"Elephants form deep bonds with each other, which last for decades. Elephant survival is strongly affected by access to the social and ecological knowledge that older elephants hold; where to go, what to eat, how to avoid danger.” -- Dr. Cynthia Moss, Director & Founder, Ambroseli Trust for Elephants, Kenya (elephanttrust.org)
Luckily for the elephants who travel with a matriarch, they can depend on her memory and leadership. UNluckily for them if she is killed, and all that wisdom is lost – although sometimes a younger femalesteps up to lead the family herd. While it’s probably not wholly true that “an elephant never forgets,” they reportedly come pretty close.
Sateo, iconic tusker Richard Moller pic
And
while elephants are not scared of mice (eek!) – as claimed in Pliny the Elder’s
Natural History, in the first century A.D. -- they are frightened of bees. That fact has helped scientists “train” them
away from crops needed by the African farmers who planted them, and possibly
save them from farmers’ lethal revenge.
Fascinated by elephants along with many of his fellow Romans, Pliny thought that of all animals, they were the most like humans in sensibility. Today’s extensive knowledge of elephants supports his judgment (elephants are intelligent and sociable; they grieve at the remains of other elephants and they are self-aware – that is, they recognize their own reflections in a mirror).
With feelings and behaviors some might believe are strictly human, elephants keep confounding those who hold human-centered beliefs.
Humans’
treatment of elephants ranges from Save the Elephants and the Elephant
Crisis Fund (see previous post) and those who so valued elephants that during
this pandemic, they laboriously moved one 50-year old Asian elephant 1,700
miles from an Argentinian zoo to a sanctuary in Brazil . . . down to the lowest
of the low: poachers who slaughter elephants for ivory and profit. 
Asian elephant family HSI pic
In observing World Elephant Day (Aug.
12), PAWS, the Performing Animal Welfare Society, celebrated the eight
elephants now living at its California site --five “ripped from their
free-living mothers and families and sold into captivity” and all rescued or
retired from circuses or zoos.
“Elephants
simply do not thrive in captivity, where they suffer serious captivity-related
ailments, have shorter lifespans, breed poorly, and experience high infant
mortality rates. Captive populations are
simply not sustainable.” That’s why PAWS
urges us to take action to protect elephants both in the wild and in captivity.
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| African elephants NYT pic |
Read all about them
Of the many books about elephants, these two were recommended to me:
· An Elephant in My Kitchen: What the Herd Taught Me About Love, Courage and Survival, by Francoise Malby-Anthony. After her husband died unexpectedly, the author continued their work alone at Thula Thula, the South African game preserve they had founded. In a country with few women in authority, her limited ability to speak the native language was another hurdle to success. Not only did she save their elephant herd, but also managed to open a nursery for orphaned baby elephants and others. (sequel to Lawrence Anthony’s The Elephant Whisperer)
· The White Bone, by Barbara Gowdy, a “complex, meditative and deeply sad” novel told wholly from the point of view of elephants. “As layered as any human family epic,” wrote a reviewer of the “intimately imagined social hierarchy and inner lives of the pachyderms.”
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| Baby elephant PAWS pic |
Please note: Links
included in my blog posts are more than the dry footnotes you might expect. They’re usually videos and other materials
that complement the text, and are sometimes just fun. Typically, besides being the sources of
quotes I’ve used, they offer more info on the topic at hand. I hope you’ll check them out each time. For instance, here are two links you shouldn't miss.
(Elephant Crisis Fund) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1KhOTsMxeQ&feature=emb_title
(We Love Elephants!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQwETI_gkMw&feature=youtu.be
#
To comment on this post, please go
to 1moreonce.blogspot.com and/or donate to an organization that cares for
elephants.
Do scientists agree with Pliny that elephants are the most like humans in sensibility?
ReplyDeleteI can't speak for all scientists of course, though I've read the work of some scientists who study elephants and report their many sterling traits and abilities. I can't offhand think of any other animal whose behavior has been compared w/ humans' to the extent that elephant behavior has been.
ReplyDelete