Elephant alert: Run for your life. Oh, the humanity.

[Judi Lynn]

[redwitch]

1. What darling creatures!

I’m in love!

[Siwsan]

2. I could watch elephants, all day

I watch a live safari, out of South Africa and Kenya and the elephant sightings are always the most enjoyable.

[Demovictory9]

3. omg. Scary when one walks over her

[Judi Lynn]

9. I've watched the live cam of the elephants at San Diego's zoo, and have seen them do that

with their tiniest elephants, and the little ones run and stand underneath the big ones, and it appears that is a protective posture.

I have also seen it on videos taken of these wonderful beings in Africa, in the wild. It seems to be entirely protective and benevolent.

[More_Cowbell]

4. It looks like one wants to protect her from being stepped on

My interpretation, anyway. Thanks for sharing. Elephants are wonderful.

[Judi Lynn]

10. Yes, it really seems to be the acting out of protectiveness toward someone much smaller.

I am certain you are right.

They are magnificent. One day, with help, maybe people will learn to communicate with them. They already seem to know a lot about people!

Thank you, More Cowbell.

[catbyte]

5. Faa Mai is Lek's special girl. Here's a clip of Lek singing her a lullaby.

Elephant Nature Park is an extraordinary place, and Lek Chaillert is an extraordinary woman.

And here's Faa Mai getting Lek to sing a lullaby to baby Thong Ae:

[Judi Lynn]

11. What a complete angel Lek is to love Faa Mai so much she would conceive of such a loving gesture

to employ with her very bighearted, trusting friend. It looks as if Faa Mai went right to sleep, perhaps, within moments after Lek started her song, and her soothing looking over her. Her breathing became very even and regular, and she looked so completely enraptured.

Faa Mai definitely wants her little one to understand how to relate to Lek, and the tiny one is trying so hard to figure it out. That clip was so good. Lek could not be safer than when she is walking with, standing with or around Faa Mai. One notes Faa Mai is extremely sentive about Lek's location even when she is leading her across the ground or standing over her. She really does want to share Lek's kindness with her child.

How beautiful.

Thank you, catbyte.

[catbyte]

14. You're very welcome, Judi Lynn. Lek's husband, Darrick, also has a remarkable bond with them.

Elephant Nature Park is high on my bucket list. They rescue all sorts of beings--elephants, water buffalo, deer, dogs, cats, monkeys, chickens, and I'm sure even a few humans. It's a magical place. Here's Darrick with his special friend, Kham Laa:

[Judi Lynn]

19. From the moment that wonderful being cried out greetings to her person friend

tears started forming in my eyes, and seeing how much they all love each others was heaven!

They all looked sent from a much higher world walking together.

Thank you, so much, for showing another human who really, really knows and cares about these beings. Wonderful.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

17. ❤️

[Judi Lynn]

20. Hello, BlancheSplanchnik!

[BlancheSplanchnik]

22. Hi Judi Lynn!

Merry Christmas Eve!!

With Hephalumps!! 💚 🐘 🐘 💚

[Duppers]

6. ❤ ❤ This!! ❤ ❤

Elephants are so special, especially these. 😁

[Judi Lynn]

12. Can only hope somehow enough people finally learn about elephants before they have all been murdered

They are amazing, conscious beings.

[OxQQme]

7. Ele de Vinci

[keithbvadu2]

8. Such finesse.

[Judi Lynn]

13. Have never seen a video which overwhelmed me like this one. Astonishing.

There is a being in an elephant shape and size in there who is far, far more accomplished than some human beings could ever manage just painting a picture like that.

Simply amazing. The onlookers who merely laughed as if they were seeing a circus act apparently have no idea what they were seeing. There's a whole lot more going into an elephant knowing how to use a paintbrush and create those images than can be quickly explained.

This video is going to stay with me forever. It allows a person to see how blind humans have been toward these animals and of course all the others, how horribly they have been misunderstood, tragically used and abused. I'll never forget this new information arriving in a video. Thank you.

[catbyte]

16. This is bad--the "training" process is horrific. See my post & attached article.

Elephants are amazing creatures on their own. I'm not trying to be difficult, just to educate. People don't realize the torture these beings go through for our amusement.

[Judi Lynn]

21. Never thought it could involve cruel behavior from their human friends.

I should have known better. Who isn't aware of humans who are clearly very cruel, and don't hesitate to bemean, to scold, insult, and psychologically terrorize to get a child to struggle as hard as possible to please him/her?

Happens to children from adults who simply want results to be proud of right away, and drive them inward. If it happens to children, it happens far worse with other helpless creatures who have no escape. To do that to an animal would be unforgivable. They are simply too vulnerable, too much at the mercy of idiots.

[catbyte]

23. What those "trainers" do to baby elephants is nothing short of horrific.

It involves a lot of psychological injury in the form of stealing the baby from its mother. Elephants are dependent on their moms until approximately the age of 7. By then, males begin to drift away and go their own way; females stay with their female relatives for life. When you see herds of elephants in the wild, they are female family members along with juvenile males.

What happens to the babies afterwards is utterly brutal. There is a lot of stress posturing, beatings, and deprivation. The process is called "breaking,' to break their spirit. There are videos of this, but I can't bring myself to think about it, much less post it.

Lek Chaillert of Elephant Nature Park rescues elephants from these horrific conditions. About a year ago, she rescued a baby who was so traumatized by the "breaking" process that he was catatonic. She was able to rescue him because he was no good to his human captors. It took months for him to even start acting normal, and he is slowly healing.

I don't mean to be a wet blanket or a Debby Downer, but I am so passionate about this. Animals are not here for our amusement and it's high time we stop exploiting them. Websites like Trip Advisor are finally coming around and steering people away from places that exploit elephants like riding them and other "amusements." This quote from Henry Beston in his book The Outermost House is so eloquent:

“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”

[catbyte]

15. Actually, this is not good. this elephant is being forced to paint. It may look cute,

but it is definitely abuse. Let elephants be elephants. They're not here to amuse us. I'm not trying to be mean, just to educate.

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/why-making-an-elephant-paint-is-cruel-not-cute/

[murielm99]

18. I wish elephants lived where I live.

I would just look at them and say hello. I would let them live as my neighbors.