January 18 - About Elephants

I watched a documentary called "Eye for an Elephant" by Martyn Colbeck. He spent 15 years studying a family of elephants in Africa and this doco was the reult. It was amazingly touching to see these large creatures behaving as tenderly towards each other as they do.

Some of the things I learned about elephants -

They snore when they sleep, which is understandable given the length of their trunk, but I hadn't thought about it before.

During times of high emotion a gland near each eye weeps fluid and makes them look as if they're crying.

Matriarchs of some families sometimes "kidnap" baby elephants from other families. It's a message of power and status. In the doco the female members of the group rescued their baby from the kidnappers.

The Masai say of elephants that they are the only animal with a soul. In the doco they certain.y appeared to be that way.

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