Undaunted Courage
Secrets of the Savanna by Mark and Delia Owens
In the remote North Luangwa valley of Zambia—one of the great wildernesses remaining on earth—a husband and wife team settled in 1986. Against overwhelming odds, they succeeded in defeating poachers and saving the local elephant population. Undaunted courage is their middle name.
Here’s what the authors had to say about their amazing experience:
You left everything behind, went to Africa, and lived in some of the most remote places on the continent. What drove you to do that?
As young graduate students back in 1972, we heard a lecturer talk about how Africa’s wildlife was disappearing. We worked for several years, sold some of our wedding presents, and left with one-way tickets and backpacks to conserve African wildlife.
Your book is written on several levels. Tell us about that.
On the surface, Secrets of the Savanna is a true-adventure story of how we stopped officially sponsored ivory poachers, who were operating like a drug cartel in an untamed remote African wilderness. So it is a thriller as well as the story of a great win for wildlife and for local village people. But on another level the book reveals how much we learned about humans by studying social animals like elephants and lions — such things as risk taking in males and the genetic basis for girls having close female friends. Wild animals show us why we need our natal troops and a real home and what we lose when these basic social units are fragmented for whatever reason. This book is as much about people as it is about elephants.
How did you stop the poaching? (more…)
