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Three hundred and fifty kilometers East of Kenyas capital, Nairobi, lies the Meru National park, less known, but one of the parks used by George and Joy Adamson in the 1966 shooting of critically acclaimed movie, Born Free. Being one of the least crowded parks in the country, the government had recently decided to use it to decongest the worlds only wildlife sanctuary located within a capital city, The Nairobi national park. For that purpose, the government transferred fifteen elephants, twenty zebras and a few antelopes to the reserve. As is the case whenever there is a transfer of wildlife, a special unit was formed to take care of the wildlife until the management was sure that the wildlife has acquainted itself with the park.

Johnson Zuma, one of the veteran rangers in the park was tasked to head the team that was to carry out a manual count of the new animals every day. For Zuma however, his job was to reconcile radio communication figures he got from his field officers and make sure that the totals he got tallied with number of new animals in the park. Wednesday, a week and a half after their arrival, elephant went missing. Immediately, Zuma sent out a distress signal to the Kenya Wildlife Service headquarters in Nairobi and assembled all officers in the park for an emergency meeting.

A few minutes later a helicopter from the headquarters had arrived, and all the parks land rover vehicles were traversing the reserve and the neighboring community. Everybody was on high alert, including the villagers, who by now were getting thrilled by the attention the park, and by extension, their village was getting given the many television cameras in and outside the park. Zuma was at the point of briefing the media when a radio communication came through informing him that the animal had been sighted outside the park.
He did not even bother finishing his last sentence, instead he rushed to his Land Rover and followed the radio communication, only to find the animal fatally injured from arrow wounds inflicted on him. As he prepared himself for confrontation, a villager volunteered and narrated how the animal had invaded their farms at night and destroyed a good portion of their crops. Given the countrys outdated compensation policy, Zuma was left with no option but to ask for a medical unit to assist the animal. Zuma then came down and appealed to the villagers to be compassionate with the animals, something the villagers responded to by asking that the government either reviews its compensation policy or fences off the park completely. Zuma left the scene a dejected man he was caught between a rock and a hard place.