Of Einstein and elephants

Imagination is more important than knowledge, according to Albert Einstein. While it is maybe arguable as an absolute, as a general guide for daily living in these still-Covid times, I find it both helpful and hopeful. Here’s why:

Last Saturday evening, Val and I went out. Actually out — like out of the house and not for routine boring chores, but for a social event that promised an evening of stunning photography and illuminating stories by the photographer. I had bought the tickets in part because I am a fan of the photographer and wanted to meet her in person, and in part because the event was a fund-raiser for Fort Whyte Alive, a local non-profit that “connects humans with nature”. I mention this because I doubt I would have hauled us out for a purely social evening; that it had a ‘good deed’ element to it made the effort of leaving the house and sitting in an auditorium with a large group of strangers not only worth doing but worth the risk. I imagined it might be fun, despite what I have learned about the highly contagious BA.4 and BA.5 variants that are Covid’s latest incarnations in our midst.

And, indeed, the evening was fun. NJ Wight, the photographer, presented her stunning images of wildlife in Africa, while teaching us many things, including “lion math” (for every one lion killed by hunters many others in its pride are put in danger of also being killed due to the dynamics of power and dominance in the pride; so, one dead lion equals X, where X is the exponential impact of that one single death) and weaving in lessons from a conservation angle (hunting comes in three forms: canned — animals are raised expressly to end up in reserves where hunters come to shoot them; licensed — hunters buy a license to shoot in a certain area; poaching — illegal shooting, usually by locals, who earn peanuts compared to what the re-sellers earn on the international market). Interestingly, in an “oh my god” kind of way, two facts: 1. The black market trade in wildlife is estimated to be between US$10 billion and US$23 billion. 2. Canada is a leading exporter of sport-hunted animals (for which a license can cost in the thousands of dollars).

What we human animals do to our “non-human” animal brethren is repugnant. (Note to self: Investigate some vegan meal options.)

I learned that there are 11 different kinds of vultures in Africa (seven of them endangered), all of whom are “like the cleaning company in the wild”, because they come along and clean off the carcasses the wild animals leave behind after they’ve fed from their kill.

I also learned that elephants are a “keystone species”, meaning that their presence in an ecosystem is vital for the flourishing of a wide variety of other species. For example, the impression in the ground of an elephant’s footprint becomes a receptacle for water from which smaller animals can drink. Tragically, it is estimated that, in Africa, one elephant dies every 15 minutes. I’ll leave to your imagination (or this link) the horrors of ivory hunting — the practice that sees the magnificent elephant killed purely for its tusks.

Throughout her presentation, NJ took questions from the rapt audience, including these:

• How close are you to the animals? For the videos, very close, as she takes them on her iPhone! For the still shots, it depends on the circumstances, but no matter how close never so close as to disturb or distract the animals from their task. “I’ve come to learn my place,” she explained. “I am a finder, not a seeker,” meaning that she captures on camera what is happening not what could be staged.
• Why do you have painted toenails in some of your photos? Because the colour helps make for better photos when her bare foot is placed next to, for example, a lion’s footprint — which is big!
• Has Covid had an impact on the wild animals in the parks where NJ goes on safari? When she next goes to Kenya in September, she will be curious to see how the absence of humans — both tourists and the local guides who drive them around — has affected the behaviour of the animals. Tourism was decimated, of course, during the pandemic, so, without supervision of any kind, how will the animals — older and younger — have fared over these past two+ years? Will they tolerate the trucks and the humans? Will they remember what they are or will they have to re-learn to ignore them, as they did pre-Covid?

We were home well before dark, though the heat of the day continued to hang in the air. Nonetheless, we opened all the windows in the (no A/C) house and enjoyed a tasty snack and a debrief of what was an enjoyable evening — and Einstein’s quote holds true: The bits and bobs of knowledge I have retained from the event will likely fade over time, but I’m pretty sure that my imagination will remain fired up about Africa, its wild animals, and what we humans — from all around the world — are doing (or not) for them. 

Note: Montreal-based NJ Wight catapulted to internet fame in the early days of Covid, when she created the Plutoverse that showcases her philosophizing Schnauzer, Pluto. Sadly, Pluto died on April 29, at the grand age of 15 and almost a half (in human years). Pluto described her mum as a “world un-renowned wildlife photographer”; while I love much of Pluto's spot-on wisdom about human foibles, I think she vastly underplayed her mum's photography skills. NJ brings a sharp eye, an open mind, and a warm heart to her camera work. Her pictures are worth at least a thousand words. 

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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.

Einstein photo sourced from Wikipedia Commons

Elephant photo by Eric Heininger on Unsplash

Pluto photo: screen grab from her very own YouTube channel