When the Owenses arrived at North Luangwa National Park in the mid-1980s, the park had been abandoned to poachers. Corrupt local officials, and even the scouts who were hired to protect the park, were making huge profits while decimating the park's elephants. The couple began to work with local villagers, hiring people to build roads and start fish farms and helping with health care and education. They also continued their study of the elephants, documenting how the social structure changed when numbers were very low and how the survivors rebuilt their lives.