Lawrence Anthony

Biography Anthony was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. His grandfather, who was a miner in Berwick-upon-Tweed, England, had migrated to the area in the 1920s to work in the gold mines. His father, who ran an insurance business, went about establishing new offices across Southern Africa; Anthony was raised in rural Rhodesia (now called Zimbabwe), Zambia, and Malawi, before settling in Zululand, South Africa.

Anthony also started his career in the insurance sector, though subsequently started working the real estate development business. Meanwhile, he started working with Zulu tribespeople, by mid-1990s, his passion for the African Bush inspired him to switch careers, when he bought the Thula Thula game reserve, spread over 5,000-acre in KwaZulu-Natal starting his career as a conservationist. and were about to be shot. He tried to communicate with the matriarch of the herd through the tone of his voice and body language, eventually rescued them and brought to the reserve, and in time came to be known as "Elephant-whisperer".

Baghdad Zoo

Baghdad Zoo was the biggest zoo in the Middle East; however, by 8 days after the 2003 invasion, when Anthony reached the zoo on a private rescue initiative, out of the original 700 animals in the Baghdad Zoo only 35 survived owing to bombing of the zoo, looting of the animals for food, and starvation of the caged animals without food and water. Anthony could not get to the zoo any earlier at the height of the war owing to safety, transport and bureaucracy issues. and the movie rights have been acquired by a major Hollywood production company.

African conservation Anthony was involved with programs to involve remote African tribes in conservation on their own traditional land. He had created two new Game Reserves in South Africa. The Royal Zulu Biosphere in Zululand, which is expanding to join the Umfolozi Hluhluwe reserve, and the Mayibuye Game Reserve in Kwa Ximba.

Anthony's private focus was the rehabilitation of traumatized African elephant. Anthony's second book, The Elephant Whisperer, tells the story of his working relationship with the African elephant.

Within two days of Anthony's death, a group of 21 elephants Anthony had saved and befriended walked two days to his home. They stood rigid for hours, then began making distress noises as though they knew he had died. For years after on the anniversary of his death, this same herd repeated the journey to his home. No one communicated to the animals that Anthony had died.

Anthony had served on the National Transitional Executive Committee during the South African Governments transition from Apartheid on the panel for the electronic media which appointed the board of directors of the South African Broadcasting Corporation and on the committee which appointed the Film Board of South Africa.

Books Anthony's books have been translated into several languages. His brother-in-law, Graham Spence co-authored his three books.