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| Woolly mammoth (model) |
Beg pardon?
Well, doing that is possible for a day, anyway, when you
daytrip to the Upper West Side of Manhattan and the American Museum of Natural
History, where “The Secret Lives of Elephants” is now featured. This multi-faceted exhibition overviews the
evolution and behavior our planet’s largest land animal, from the ancient world
to today.
Potentially fascinating for adults and children alike, the
exhibition (think: a giant “cabinet of curiosities”) offers a wide variety of
“elephant things” to look at, read, interact with, learn from, remember. These include . . .
* Life-size models of elephants and their ancestors,
historically beginning with the woolly mammoth: what a guy!
* Three different
films to sit down and watch, including a touching one about an orphan baby elephant’s
return to the wild. Two others also star
elephants, of course.
· Explanatory materials, illuminated, accompanies each elephant display so visitors can look and read, using various modes to acquire info.
· Buttons to push for fun mini quizzes or things
to do, see or hear (When he made an African elephant’s ear flap, a little boy called
out: “I’m cooling off the elephant!” – which those ears really do.
A And I heard an elephant rumble for the first time in my life. These low-frequency sounds travel through the ground to distant elephants.) https://tinyurl.com/4z698wt8
· Another life-size elephant, whose digestive system is lighted up from within, and who is circled by numerous
info sections about the many benefits of elephant poop (only starting with
plant-seed dispersal) for the curious child in all of us.
· “Conservation," now a concept of great importance
for the world’s endangered elephants, turns up throughout the exhibition,
suggesting ways to foster elephant survival.
· A major feature of this exhibit is someone I’ll
call “The explainer”: a staff member wearing an ID tag who roams around answering
questions and striking up conversations with visitors. Thanks to him, I found out just what the big
lump atop the woolly mammoth’s head was: not some kind of bony structure, but
stored fat for hard, hungry times. https://tinyurl.com/yu52nwe
Sometimes, thankfully, they’re free in the wild (although increasingly threatened by poachers and habitat loss), but elephants are also forced into working-animal life, living in zoos and other demeaning, undeserved forms of existence. Despite all that, they survive – maybe the moral of their story for us humans. So, “think about elephants.”
(Here are links to two enjoyable videos about elephants: first, some surprises (maybe!) from AMNH in a delightfully narrated 6-minutes -- amnh.org/exhibitions/secret-world-elephants -- and another video showing a baby elephant in tantrum mode -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvT40aCNMKM.
After last year’s tremendous exhibition on sharks (including the near-unbelievable megalodon), and now this show on elephants, AMNH continues to enchant. I think of it as a “magnet museum,” for its old- and new-style exhibits, in old and new building sections.
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| Blue whales (mom & calf) |
Much closer to home (and sometimes all-too-familiar), another land animal experiences unnecessary, wholly inhumane action: Canada geese.
Communities choosing to reject humane options for co-existing with these birds often contract for their merciless killing instead. Geese are forced into gas chambers, where they slowly die.
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