Carr himself felt the need to get away from a world of lots of people, traffic, and city confusion. He was happy to return to Africa when his schooling was over. As a young man he worked with elephant control, and by the age of 32, he had killed 50 elephants.
Norman Carr shot his 50th elephant on his 20th birthday when he was a government elephant control officer in Northern Rhodesia. It was a dangerous but necessary job, for the local tribes depended on what they grew and, if marauding elephants destroyed the crops, the villagers faced hunger and real hardship. Carr was one of four such officers in the country. Of the other three, one died of drink, one after being mauled by a lion and the tombstone of the third reads "Killed by his 350th elephant".
The accomplishment of Norman Carr though, as his career evolved, rests on the national parks he established in what is now Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. And the whole idea of eco-tourism was invented by Norman Carr as a way to protect wildlife. The concept that people will pay to see wild animals, and that is a means of preventing the local population from killing the animals, which have become a source of revenue --- this was formulated and tested by Norman Carr.
He wrote several books, and a movie was made of one, Return to the Wild, (1962) which talks about two cubs he raised, after one of his wildlife officers had to shoot the mother, after inadvertently coming between her and her cubs. Yes, you have heard that story before. Born Free, was published in 1960, and perhaps it's runaway acclaim obscured the contributions of Norman Carr.
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