Ishi reflects on life’s fleeting nature and the importance of storing pleasing memories. Mother Blue’s clan returned for him during the next rainy season, and his young human friend traveled with the herd briefly before saying goodbye. Although Ishi returned fully to life in the wild, members of his human family occasionally visited him, and these reunions were emotional for both sides. Ishi grew into the largest and strongest young bull in the clan, with tusks that his aunties predicted would become enormous.

Political changes in East Africa have shifted power to Indigenous Africans. Russell and his fellow hunters recruit armed Field Force teams from nomadic tribes to combat poaching, relieved to hand over the dangerous work. The Field Force reduces poaching, but thousands of elephants continue to be killed each year because ivory remains highly valuable. In summer 1968, Russell guides Hollywood producer Jack Singer and his family on a safari. Singer is obsessed with bagging a trophy elephant. As light fades, they pursue a lone bull with massive tusks into thick brush, only to find themselves surrounded by an entire herd. While retreating, they’re charged by a cow elephant. Both Russell and Singer fire, killing her inches from their feet. Russell later realizes that they had accidentally come between the cow and her young calf.

A baby elephant emerges and whimpers over its dead mother. Russell prepares to euthanize the calf, but Singer stops him, insisting that they try to raise it and offering to cover all costs. Singer abandons his hunt entirely.

That night, Jean tends to the orphaned calf. She delivers Russell an ultimatum: Choose between hunting or their marriage. Russell agrees to transition to photographic-only safaris.

Jean becomes a political force for wildlife preservation, using her orphanage’s growing fame to support conservation initiatives. She remains deeply devoted to Kamau, whom she regards as one of her own children, and he’s admitted to the University of Nairobi for veterinary medicine. Three years have passed since Ishi joined Russell’s wild herd, and he occasionally spots him during photographic safaris. Having abandoned hunting, Russell adapts successfully to photographic safaris and realizes that he made the right decision as hunting expeditions decline in popularity.

Before leaving for university, Kamau embarks on a final walkabout with his childhood friend Ndegwa, the village chief’s son. Meanwhile, Gichinga Kimathi, now a successful debt collector in Voi, has resumed poaching on weekends with a heavily armed crew, confident that no rangers would confront them.

While camping in a lava field, Kamau and Ndegwa detect the approaching poachers. Kamau recognizes Gichinga from years earlier, and Ndegwa recognizes him as the man his father helped exile. They pretend not to know him. After the poachers make camp and get drunk, Kamau convinces Ndegwa that they must leave immediately, fearing Gichinga will murder them. They reach a highway before dawn and alert the warden by radio. A dozen Field Force members are dispatched, but Gichinga discovers the empty cave at dawn and flees with his crew before the rangers arrive. Kamau never learns that Gichinga had intended to eliminate the boys as witnesses.

Terence come to terms with his sexuality in London, becomes involved in the glam rock scene, and works as a photographer’s assistant. Amanda attends Columbia University’s journalism school in New York.

In 1972, a severe drought devastates East Africa, killing many animals including several of Ishi’s adoptive aunties. Lightning sparks devastating wildfires, and a massive stampede separates Ishi from Mother Blue’s herd. Alone and panicking, he runs from the approaching fire wall.

He encounters an enormous, ill-tempered old bull named Big Black hiding among boulders. After questioning Ishi about his clan, Big Black invites him to follow the bachelor herd into a cave, and they take shelter with many other animals as the fire passes overhead.

Ishi joins Big Black’s bachelor herd but is reunited with Little Stream, a playmate from his birth clan. Little Stream reveals that She Storms was killed by an arrow wound inflicted by a young “two-legger” years ago. When Ishi mentions rejoining his Mother Blue’s herd, the others remind him that he’s close to the age of permanent banishment anyway. As he reflects on their words and on his approaching transition into adulthood, Ishi begins to wonder whether remaining with the bachelor herd may be the better path. He decides to remain with the bachelor herd and grieve for his lost youth.

The media embraces Brandeis’s plan to film the elephant’s 700-mile trek home as reality television, involving advance teams clearing obstacles, scouts preventing harm, and government payoffs—all while trying to keep the elephant unaware. Westbrook worries about the upcoming Tanzanian border crossing but knows most of the remaining journey will pass through national parks.

Rebecca investigates the elephant’s past and discovers a possible connection to the Hathaway family and Jean’s famous effort to raise and release an orphaned elephant. She locates the survivors: Russell, now 87 and living near London, and Amanda, 63, a journalist in England. She also learns that Jean and Terence have died. Westbrook calls Brandeis, hoping that the surviving family members can be brought to Kenya and that the elephant might recognize them.

Ishi’s shoulder wound is excruciating, and he senses he may be dying. He knows that the two-leggers are monitoring him, leaving food on his path, and watching from a helicopter high above.

In her junior year at Columbia, where she excels academically and begins publishing magazine articles, Amanda meets Ariel Levine, a charismatic older animal-rights activist. She joins his radical group and participates in escalating protests, culminating in a plan to liberate animals from a cosmetics testing lab in New Jersey. Amanda’s role is to distract the security guard, but when the break-in is discovered, Ariel and an accomplice subdue and restrain him. Realizing that she’s not suited for this life, Amanda watches with guilt as the group liberates the animals. The guard, who has undiagnosed heart disease, suffers a fatal heart attack and is left behind, assumed to be asleep.

Two days later, the group learns that they’re wanted for murder. Amanda and Ariel hide in a Catskills cabin while she contacts lawyer Meyer Goldman, who’s known for defending radicals and arranges a deal: Testify against the ringleader in exchange for dropped charges and eventual deportation from the United States. Amanda returns to the cabin and leads Ariel into an ambush of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Five months later, she testifies without making eye contact with him. The next day, she’s deported to London.

Kamau is about to graduate from veterinary school and is engaged to a Kikuyu woman named Makena. Upon returning home for Christmas, he learns that Ishi has been missing for over a year and is feared dead. He spends his break searching for Ishi by plane.

Gichinga, now in Nairobi, ingratiates himself with his department head, begins an affair with the man’s wife, and rises to power after the department head mysteriously disappears. He eventually marries the widow and takes over his position.

Ishi travels with Big Black’s bachelor herd until Big Black grows ill and leads them to his birthplace at a great waterfall to die. A rival bull named Boomer then challenges Ishi for leadership. They fight for a full day before Boomer concedes, and Ishi becomes a leader of his own bachelor herd. At the annual gathering of herds, he has an emotional reunion with Mother Blue and the survivors of his adoptive clan. He leads his expanded bachelor herd toward home territory.

The herd is ambushed by poachers. Little Stream and another bull are killed, leaving Ishi grief-stricken. A hunter named Colin Woodleigh recognizes Ishi by a scar and torn ear and contacts Russell, who arrives to find Ishi still grieving. Realizing that Ishi’s magnificent tusks make him a prime poaching target, Russell swears Colin to secrecy and decides that Ishi must remain officially presumed dead.

Ishi is trapped in a cage in a freighter’s hold during a storm at sea. He recalls greeting Russell and then feeling a tranquilizer dart as Russell whispered apologies. One night on the ship, he hears whale song and sees a whale surface, which gives him hope. The ship docks in Liverpool, and Ishi is transported to a new elephant facility in England.

Terence, now the bassist for a punk band and in a relationship with photographer Christopher Leitch, is addicted to heroin. After a non-fatal overdose, Amanda and Jean place him in rehabilitation. Immediately upon release, he buys heroin, overdoses, and dies. Amanda discovers his body the following morning. The news shatters Jean and further damages her already strained marriage to Russell.

Amanda, her deportation still secret, builds a successful career as an investigative journalist in London, marries, and has twin daughters before discovering her husband’s affair and ending the marriage. Grieving and resentful, Russell breaks his promise to Jean by taking a client on a hunting safari. When the client wounds a charging black rhino, Russell distracts it to save the man and is gored in the face, losing his left eye. Jean asks him to move out, ending their marriage. Meanwhile, Kamau rises through the ranks of the Wildlife Ministry, builds a family with Makena, and continues searching for Ishi despite widespread belief that the elephant is dead.

Ishi lives a despondent life in captivity, walking in circles. When he stops eating, keepers force-feed him until he resumes. A female elephant named Tatiana eventually arrives after being captured and forced to perform in a brutal traveling circus before it dissolved, and Ishi develops powerful feelings for her.

In December 1983, Jean is diagnosed with brain cancer but keeps it secret. After six months of ineffective treatments, she stops chemotherapy and turns to alternative therapies. Kamau calls Amanda and Russell to Kenya. Jean convinces Amanda not to uproot her family, and Russell returns to Kenya and becomes Jean’s caregiver. His selfless dedication brings them emotionally closer during her final months. Near the end, Russell confesses that Ishi is alive at Sheffield Zoo, explaining that he sent him there to protect him from poachers. Jean is shocked and feels betrayed but ultimately forgives him. She doesn’t share the secret with Amanda before she dies. Jean passes away peacefully, surrounded by Russell, Amanda, and Kamau. Thousands of miles away, Ishi feels a sudden, inexplicable wave of sadness.