The Elephant Hunters are the main antagonists of the 2000 Disney live-action movie Whispers: An Elephant's Tale.
Background[]
The elephant hunters are a group of men who set out to hunt for elephants. During their hunting season, they set out to hunt elephants in the African savanna, albeit in a sadistic manner. For weapons, they use rifles to hunt for animals in the savanna - particularly elephants, whether at day or at night. They would occasionally retreat in areas where they could not find any animals to hunt, like the moment when Whispers taught Princess to hold her breath when submerging underwater to avoid getting hunted or when Half Tusk led the herd to safety far from the poachers.
Role in the film[]
The poachers are first seen at the beginning of the film, where they are attempting to shoot the elephants and Whispers' loving mother, Gentle Heart, just as the other elephants scatter in panic. Just as they attack, they not only frighten the elephants but also the vultures as well. Gentle Heart warns her son to run and hide, just as he runs away from the poachers attempting to kill Whispers while Gentle Heart attempts to defend her son from the poachers. Just as Whispers hides behind a bush, one poacher attempts to find the elephant he was looking for, but Whispers hides, causing him to retreat.
The following day when Whispers follows alongside Groove, he follows her into an abandoned village, passing by empty poacher huts, where the latter tells him that this territory was where poachers (natural enemies of the elephants) lurked within. Groove summarizes that the poachers are humans who kill elephants and hunt them for their tusks, describing them as dangerous enemies. Later, Groove lifts a door from an abandoned hut to reveal two bullets hidden under, showing Whispers that this is the object poachers use to kill elephants. Whispers then recognizes that the bullets are the same ones that they fired during the moment where he was separated from his mother, keeping this event in his memory.
When Whispers and Groove stumble upon a wildfire in the savanna, the poachers arm themselves with rifles and flashlights to look for any elephants across the landscape. Suddenly, as Whispers becomes separated from Groove, the poachers began to get closer, causing them to get lost throughout the night. Whispers looks at one of their flashlights, revealing that the poacher has a flashlight placed on his rifle, much to Whispers fearing that he is about to be hunted by poachers. The poachers chase Whispers and attempt to kill him, only to be defended by Groove, causing them to retreat from the angry elephant. Throughout the ambush, Groove ends up getting shot by one of the poachers, causing her to be severely injured, while the surviving poachers escape; Groove later dies the next day due to her injuries from the poachers she had last night.
Furthermore when Whispers and the rest of Half Tusk's herd arrive at the Great River, the poachers arrive at the spot where the elephants are present, leading Whispers to warn them about the poachers attempting to hunt them down; Whispers began trumpeting in front of the elephants, causing Half Tusk and the rest of the herd to run away in panic, noticing the poachers attempting to hunt them down. As Half Tusk evacuates her herd across the large body of water, Whispers decides to put his determination in defending the elephants from the poachers. After Whispers saves Princess from a hostile, hungry crocodile, the poachers rush towards the spot where Whispers is helping Princess, just as they attempt to kill them in an ambush. Whispers and Princess submerge underwater to avoid getting killed by the poachers. Just as the poachers attempt to continue hunting down the elephants, they were unable to find Whispers, Princess, and the other elephants, just as they retreat and leave in disappointment.
Although the poachers retreated after Whispers saved the elephants, he narrates they are still hunting the elephants. Whispers also narrates that at long last, they find something they could not take: the courage of a strong heart, the love of a family, a mother's promise, and an elephant's trumpet.
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