What I learned about elephants

There is soooo much, where to start... I keep having conversations with people and telling them all this cool stuff I learned about elephants while I was away - but when it come to writing it I find it difficult to start.

Well, some quick thoughts:

- Elephants only sleep about 4 hours a day
- They digest very little of their food. Much of it come out intact, I saw whole bananas in the poo. The dogs seemed to find this a particular treat. (Note: never let a dog that has access to elephants lick your face.)
- They really really love mud
- They are much more playful than I had thought, especially the younger ones. But even the older ones are brimming with personality and certain levels of mischief.
- They are born very hairy, but most people are used to seeing bald elephants, this is largely due to the fact that they have been poked so often with sharp things by humans that they now have scar tissue instead of regular skin.
- Elephant hair is very wiry and spiky
- Most people initially saw 'aw - how cute' when they see elephants in a voice that people usually reserve for kittens and babies. Once you have spent any length of time with them you find it the most absurdly inappropriate sentiment.
- They are really cute and funny! but in the way you would say it about a thinking, feeling creature that is unpredictable, clumsy, foolish and massively powerful.
- They are amazingly dexterous with their trunks.
- A one year old baby elephant that is only as tall as my waist is at least ten times stronger than me.
- They have two massive teeth, like molars at the back of their mouths.
- They really love the company of their elephant friends and family and have full and complex social relationships, including favorites and rivals.
- In Thailand it is illegal to capture or harm wild elephants, they are protected. But if the elephant is already in captivity is falls under the same laws of property as livestock and has no legal protection at all. I mean none at all.

I heard stories about elephants being forced to breed. This is done by chaining a female up next to a male in heat (musth) he then effectively rapes her and she gets pregnant. I was told that when the baby is born they have started to take it away from its mother quickly because those females forced to breed are highly likely to kill their offspring.

Musth is a state that the males go into every year or so. It is a crazy thing. It is like the bull elephant gets drunk on testosterone and whatever else. Normally male elephants are reasonably predictable, they slot into the social heirachy and they are more than capable of mating in their normal state, but the dominant bull tends to get most of the action. But every year or so they go into musth. It disrupts the normal social hirachy and allows the less dominant males have their time in the reproductive sun, even the normally dominant bulls back away from a lesser bull in musth. He will be extremely aggressive, sexually charged and will not recognise anyone around him, even his handlers who may have working with him since he was born. Generally in the wild young males will no enter this state because older males seem to somehow delay its onset. but if there are no lolder males around they have been known to go into it much earlier than usual. Thisis one of the issues with the destruction of the natural social groups, especially in Africa where most are wild and the older males are killed for ivory.

Generally in the wild females are choose their mates and are very capable of refusing a male if she doesn't want his attentions.

I have heard stories of pregnant females giving birth on the job, either logging or trekking and the baby rolling down the hill, still in it's sack and dying.

Baby elephanats are hugely expensive, yet the traditional breaking in method involves a lot of trauma and has a high mortality rate.

I heard that it is common practice to keep the males malnourished so that they don't go into musth. Only bulls in a good state of health will go into it. If they enter musth they are unpredictable and unable to be used for work for up to a year.