OP-ED: Sharing the fragile web of life with the elephants
The other day, I remembered teaching the phrase “Phant, phant, el-e-phant” as a rhythm-teaching phrase to my beginning music students.
1 — 2 — 3 – and 4.
Phant = quarter note.
Phant = quarter note.
El-e = two eighth notes.
Phant = quarter note.
And it got me thinking about those majestic mammals: elephants. Over the past few years, I have had the opportunity to visit the International Conservation Center in Somerset County two times. The Pittsburgh Zoo runs this 1,000-acre ICC facility, and Jackson, one of the most successful breeding African elephants in North America, lives there.
After being taken from his mother as a young calf and spending his early life moving among dealers, trainers, a zoo, and a circus, Jackson became important to elephant conservation. Nearly 50 elephants are connected to his bloodline. That’s about half of the African elephant births in North America during the past decade. Nice job, Jackson.
They do have a new male at the ICC and the overall herd is up to 10.
Seeing an elephant up close changes your perspective. You do not simply look at an elephant. An elephant looks back at you.
I read that the Samburu people of northern Kenya traditionally believe God created people and elephants as brothers. Others regard elephants as relatives sharing our world and our destiny.
An elephant’s brain can weigh about 11 pounds; it is the largest brain of any land animal. And elephants demonstrate memory, problem-solving, cooperation, empathy, self-awareness, and even the ability to recognize themselves in mirrors. Something I sometimes struggle to do first thing in the morning.
According to zoologists, elephants communicate through touch, posture, scent, and low-frequency sounds that can travel long distances. Older females remember water sources, migration routes, and dangers they met years earlier. That kind of knowledge helps herds survive.
We human beings also depend on the accumulated experience of generations. Grandparents preserve family history. Older community members remember tough times and how we survived them. We become vulnerable when we lose that type of memory.
Female elephants stay with their families for life. After mating, a female carries her calf for about 22 months. That is the longest pregnancy of any living mammal. Usually, one calf is born.
The experienced matriarch leads the herd, which includes daughters, sisters, aunts, and calves. The females help raise and protect each other’s young. When a calf gets attacked, the ladies form a protective circle around it, facing outward. Like “Bring it, sucker!”
So, the women organize the family, protect the children, and remember where everything is. Sound familiar?
For most of human history, children were raised not only by parents but also by grandparents, relatives, neighbors, and friends. We survived because we cooperated. Elephants do the same.
They also appear to grieve. Elephants are often observed touching the bones and tusks of the dead, lingering near bodies, and returning to places where members of their herd died. Could they be experiencing loss and mourning?
Most importantly, elephants help keep ecosystems alive. They dig for water that other animals use, create paths through thick jungles, and help spread seeds. They help regenerate trees that help countless species.
So, remove the elephants, and we begin losing forests, water sources, habitats, and eventually pieces of ourselves.
We often speak of nature as separate entities. You know, elephants here, forests there, humans somewhere above it all. Nope.
The oxygen we breathe, food we eat, water we drink, and climate-sustaining civilization depend upon connections we hardly even notice until they’re gone.
Maybe elephants truly are our brothers (or sisters), not because they are human, but because we came from the same living earth and depend upon the same fragile web of life.
When the last elephant is gone, we will have lost not only a magnificent animal. We will have torn another strand from the web that’s holding all of us.
Support the Pittsburgh Zoo and the ICC.