Melanie Verwoerd
Not many people get to sit next to a 25-year-old wild elephant bull. I did last week. He was heavily sedated, yet the impact on me was profound. I touched his soft trunk and had to step back when he let out a deep sigh, which had the force of a mini-South Easter. He was simply majestic. But it was the noise of his breathing that really got to me. It takes a lot of air to fill the lungs of a seven-ton mammal. Every time he breathed in the earth vibrated from the rumbling sound, and when he breathed out the plants around him bent before the gale. It was simply, well, breathtaking.