Markus Borner

I ask Hugo what he has learned out here. He tells me that he is calmer and more self-assured now, but this is probably due to age. 'You are alive thanks to luck in many ways,' he tells me. 'How fragile life is.' He explains to me that if you are out here full time, it is not good. 'You get tunnel vision and you lose your perspective.' Hugo has seen a lot of scientists and researchers pass through here. When they arrive they have a lot of fear of Africa for about six months, then they go completely the other way and become fearless. It is the same with pilots, he says, and that is the most dangerous time - when they become fearless. Hugo spent many years observing Chimpanzees when he was with his former wife Jane Goodall. He tells me the good Chimp mothers would discipline their young with a hit or a bite on the hand, followed by a hug afterwards. This is how you should treat human children, he explains. Hugo and Jane have a son named Grob, and he tells me that they never ignored his crying. If you ignore their crying, they will become insecure. I am always interested when anyone has advice on how to be a good parent. Silently, perhaps, I must be longing for this.

Chimps, to Hugo, aren't animals; they are so close to humans. He tells me about the tame Chimpanzee named Washoe in USA. It was asked to sort different photographs into humans and animals. He put the photos of himself with the humans, and he put the photo of his mother, who he didn't know, with the animals. Hugo asks me, 'If Neanderthal man were alive today, would we call him human?' In captivity, Chimps that haven't been brought up in a group don't know how to mate. Robondo is an island in Lake Victoria west of here. It is the only successful complete rehabilitation in the world of domestic Chimpanzees back into nature. Domestic Chimps know your strength; they will attack you. Wild Chimps think you are stronger, so they will run. Robondo was set up as a refuge for certain endangered species by Bernard Grzimek in the 60's. The Chimps were just dumped there. All the original adults are now gone, but when Markus Borner went there and pointed a camera lens at a female with a baby, she attacked and injured him, so perhaps they haven't forgotten everything.

Markus Borner is preparing his plane to go and track lions. He tells me that last night an elephant wanted to sit on my plane. The askaris had to fire shots into the air. It was the same elephant that had wrecked the boats and the land rover. The boats were wooden canoes confiscated from poachers all lined up in a row. The elephant walked down the whole row and crushed them. The land rover it turned over with its tusks. He is a solitary bull, and he is a bit mischievous. Markus works for Frankfurt Zoological Society here, and during the 'Serengeti Diary' film, we flew together in formation across the wildebeest migration. I could only see him half the time as he was beneath my nose, and I had to watch him on a small television screen through the camera as we were flying. He called these film runs the 'National Geographic Air Force maneuvers', and we would whiz past kopjies and trees and wildebeest like feathers in the wind.

Markus is old fashioned. He believes there should be places on earth where man is not. He also thinks that conservation or a national heritage is a sounder base than just revenue. 'It should be pride, not money,' he says. Markus knew Professor Bernard Grzimek, and he says that Grzimek trusted the Africans and believed in them; it was not just money for them. At the time of independence, there was just one national park in Tanzania. Now, there are 12 national parks and 1 Ngorongoro conservation area. Markus says, 'I learned through Grzimek to listen to older people. It is worthwhile to listen. Wilderness is an emotional thing, and emotion is important for us. We always try to find a rational reason for things; emotion is more important.' He refers to Grzimek's chapter heading - 'listening to a lion roar'. 'We have had a wave of rationalizing since then, but now emotion is coming back.'