Unthinkable future for elephants

Elephants are “on the edge.” They’re in serious danger of becoming extinct. After centuries of poaching, culling, starvation and habitat loss, their numbers have dropped from more than ten million to a few hundred thousand.

The current condition of elephants was discussed March 27 on an NPR program, “Here and Now,” from WBUR, Boston. The scientist who spoke about the plight of elephants was G. A. Bradshaw, whose book, Elephants on the Edge: What Animals Teach Us About Humanity (Yale University Press), was published in 2009.

To obtain elephants’ tusks for ivory jewelry and bric-a-brac, some poachers actually use hand grenades to wipe out whole families at a time. Nor does it end there. Close-knit and emotional, with strong family ties, elephants also have elaborate grieving practices for those who die.

Baby elephants lose the mentors they need when adults are killed, and all survivors are traumatized by the noise, bloodshed, death. They show distinct behavioral symptoms like those of young people exposed to war and genocide, who witness their elders and others around them being killed. Overall, the fabric of elephant society has broken down.

Speaking with the show host, Bradshaw indicated that the trauma elephants have experienced is irrevocable. It passes through the generations. Violence leaves scars on the bodies and brains of victims.

Worst of all, she said, local extinctions of elephants could lead to total extinction – which, she thinks, could happen in 20 years.

Unthinkable and unbelievable, is this future also unstoppable?
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(http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2012/03/27/elephants-post-traumatic)

(photo from New York's Natural History Museum)

"Solitary, cold confinement"

Earlier this month, newspapers reported cruel treatment of elephants in zoos. What else is new?

Maggie, formerly of the Alaska zoo and now in a California sanctuary, is the “poster pachyderm” for elephants who were finally freed, thanks to months or more of public protest. But as the latest survey makes clear, there are plenty of other elephants still in captivity (i.e., zoos) – that is, unnatural and unhealthy conditions.

“In Defense of Animals” (IDA), the zoo watchdog organization, reports that “scores of elephants are warehoused throughout the long winter months in miserable confinement, many of them hidden from the public.” Small concrete cages, which keep them from getting the movement they need, contribute to mental and physical problems, and premature deaths.

Usually native to semi-arid savannas and tropical and subtropical forests, elephants typically travel in groups over miles and miles of their home ranges each day. Instead, elephants in American and Canadian zoos stand for hours on cold, hard concrete floors. Is there any wonder they contract food diseases and arthritis, and engage in aberrant behavior?

Included in the survey IDA conducted were zoos in such UN-savanna-like places as Illinois, Rhode Island, Ohio, Quebec, Massachusetts, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New York.

This issue really comes down to zoos: what they exist to do and how they do it. Is keeping an elephant in solitary, cold confinement teaching visitors anything accurate about how elephants normally live? Of course not.
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Royalty confirmed

Huzzah, Queen Maggie! Ms. TUSKany 2009.

To which readers might say, “Huh?” For the background details, please read the August 6 post, "Earned royalty," which tells about PAWS, the Performing Animal Welfare Society, in California. Maggie, an elephant rescued from the Alaska zoo – you read it right, Alaska – and flown to this haven, was among the pachyderms there who were competing for the crown during PAWS’ annual Elephant Grape Stomp.

Votes for any of the elephants were really donations to PAWS, and Maggie was the winner. It almost had to be. She was the sentimental favorite this year because of her plight and then her flight to freedom, followed by her gradual adjustment to living in a habitat much closer to the one from which she was taken as a baby . . . to Alaska.

Way to go, Maggie!
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P.S. on pachyderms

Another lucky elephant, this one in Thailand. She’s the recipient of a permanent artificial limb. Here’s what happened.

Ten years ago, Motola, now 48 years old, stepped on a land mine while working in a logging camp near the Myanmar border. She lost her left front foot and part of her leg. Happily for her, in 1993 a group called Friends of the Asian Elephant had opened the Elephant Hospital in northern Thailand. That’s where she was cared for.

The hospital has treated thousands of elephants – and well it should, because the numbers of domesticated pachyderms has dropped from 1950’s 13,400 to about 2,500 today.

For the last three years, Motola wore a temporary device aimed at strengthening her leg muscles and tendons and getting her fit for the permanent prosthesis. Then, earlier this month, she took her first tentative walk with her newly installed artificial leg.

If – as she was photographed doing -- grabbing dust with her trunk and spraying it into the air conveys happiness, then Motola is recovering well.
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Earned royalty

“There she is” . . . the Pachy Princess, chosen from among all the contestants in the “Ms. TUSKany Pageant.” The elephant (yes, the elephant) with the most votes (as in donations) will be crowned Ms. TUSKany on Oct. 17 at the 2009 Elephant Grape Stomp.

Humans who attend the event will “sip regional wines, savor Tuscan cuisine and share a squishy moment with the elephants” (a.k.a. “pachyderms” or thick-skinned animals).

If this seems stranger and stranger, that’s because it’s all about an elaborate fund-raiser for PAWS, the Performing Animal Welfare Society, in California. Among the residents at one of its three sanctuaries are nine elephants, including Maggie, formerly of the Anchorage, Alaska zoo.

You read it right: an elephant – whose habitat is tropical – lived for years in Alaska, in a cage with a concrete floor, and for much of the time without elephant companionship, until animal activists raised such a wide and loud ruckus that Anchorage reluctantly let her go. Underwritten by a humane and moneyed friend of animals, Maggie was flown to California, where she has settled right in, as reported in reports and videos from PAWS.

The vote-donations from here for “Pachy Princess” won’t go to Annie, Ruby, Gypsy, Lulu, Mara, Rebecca, Wanda or Nicholas (in the running for Mr. TUSKany) – however worthy they all are. Maggie’s the sentimental favorite. In becoming a “rescued elephant” and escaping Alaska, she beat the odds. (As Maggie’s freedom fighters said at the end of each note, “Warm rumbles” or “Trumpets!” )

Besides an introduction to PAWS and news of Maggie, more details on the Ms. TUSKany pageant can be found at the organization website: pawsweb.org .

Vote early and often!
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"They can't say 'no'"

As I write this post, a circus show is underway in Trenton. With a few others, I was there earlier today for the first of 3 shows, hoping to change ticket holders' minds about attending because of the horrible ways circus animals are treated and must live. But I doubt we did any good at all for the animals, all involuntarily involved.

First, we were "penned in" -- literally behind bars at 2 sites near the arena but not near the crowd heading to the entrances. We could hold signs and one woman used a bull horn, but I had to wonder who could read the signs or hear the horn. George, another demonstrator, was late arriving because, despite telling the police about his rights, he'd been arrested. (He was given a summons after sitting in the back of the police car for 20 minutes, then released.)

Anyway, for the 2nd time, I've decided that it's pretty much a waste of time to demonstrate against the circus under present conditions. (I've asked Kim, who headed it up, if it's possible to get a permit ahead of time, which might also alert the police to our plans and maybe even make a few friends.)

Once home, I wrote a letter to the editor of the Trenton Times. The way local newspapers print circus stories with nary a reference to animal-free circuses or the existence of demonstrators against treatment of circus animals or the current trial of Ringling Bros. for animal cruelty . . . is a great source of irritation. There's no depth/investigative reporting going on with circus stories; newspapers seem merely to take dictation/reprint circus promos.

In the letter-writing process, I re-checked circuses.com, a PETA site about the horrors of circuses. At the top, a drawing of an elephant shedding big tears with the words "They can't say 'no'" grabbed my attention. Those words summarize much of the purpose of this blog: to speak for animals, who can't speak for themselves. (Yes, sometimes they do "speak," by refusing to obey or acting out; the current trial of Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey indicates what happens to such animals.)

Circuses are only one of the awful things that people do to/with animals -- non-human animals, that is. The PETA site also included a quote from Desmond Morris that I'll reprint here. It pretty well sums up my objection to circuses.

"The idea that it is funny to see wild animals coerced into acting like clumsy humans, or thrilling to see powerful beasts reduced to cringing cowards by a whipcracking trainer is primitive and medieval. It stems from the old idea that we are superior to other species and have the right to hold dominion over them." —Dr. Desmond Morris, anthropologist, animal behaviorist, author
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