elephants

Past few years (?) I’ve gotten really into elephants, for the most part, African elephants in Kenya. Elephant, society and culture is so fascinating, and they are such beautiful special, intelligent creatures with a huge capacity for memory and organizing lots of places and entire family networks in their minds, and they communicate through sounds that, our bellow are range of hearing. sometimes using their trunks or mouths sometimes using their feet or being able to hear through their feet, other rumbles from other elephants far away. They also communicate using hormones and chemicals, sometimes they put their trunks in each other’s mouths. It’s really interesting and cool. And of course, baby elephants are so playful and mischievous and full of character. What could be cuter… 

the threat to existence that African elephants mostly face is environmental climate change stuff, and poaching, which has become less of a problem in Kenya Thank God. Asian elephants are abused in tourism and logging industries, really just totally worked till death as piece of burden well into their 60s or 70s sometimes, so animal activism in Asia is about rescuing them and getting them into sanctuaries where they can just live in peace. Whereas in Africa, the goal is to take care of vulnerable or orphan elephants in order that they can be wild. Rewilding elephants in Asia doesn’t seem to be a goal, but there are a lot of sanctuaries, some more ethical than others. I honestly am not Asian elephant so much because it is really upsetting and if I’m going to have my one Special Interest it has to be a relaxing and comforting thing.

I primarily follow Sheldrick Wildlife Trust’s orphanage and Reteti in Kenya; also research orgs there, and other orphanages in Botswana and South Africa. I also look at sanctuaries in Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos.