– 17th Century English Proverb.
Years ago, South Africa’s Pilanesberg Park had big trouble. Tons of it. Someone went on a killing spree of its prized white rhinos. Thirty-nine of the 5-ton ungulates were mysteriously turning up dead around the park. That was 10 percent of the park’s endangered rhino population. The killers had to be stopped, so park rangers turned into homicide detectives.
Who did it? Poachers, perhaps? No. It couldn’t have been. The dead rhinos didn’t have bullet holes, and their horns were still intact.
Who, then?
A break came in the case when staff saw a video of young elephants terrorizing tourists. Others witnessed elephants taunting and bullying rhinos for hours. After tracking the herds, chronicling their behavior, and developing rap sheets on the most aggressive ones, rangers found their killers: gangs of teen male elephants.