Elephant vs. Mankind

In yesterday's New York Times Magazine there was an article called An Elephant Crackup? which talked about what is now being called Elephant Breakdown, a wide-spread increase in human/elephant conflict.

It appears that people are blaming the elephants for increasing violent behavior, which includes attacks on villages and individuals. "Still, it is not only the increasing number of these incidents that is causing alarm but also the singular perversity — for want of a less anthropocentric term — of recent elephant aggression. Since the early 1990’s, for example, young male elephants in Pilanesberg National Park and the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve in South Africa have been raping and killing rhinoceroses; this abnormal behavior, according to a 2001 study in the journal Pachyderm, has been reported in “a number of reserves” in the region. In July of last year, officials in Pilanesberg shot three young male elephants who were responsible for the killings of 63 rhinos, as well as attacks on people in safari vehicles. In Addo Elephant National Park, also in South Africa, up to 90 percent of male elephant deaths are now attributable to other male elephants, compared with a rate of 6 percent in more stable elephant communities."

What is causing this wholesale breakdown of elephant culture? Human encroachment of habitat; poaching and culling; human intervention which has so disrupted the natural elephant way of life. And human response? In India, people are being told to stop worshiping the elephant in order to avoid conflict when they go out and kill elephants.

"It has long been apparent that every large, land-based animal on this planet is ultimately fighting a losing battle with humankind. And yet entirely befitting of an animal with such a highly developed sensibility, a deep-rooted sense of family and, yes, such a good long-term memory, the elephant is not going out quietly. It is not leaving without making some kind of statement, one to which scientists from a variety of disciplines, including human psychology, are now beginning to pay close attention."

Elephants are profoundly social creatures. A family group is matriarchal; elephant young are raised by the birth mother; grandmothers; aunties; friends. When an elephant dies, the herd goes through intense mourning as it buries the body - during a weeklong vigil they cover the body with earth and brush. They visit the bones for years after, exhibiting love and care. They are aware of danger to one another, and they communicate danger over long distance. They remember.

But through systematic poaching, habitat destruction, culling, the numbers of older elephants has drastically fallen, leaving young elephants to fend for themselves. Calves are being born to younger, inexperienced elephants and the young males have fewer older bull elephants to keep them in check and teach them elephant behavior. These orphaned elephants have often witnessed the massacre of their elders. And we wonder at why they are reacting with aggression?

We can look to the elephant behavior for a prediction of what will happen over time in Iraq, in Afghanistan as we bring our brand of democracy to the world. We can look to the elephant behavior to predict what will happen to the AIDS orphans in South Africa.

"The elephants of decimated herds, especially orphans who’ve watched the death of their parents and elders from poaching and culling, exhibit behavior typically associated with post-traumatic stress disorder and other trauma-related disorders in humans: abnormal startle response, unpredictable asocial behavior, inattentive mothering and hyperaggression. Studies of the various assaults on the rhinos in South Africa, meanwhile, have determined that the perpetrators were in all cases adolescent males that had witnessed their families being shot down in cullings. It was common for these elephants to have been tethered to the bodies of their dead and dying relatives until they could be rounded up for translocation to, as Bradshaw and Schore describe them, “locales lacking traditional social hierarchy of older bulls and intact natal family structures.” " (emphasis mine.)

We bomb in Iraq. We create orphans. The children of decimated families will exhibit behavior typically associated with post-traumatic stress disorder. And violence begets violence.

Over the weekend, I saw The US Vs. John Lennon. It is a must-see. I end this post with a message from John & Yoko, which is as relevant today as it was during the Viet Nam War:


WAR IS OVER - if you want it