The Eye of the Elephant: Life and Death in an African Wilderness Book

After being expelled from Botswana for writing their controversial best seller, Cry of the Kalahari, Delia and Mark Owens set off on a journey across Africa, searching for a new Eden. They found it in the North Luangwa Valley of Zambia, an area the size of Delaware with no roads, no buildings, and no people. Hippos and crocodiles swam in the rivers, lions stalked the bush, and elephants wandered into camp to eat the fruit of the marulu trees. But the peace and quiet were soon shattered by gunfire; poachers were killing a thousand elephants a year. When they learned that the people in the villages around the valley depended on poaching to survive, Delia and Mark became a one-woman, one-man economic development team, helping villagers start sewing and woodworking shops, fish farms and grain mills, all the while trying to convince them that in the long run wildlife could be worth more to them alive than dead. But some of the big commercial poachers decided that the Owenses should die, and Delia and Mark's battle to save the elephants turned into a fight for their own lives. Cry of the Kalahari was one of the great wildlife adventure stories of all time. Remarkably, The Eye of the Elephant is even more dramatic, more exciting, more poignant.