Animals and Us - Elephants Are People Too

Elephants are people too.

100 years ago there were millions of elephants roaming the Earth. Today that number is significantly lower. Experts estimate that only 1 million elephants remain, 40,000 of those are wild Asian elephants. There is much debate in many organizations advocating for moral and legal rights for elephants, but why should we grant rights to these animals? What makes them better than others? They deserve rights because they are more similar to humans than some care to admit.

We have a long history of exploiting things we do not understand. Native Americans, African Americans, and even children, were all deemed morally and intellectually inferior, incapable of emotion, without a soul. We eventually discovered that to be false. Will we discover the same about elephants?

Elephants have been exploited for thousands of years, reaching back to ancient times. Elephants were used as work animals in Asia for 4000 years, and some think the ancient Egyptians exploited elephants. The Roman Empire used them as war elephants. They have been killed for their ivory tusks and used to perform tasks that we are not strong enough to do.

In modern times, elephants are still exploited for entertainment purposes, for example, in the circus. Whether on television or in person, many of us have enjoyed the many talents elephants display. Some are even lucky enough to boast taking a ride on one of these majestic animals. What we do not get to see is what happens behind the scenes.

Most circus animals do not live a carefree life between performances.

A common tactic used in training elephants is to poke them behind the ear with a bullhook, causing pain and intimidation--a small price to pay to satisfy the need to be entertained. There are many well-documented cases of elephants defending themselves against such actions. Mary, a 5-ton Asian circus elephant, is a perfect example.

“ Mary was impounded by a local sheriff for the killing of a young hotel janitor who’d been hired to mind Mary during a stopover in the northeast Tennessee town of Kingsport. The janitor had apparently taken Mary for a swim at a local pond, where, according to witnesses, he poked her behind the left ear with a metal hook just as she was reaching for a piece of floating watermelon rind. Enraged, Mary turned, swiftly snatched him up with her trunk, dashed him against a refreshment stand and then smashed his head with her foot.”

Mary was hanged in a public execution.

What makes us so superior to elephants that we feel justified in exploiting them and denying them rights? Why do some consider elephants to be “lesser creatures”?

Some argue that elephants do not have complex emotions such as empathy. What does it mean to be empathic? By definition, empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. Elephants have been observed attempting to help a dying friend, struggling to lift her friend, and calling out in distress with hopes of gaining assistance.

Elephants also mourn as we do. “A two-year-old African elephant baby climbs on the back of his mother in the Nyiregyhaza Animal Park in Budapest, Hungary, one day after the mother died. The baby stayed near the lifeless body of his mother for 14 hours after her death, and wept after the body was removed.”

Elephants raise their young in a community, showing strong familial and social ties. There are matriarchs present in each group. These matriarchs nurture and protect the young; they teach them the difference between right and wrong, and how to recognize danger. It has even been observed that they will take orphans/outsiders and make them their own.

Their connection to one another is so intense that they have their burial rituals.

“Upon seeing the bones or carcass of another elephant, a family will stop and investigate them, even if the elephant was unrelated to the group. The ritual includes touching the bones gently with their trunks while remaining very quiet, covering the body with leaves and grass, and if the elephant belonged to their own, staying with the body for days or weeks at a time.”