Famed photographer and conservationist Beverley Joubert is lucky to be alive. She died in March 2017 while on duty in Botswana (four times, by her husband Derek’s count).
The Jouberts were in the bush in the Okavango Delta when the buffalo they had extensive experience with tackled Derek and then impaled his wife. The horns went into her armpits, passed through her chest, tore through her neck, and ended up in her face.
“Beverly died in my arms twice, but I was able to bring her back,” Derek Joubert told CNN. “Then another medical plane, then another hospital trip.”
Seven surgeons and 18 hours later, Beverly Joubert began the long road to recovery. “I have 41 screws and seven plates in my face now, so it’s a bit bionic,” she said with a gentle smile as she sat next to her husband on a video call.
“I shouldn’t have survived,” Beverly Joubert said. But far from forcing the couple to retreat from the wild, she explained, the incident merely reaffirmed their commitment to protecting it.
The South African-born Jouberts are National Geographic Society explorers at large and have lived in Botswana for 40 years, documenting landscapes and animals across South Africa in still photography and more than 20 documentary films.
They have now compiled Beverly Joubert’s photographs into a thick art book entitled “Wild Eye: A Life in Photographs.”
It includes promising photos of dangerous wildebeest migrations and listless leopards. There are also surprising and sometimes shocking images. For example, Beverley Joubert’s photo shows a lion successfully hunting an elephant at night, which the Jouberts believe is the first time it has ever been recorded.
“It was this mysterious thing that we had heard in the dark but never seen,” Derek Joubert said.
During the dry season of 1997, wildlife, including herds of elephants, began to gather at the Savute watering hole in Botswana’s Chobe National Park. Some of the confused calves got separated from the herd and became targets for lions. After the successful kill, the lion immediately attacked the adults.
“At 2 a.m., they jumped on a 21-year-old bull elephant,” said Beverly Joubert. A long and bloody battle ensued, in which the lion emerged victorious. “It was clear that lions can adapt to conditions incredibly quickly,” she added.
The couple documented his behavior after years of research. This is a luxury not afforded to many photographers, certainly those who parachute on missions.
“That’s our life,” Derek Joubert said. “These things are happening all around us all the time… We are the first to witness it. When some new behavior starts to appear, we don’t read about it in scientific papers. It takes time. There is no magic sauce other than time.”
The duo has developed relationships with certain creatures. Their bond is reflected in Beverley Joubert’s most intimate shots. One such example is Legadema, a leopard who was chased away by his mother after a failed hunt. The animal is half of the famous image taken in 2004 alongside a one-day-old baboon. Legadema had just killed the infant’s mother, and the Jouberts expected the leopard to do the same to the infant. Instead, “she moved on to raising this little new baby,” Beverly Joubert said.
For her husband, it embodies what makes the image iconic. “That’s a question mark,” he said. “What has happened so far? And what will happen next?”
Nature documentaries often exhibit anthropomorphic tendencies. Replace human-like stories with animals. Derek Joubert said it was necessary to stay at the stage of defining the subject’s inner self, but argued that it would be “foolish to avoid the idea that animals are in some way like us.”
“They are mammals just like us,” he added. “They have brains and they have reactions. Think of elephants. They have the ability to think and communicate about the past, present and future. Many of these sacred emotions are certainly not unique to us.”
The Joubert family’s closeness to nature makes watching their struggle all the more heartbreaking.
In Africa, lions have disappeared from 95% of their historic range, cheetahs have disappeared from 90% of their historic range, and leopards and other big cats are also facing declines, according to the couple’s Big Cats Initiative.
“You can respond to that in one of two ways,” says Derek Joubert. “One is to say, ‘The world is on fire, it’s over.’ Or, ‘What can we do about it?’
They chose the latter. Nearly 20 years ago, the Jouberts began leasing land from governments and communities and founded Great Plains Conservation, a safari operation that now spans Botswana, Kenya and Zimbabwe.
Our 15 safari camps employ approximately 1,000 people and manage more than 1.5 million acres of land while fostering an economy built around conservation (and, in turn, deterring poaching).
Proceeds will help support the Great Plains Foundation, which oversees the Big Cats Initiative and other conservation programs.
“What we do in our work as emergency conservationists is to look for opportunities for regrowth and rewilding in this ever-changing world,” explained Derek Joubert.
One opportunity is animal migration, which moves animals from high-density areas to low-density areas in southern Africa. This solution is becoming increasingly necessary as safe areas for animals are fenced and, in some cases, required to maintain genetic diversity.
The alternative is culling, and “protection with bullets is not a form of protection,” says Beverley Joubert.
Through multiple initiatives, including Rhinos Without Borders, the Jouberts have been involved in large-scale animal relocations, including relocating 100 elephants across Zimbabwe between 2016 and 2018, and airlifting 87 rhinos by plane and helicopter to a secret location in Botswana.
Derek Joubert said relocation isn’t cheap, estimating it costs about $10,000 to move an elephant across the country and $45,000 to move a rhino. But it’s paying off. Beverley Joubert points out that 90 calves have already been born in the wild from the 87 rhinos transferred to Botswana.
The Jouberts estimate they raise and distribute between $3 million and $10 million each year for conservation and community projects. In addition to employment opportunities, Great Plains has created schools and other educational programs in remote areas near the camps and distributed 7.8 million meals to Maasai children in Kenya.
They say this, along with their documentary and photographic work, will be their legacy.
“I think our life stories need to be built on compassion, compassion and kindness to everything around us: elephants, schoolchildren, grandmothers, rhinos. I think too often in our society we write off those in need,” said Derek Joubert.
Career retrospective books are a natural opportunity to reflect on their lives. What advice would they give their younger selves?
“Embrace life, be curious, and speak up,” said Beverly Joubert. “It’s so important to speak up. If you don’t speak up, animals and everything around you will disappear.”
“I would say to little Derek, ‘Do it again exactly like you did it the first time,'” her husband said. “You’re going to get dented. You’re going to get bruises. You’re going to get gored by an elephant. You’re going to get hit by a buffalo. A lot of planes are going to crash. You’re going to get stung by a scorpion, you’re bitten by a snake. You don’t have to change anything. It’s been a perfect life.”
he stopped.
“I might change one thing,” he added. “Maybe I’ll tell Derek to avoid the buffalo a little more.”
