Rampaging elephants terrorize villagers

[Thor_MN]

Source: CNN.com



http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/10/13/india.elephants.ap/index.html
GAUHATI, India (AP) -- About 100 wild elephants have converged on a river island in northeast India, demolishing homes, feasting on sugarcane and panicking residents, officials said Saturday.

"Forestry workers and officials are on the island, trying to assist the villagers in pushing the elephants away from the settlements," Changsan said. "The job is proving difficult."



Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/10/13/india.elephants.ap/index.html

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Not a story about St. Paul next year, but I wouldn't be surprized.

[Coexist]

1. how dare a species destroy an area already claimed by another.

[1monster]

4. This type of problem with elephants is cropping up anywhere there are

significant populations of elephants. These "rogue" elephants are not just threatening humans and their habitats, but are also wantontly raping and killing other species.

Speculation is that these elephants are the victims of the war being waged on them by poachers and being caught up in human wars in Africa.

The poachers kill the adult elephants right in front of the young elephants, saw off their tusks, and leave the dead bodies to rot.

Imagine how psychologically damaged a human child would be to witness something like this AND to have no adults to help guide them through their grief and anger.

Elephants are highly social animals. Their life span is the same as humans... roughly 70 years. The young elelphants stay with their mothers far longer than most mammals do. And when they mature enough to leave their mothers, they generally stay within the same family group.

In situations where wild life workers have been able to introduce one or more older (adult) elephants into a group of "rogue" younger (adolescent) elephants, the older elephants have been able to lead the group into modifying their behaviors toward other species, including humans.

These elephants are traumatized and acting out in anger, rage, frustration, and grief. They are more like us than most of us realize.

[thecrow]

12. ......wantontly raping and killing other species. .......?

Where did you get that information?

[1monster]

15. It's been quite some time since I read it (beginning of last school year). I'll see

if I can find it for you.

[1monster]

16. Here you go...

http://www.nhne.org/news/NewsArticlesArchive/tabid/400/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/2066/Default.aspx

Still, it is not only the increasing number of these incidents that is causing alarm but also the singular perversity -- for want of a less anthropocentric term -- of recent elephant aggression.

Since the early 1990s, for example, young male elephants in Pilanesberg National Park and the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve in South Africa have been raping and killing rhinoceroses; this abnormal behaviour, according to a 2001 study in the journal Pachyderm, has been reported in "a number of reserves" in the region.

In July of last year, officials in Pilanesberg shot three young male elephants responsible for killing 63 rhinos, as well as attacking people in safari vehicles.

There was a link on the original article that led to a scientific study (pdf) on this, but it is not on this link and I can't find it on my pc...

The article is long, but worth reading. I had my senior English class read this article as a companion piece to George Orwell's essay Shooting An Elephant.

[robinlynne]

20. I read the same thing.

[frogcycle]

2. a metaphor for our country as a whole...

[htuttle]

3. They're mad as hell and they're not going to take it any more!

[Lautremont]

5. Feasting on residents? That's horrific!

I hear that the sound of bees scares elephants away, for what it's worth.

[Igel]

10. Only on the panicking ones.

Stay calm and there's no danger.

[Coexist]

14. actually, its feasting on CROPS and SCARING residents.

fwiw

[robinlynne]

21. no, you misread. elephants are vegetarians.

[msongs]

6. karma nt

[demgurl]

7. This is due , in part, to the poaching of elephants.

Older adults teach the younger ones how to act. Studies have been done and when older adults are killed the young ones are not imparted the information on how to act toward humans and others. They become much more violent and do not act as others have in the past. When the older adults are brought back into the heard, the young ones start acting as elephants always have.

Elephants are social animals and they do miss another elephant when they disappear from the heard or are killed. These animals mourn the death of the other elephants they are familiar with. It is quite an amazing species.

[1monster]

8. Not just elephants mourn their dead. Most mammals do. I had a brother/sister

pair of cats for nine years. Earlier this year, the brother disappeared, which was very unusual because he always stayed close to home and always came in at night.

We found that he had been killed by some animal or animals (neighborhood count of known cats disappeared by whatever is doing this is four) had killed and eaten him, leaving only bones and some fur.

Gatita, his sister, spent three months on a plant shelf, refusing to have anything to do with us or the other cats in the household. She came down infrequently to eat and use the litter box.

After three months, she decided to rejoint the living.

Anyone who thinks animals don't mourn the passing of family and loved ones simply doesn't know much about animals.

[Barrett808]

9. "Up to 280,000 hectares of Assam's forests have been cleared in 1996-2000"

Well, there's your problem.

[nam78_two]

19. Yup :-( .nt

[UTUSN]

11. Well, those wide stances *are* scary!!1 n/t

[HomerRamone]

13. Rampaging elephants terrorize Americans, too

[aquart]

17. I was about to say, "Here, too."

[truthisfreedom]

18. Spread the news: Buzzing bee recordings scare off elephants!

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/10/071009-elephants-bees.html

Bee Buzz Scares off African Elephants

Susan Brown
for National Geographic News
October 9, 2007
Recordings of angry bees are enough to send even big, tough African elephants scrambling, a new study says.

Strategically placed beehives—either recorded or real—may even prevent elephants from raiding farmers' crops.

As some elephant populations in Africa grow larger and more land is cleared for agriculture, elephants are clashing with humans. A few have even trampled farmers.

In return, some farmers have killed problem elephants, and support for elephant conservation measures is waning.

"I've seen some devastating things," said study lead author Lucy King, a zoologist with the Nairobi, Kenya-based nonprofit Save the Elephants.

King, also a doctoral student at the University of Oxford, is working with farmers in the Laikipia district of Kenya to develop strategies for keeping elephants away. In that area, maize, beans, and squash are among the most common crops lost to elephants. (See a Kenya map.)

The idea of scaring elephants with bees comes from earlier observations by King's colleagues Fritz Vollrath and Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Save the Elephants. They determined in 2002 that elephants will avoid acacia trees with beehives.