A horny dilemma

Rumour has it that there can be found within the offices of the Kruger National Park a sign which reads Getting things done around here is like mating elephants ...

IN this country, prior to British rule, men were men, women were women, and sheep were scared. People from the San to the Nguni respected animals, and ate them. The ancestors of today's Afrikaners also respected animals, and shot them.

Then came the Brits, and with them came their bunny-hugging fascination with wildlife, and their preoccupation with sex — or rather, no sex.

These norms collided head on this week when an attempt to control elephant populations in the Kruger Park using contraceptive hormones didn't quite turn out as expected.

The contraceptive part worked. Would-be Mama Elephants no longer fell pregnant. But they were also left permanently in heat. The wonders of modern medicine had turned homemakers into houris.

And the normally placid pachyderms were suddenly plunging through the park in an orgiastic frenzy. Family values were summarily abandoned. Hugh Hefner had annexed Disneyland.

And the rulers of the park said, this will not do!

"At one stage there were eight bulls around one cow," said park veterinarian Douw Grobler. "This is unacceptable..." This is why, he said, the contraceptive program would be terminated.

Now this is all a bit much. An elephant's job is to procreate. Deprived of their employment, they had merely done what (according to our Health Minister) the rest of us do — turned to recreational sex.

So what's wrong with that? Strikes me that the potential here for attracting tourism is tremendous.

Let me put this in perspective. US film producers Spotted Dog this week announced a R300million production in this country next year called Mambo — a feel-good Hollywood bunny-hugger which has been codenamed "Free Willy with Tusks".

At the Kruger Park today, most of the bull elephants immediately meet that job description. Cash-strapped conservationists can capitalise on the inevitable movie merchandising. "Come see the real thing, then buy your miniature Willy." (Maybe that's an oxymoron.)

But back to the British. The sudden lapse in Victorian values among our wildlife has clearly left them unsettled.

A British Broadcasting Corporation documentary is to be filmed in Uganda later this year, and requires elephants. Unlike us, Uganda does not have many elephants as they have generally been poached — (I don't know, maybe they use very large kettles?) — and/or eaten.

The Brits have made it clear that they don't want our elephants. Instead, about six of the beasts will be flown from from St Petersburg zoo to the Ugandan capital, Kampala.

The cargo manager of the airline chartered to transport the animals could not say why the BBC had decided to send elephants from Russia to Africa. (The elephants will be transported in containers on an Antonov AN-124 jet in September.)

To me, it's perfectly obvious. Russian elephants staggering about in an alcohol-induced state of bewilderment more closely fit the "No sex please, we're British" mindset than do our own horny tuskers.

And what's accuracy in journalism when weighed against the need to keep a nation wrapped in blissful ignorance? As a large Afrikaner of my acquaintance is fond of saying, it's enough to make a jackal puke.

• If you are a black actress, 20-25 years old and would like to star in Mambo, send a CV to Jeff Dalla Betta, Spotted Dog Entertainment, 1901 Avenue of the Stars, Suite 670, Los Angeles, CA 90067, USA. Fax: 091 310 286 3222. Tell him I sent you.