The Eye of the Elephant: An Epic Adventure in the African Wilderness
Selected Book Details
- Paperback
- Author: Mark James Owens, Cordelia Dykes Owens
- Publisher: Mariner Books
- Release Date: October 1993
- ISBN-10: 0395680905
- ISBN-13: 9780395680902
- List Price: $18.95
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Summaries and Customer Reviews provided by Amazon
SummaryExpelled from Botswana for writing Cry of the Kalahari, the Owenses set off across Africa. They settled in Zambia, where they soon found their peace shattered by the gunfire of elephant poachers. This is the story of the couple's battle to save the elephants and their own lives. |
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Great for Animal Lovers
Rating:
I love the way the Owens write. I enjoyed Cry of the Kalahari more, but this book is quite good as well. Breaks my heart that we are losing so much of the wildlife in Africa.
The Eye of the Elephant
Rating:
This is one of the most fascinating books that I have ever read.
The authors are enjoying a most spectacular life.
In this book they recount their adventures( all in first person )in the wildest & remotest wilderness in Africa while intensively studying African elephants. Their is an extremely strong emphasis on wildlife conservation, something to which this fascinating couple has devoted there entire adult lives.
Wonders of the Wild
Rating:
This book is laden with fascinating information on African Wildlife and how to survive as human and animal in harsh conditions. Excellent read.
A riveting, disturbing story of war with poachers
Rating:
Wildlife researchers and conservationists Delia and Mark Owens have spent much of their lives since 1974 in the African bush, first in the Kalahari Desert from which came their best seller "Cry of the Kalahari" and then in the North Luangwa Valley in Zambia, the setting of this 1992 book.
The Owens' passion leads them to risk their lives routinely. In searching for a suitable camp in North Luangwa they set out in an ancient truck with no radio and inadequate gear. After a grueling trek that would have sent sane mortals packing for home they separate so Mark can fly his Cessna to a site that "would make Cessna's insurance company shudder" while Delia makes the two-day trip alone with the old truck and a trailer over trackless hilly, bushy, gully-filled flood-plain terrain. Tracking animals they are constantly walking smack into a startled lion or buffalo or cornered elephant.
But the real danger comes from people. "The Eye of the Elephant," while filled with wildlife anecdotes and tidbits of information about elephants and lions, is really about the poaching war the Owens conducted on behalf of the besieged North Luangwa elephants.
The poachers are villagers, many armed with AK47s, backed by the local government and assisted by the corrupt and underequipped local game guards. The Owens' weapons are education, cottage industry projects financed by the Owens Foundation for Wildlife Conservation and the Cessna.
The battle starts genially with children exclaiming over magazine pictures and their parents joining sewing circles and carpentry workshops. But it quickly escalates until Mark drives Delia from him with his obsession for highly dangerous and only modestly effective night flights, and the poachers organize an assassination squad to rid themselves of the Owens once and for all.
The book is organized in alternating first-person chapters between Delia and Mark. The tone is brutally honest, touching when one admits to mistakes which endanger the other, disturbing when their frank discussion of anti-poaching tactics veers from the politically correct. The Owens' care more for the animals and the landscape than the people. But since the people are there, their needs must be faced. Their singlemindedness will outrage some, but their strong personalities and sheer stamina will awe almost everyone.
York County Coast Star
EXCELLENT ADVENTURE!
Rating:
I wish these authors would write more books about their adventures in Africa. Truly riveting page-turners!
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