Mzandile Mjadu lent a wistful tone to this week's Great Elephant Indaba in the Kruger National Park, where it was proposed that culling should be resumed as the surest way of reducing the destruction they are causing in several southern African reserves.
Mjadu, who came from the Addo National Park, where he is a community leader, said he saw an elephant wading through the water as he crossed the Crocodile River bridge into the Kruger Park and he thought: "To think I have come to decide your fate."
Many of the park managers, rangers, scientists, environmentalists and community representatives who attended the conference must have entertained similar thoughts on seeing elephants as they drove away from Berg-en-Dal camp where the culling decision was taken on Thursday.
Imagine what must have gone through the minds of Steve Smith and Michelle Pickover of an organisation called Justice for Animals.
They warned the conference that the brutal solution would come to define the South African national identity and perhaps lead to a tourist boycott.
Another activist, David Bilchitz, argued that culling would be illegal, as it would go against the constitution, which required statutory bodies like South African National Parks (SANParks) to behave reasonably.
Mjadu turned out also to be the one to add a notably sobering note. Elephant culling, he said, was an emotional matter. "But we must get our priorities right. It is a management tool, like controlled fires, through which we also kill many species, but which are for the greater good of our wildlife."
But try as they might, most of the approximately 200 people present found it hard to negate the feeling that elephants were somehow different from most of the rest of the animal world.
Alex Antonites, a philosophy professor from the University of Pretoria, said that elephants had a higher level of self-consciousness than almost every other animal. It was not mere cleverness but, in fact, self-awareness, which made death individually and socially traumatic for them.
Thus the ethical dimension needed to be taken into serious account in considering culling as a means of population control.
Then there were less romantic views, like that of Michael Masukule, another community leader. He came from an area next to Kruger, the South African park with the most severe elephant problem, and he told the conference that long stretches of the park's fences were broken and that the animals were creating havoc outside its borders.
"They destroy our crops, occupy our drinking places, compete with our livestock for food and are a danger to our people... Whatever decision you take, don't forget us people who encounter elephants every day."
Underlying the conference was a well-thought-out strategy for dealing with one of the biggest headaches suffered by nature reserves throughout southern Africa.
The region has about 300 000 elephants. Botswana, with its longstanding policy of letting nature go its way, is worst off. It alone has about 120 000 elephants, and the Great Elephant Indaba was told that the once riverine-forested areas of its Chobe Reserve were now like a desert.
Since Kruger National Park stopped culling in 1995, its elephant population has grown from less than 7 000 to about 13 000, including those from its adjoining private reserves.
One of several speakers who told the indaba that the effects were becoming all too visible was Hector Magome, SANParks's director of conservation. He showed comparative photographs of how once-lush areas of the park have practically become wastelands as a result of elephants' destructive habits of uprooting and debarking trees.
Other arguments were proffered in favour of reducing elephant numbers. One was that of elephants breaking reserve fences because of their growing numbers and consequent quest for wider feeding areas. Not only did they bother neighbouring communities, but predators like lions and buffaloes, which spread foot-and-mouth disease, were escaping through the broken fences and posing a danger.
Kruger was even said to have seen an alarming increase in elephant attacks on other animals, particularly on rhinoos, which also was ascribed to their burgeoning numbers.
However, the destruction of the biodiversity of the reserves was the main justification for those in favour of reducing elephant numbers.
"It is our legal duty to protect the biodiversity of our parks," said Magome.
Other solutions were canvassed, such as opening corridors between the parks of southern Africa, speeding up the creation of transfrontier parks and extending existing parks to allow elephants bigger areas to move around.
Even contraception and sterilisation were extensively discussed as means of controlling population growth. But it was agreed that these were either too costly or too cumbersome to deal with the immediate problem.
The organisers of the conference were keenly aware of the gruesomeness of culling, even though it might be the only practical solution. And they realised only too well the emotions that will be evoked nationally and internationally by the images of elephants being killed in a planned and systematic manner.
The only way of countering public sentiment was for the decision to be seen as one that had not been taken easily. Hence the elaborate arrangements to ensure the process was made - and was seen to be - as consultative as possible.
It was pointed out by David Mabunda, SANParks's chief executive officer, that consultation on park management matters like these was now a legal requirement.
The elephant consultation was a long process that will see the indaba's proposals submitted to the minister of environmental affairs and tourism, who will in turn compile a strategy, which will then be submitted for public scrutiny before it can be implemented.
Thus culling is unlikely to start until late next year. The big challenge is to make the ultimate decision seem as well considered and responsible as possible.
The renowned conservationist Holly Dublin was recruited to act as the moderator of the indaba. She heads the African Elephant Specialist Group of the Species Survival Commission of the World Conservation Union, which is the leading global environmental organisation.
The authorities will want to avoid tarnishing the respect South Africa has gained as a conservation-minded country. Notably, during the past three years, it has hosted the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the World Parks Congress and the International BirdLife Conference.
To a large extent, wildlife authorities will rely on this to lend further credence to the culling decision.
Stressing that the decision would not be taken lightly, Magome told the indaba: "Kruger has a long and proud research tradition, and elephants are one of the most heavily researched species.
"But we still think we have a lot to learn, which is why we are having consultations, such as at this conference, about them."