013 directive by Zimbabwe’s cabinet that offer letters for the land be withdrawn. The woman has claimed that she inherited the property from her late mother,  who in turn was given the land by the government.  The Cabinet directive of 2013 has been ignored.  Instead,  the Kanondo land claimant has forged ahead with building a safari lodge.”

This facility,  the Gwango Elephant Lodge, appears to have prospered in the years since.  About 350 members of the Hwange National Park elephant population,  estimated at circa 44,000,  reportedly still visit Kanondo.

The 52-minute 2012 film documentary All The President’s Elephants describes an earlier time,  when whether the Presidential Elephants would survive the lawless violence and practically unrestrained poaching endemic in Mugabe’s later years was very much in question.

“A welcomed and trusted friend”

To the Presidential Elephants, Pincott was a welcomed and trusted friend,  a benevolent presence who at times brought great comfort to individuals within the herd.

I began watching the documentary All The President’s Elephants with scrutinizing eyes.  I wanted to know Pincott’s motivations in befriending the Hwange elephants.

During the film I closely watched the interactions among them and thought about whether Pincott was helping or hindering the lives of the elephants.

Lady was the first elephant to greet Pincott and allow human contact with her,  very much enjoying rubs on her trunk and the gentle voice that Pincott used to reassure the elephants that she meant no harm.

Whole,  the matriarch of the W family,  mother to Wilby and Whosit,  would run to Sharon at the sound of her calls to them.’ ,  would run to Sharon at the sound of her calls to the herd.

“Formed a bond”

Without question Pincott formed a bond with them.  They accepted Pincott’s presence and welcomed her.  And at times it was evident that some of the elephants sought emotional comfort from Pincott,  as one might seek from a close family member or friend.

To watch these interactions stopped my skepticism.  At the same time I worried for Sharon and the elephants that this was not the natural way of things,  I saw the potential for tremendous pain and loss for the elephants should something happen to Pincott and vice versa.

My single criticism of Pincott’s work became that her good intentions might bring problems to the Presidential Elephants.  I believe she probably wondered the same at times.

“Each elephant had a name & identity”

As I continued watching the film,  enjoying every second of it,  I realized that Pincott was actually very methodical in her approach to the elephants.  Each had a name and identity.

Pincott put together a team of experts and volunteers to help elephants who were in need of emergency medical treatment as a result of becoming entangled in cable snares made from fence wire,  caught by their legs,  trunks and even necks,  requiring isolating and sedating each victim to remove wires that often cut through the elephants’ thick hide and into their flesh.

Snares

One young elephant,  caught on camera,  actually removed a snare from his leg on his own.  Most could not.  Many pulled at the wire nooses,  accidentally making their injuries worse.

Without Pincott’s rescues,  many snared elephants would have suffered pain,  infection,  and ultimately death,  inflicted by poachers having no regard for the elephants’ welfare.

Fossey,  Goodall,  Moss & Poole

I was reminded of gorilla researcher Dian Fossey (1932-1985),   and chimpanzee researcher Jane Goodall (1934-2025),  who devoted their lives and risked their own well-being to protect wild animals,  and of “elephant ladies” Cynthia Moss and Joyce Poole,  still alive and still working in Kenya at ages 85 and 70,  respectively.

(See Jane Goodall, 91, defied scientific & ecological convention all her life.)

What they all have,  or had,  in common with Pincott was a deep connection to the animals they chose to protect.  But Pincott never claimed to be a scientist,  although she and Johnny Rodrigues reported on significant scientific finding:  that stress associated with the sound of gunfire appears to reduce elephant fertility,  even when elephants themselves were not the targets.

(See Gunfire no aphrodisiac for African elephants.)

Pincott was and remains a conservationist,  but the commonality among Fossey, Goodall,  Moss,  Poole,  and Pincott during their time in the African bush was a selfless desire to protect animals threatened not only by the stresses of nature,  but by the politics of the region and human predation.

Robert Mugabe

All The President’s Elephants emphasizes the importance Pincott felt that then-Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe (1924-2014) should sign a reaffirmation of his earlier proclamations that the Presidential elephants would not be hunted or harmed in any way,  and would instead be protected by the Zimbabwe government.

Mugabe,  as had already been well-known for decades since his rise to uncontested dictatorial rule of Zimbabwe in 1980,  was notoriously untrustworthy and downright corrupt.  I did not understand why Sharon Pincott would focus on this as a main goal,  because hardly anyone,  either in Zimbabwe or elsewhere,  considered the word of Mugabe worth the paper it was written on,  albeit that there were often dire consequences for those who crossed him and members of his inner circle of associates.

Pincott,  however,  apparently arrived in Zimbabwe unaware of Mugabe’s murderous reputation,  and of the political and economic turmoil engulfing Zimbabwe during the entire time she was there,  and was more than pleased when Mugabe finally did sign the proclamation to reaffirm the Hwange elephants’ protected status.

“Devotion moved me”

All The President’s Elephants and Pincott’s devotion to the Presidential elephants moved me.  Amid all the adversity these animals were experiencing,  it was wonderful to see Pincott championing them and standing up to those who saw her as an interloper,  a foreigner with no direct stake in what became of the Presidential elephants,  or for that matter,  having any business being in Zimbabwe.

Eventually Pincott had to make the difficult decision to leave Zimbabwe and return home to her native Australia.  She left her friendships with all of the Presidential Elephants behind,  knowing that her presence would be greatly missed by the herd,  a bitter pill for her to swallow because she truly loved and cared about these elephants,  each and every one of them.

“Difficult for Pincott to live with”

I know this has been difficult for Pincott to live with,  and likely always will be.  I hope she remembers the precious time she spent with one of the most magnificent and majestic wild animals on the planet and knows that she most definitely made a difference for them.

Pincott said in All The President’s Elephants that if she had it to do all over again,  she would.  This speaks volumes if her character,  and I believe her.

Pincott visited Zimbabwean elephants in China

Pincott’s time in Zimbabwe,  incidentally,  was not the end of her involvement with Zimbabwean elephants.  Shortly after Pincott left Zimbabwe,  the Mugabe regime began exporting young elephants in large numbers to zoos in China.

(See China halts ivory sales, but leads the world in live elephant imports.) 

            Pincott in 2018 became one of the first outsiders to visit and document the conditions of the Zimbabwean elephants in Chinese zoos.

One outcome of the media hue and cry that followed,  including involvement by the growing Chinese animal advocacy sector,  may be that Chinese zoos turned from sourcing elephants from Zimbabwe to sourcing elephants from Namibia.

(See Did Namibia sell 170 elephants to China to make way for oil drilling?)

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