Elephants Mourn Loss

Jumbos mourn black rhino killed by poachers

By Myrtle Ryan and Peta Thornycroft

This week three Zimbabwean elephants proved that rhinos and elephants can form close bonds, and that elephants do mourn.

Gruesome pictures flashed around the world this week of the three black rhinos shot by members of the Zimbabwe Army, dressed in camouflage uniforms and carrying AK-47 rifles. Each rhino had had a guard, but they were assaulted during the attack at Imire Safari Ranch in Wedza last week.

When elephants Mundebvu, Makavusi and Toto were taken to where their former rhino companions Amber, DJ and Sprinter were buried, they reacted in almost human fashion, touching and supporting each other and showing obvious grief. While elephants have been known to behave in such a fashion around remains of their own kind, people might be surprised to find them behaving in the same way around rhinos, which are sometimes treated with animosity.

According to Johnny Rodrigues, the chairman of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, since the attack, money has been pouring into a special fund set up by the Travers family - the owners of Imire.

Rodrigues said: "Four armed poachers dressed in camouflage uniform assaulted and tied up the rhino guards and opened fire on the three adult rhino in their pens."

All three were killed.

Imire is one of the few privately owned conservancies left in Zimbabwe and its rhino breeding programme has attracted international donor support.

Rodrigues expressed "utter shock, horror and disbelief" at the killings. He said over the past 20 years the Travers family "have lovingly reared and bred these animals", successfully releasing 13 black rhino back into Matusadona National Park.

'The elephants were passing sticks to each other'
"The three rhino were dehorned six weeks ago to make them less attractive to poachers. Nevertheless, the poachers tried to hack out the few centimetres of new horn growth from one of the rhinos before being frightened off."

John and Judy Travers appealed for funding for a reward to anyone giving information leading to the capture and conviction of those who had slaughtered the rhinos.

DJ, Sprinter and Amber were used in a breeding programme to successfully reintroduce endangered black rhino to the Zambezi valley. All were brutally killed, leaving a seven-week-old calf, Tatenda. Amber was due to give birth to her calf this week.

Speaking about the relationship between the animals, Nicola Roche, a family member, said the elephants and rhinos often walked around together. At night the rhinos were kept in the boma while the elephants slept outside. "They [the elephants] must have been very aware of the shots and screams [of the rhinos]," said Roche.

She said Judy had told her how the elephants had reacted when taken to the rhinos' burial spot two days after the incident.

"Something like this affects everyone and everything," said Roche. "The elephants were passing sticks to each other and Judy said you could see their tears running down their faces."

She said Amber and her foetus were buried under a beautiful msassa tree - where she was born.

On reaching this spot Mundebvu (who is herself in calf) dug down for about one metre to try to reach her former companion, constantly letting out screams and shrieks as the other two elephants supported her.


http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=vn20071118084613595C384523

That makes me want to cry. People are so f#@&king sick sometimes. I remember reading Shirley Mclaines book "out on a limb" years ago and she talked about elephants and their memories going back hundreds of years to previous lifetimes. I sometimes deeply feel that the world would be much better off without people in it. Present company excepted of course.

I think elephant used to be my totem animal. I loved elephants growing up and collected them. I still love them of course. A few years ago a friend of mine who is part Cherokee and is a shaman made me a drum and my totem is now turtle. I was always very picky in selecting my elephants, I never wanted to be given one from someone else, I had to choose it.

I once met an elephant at a circus and the animal's spirit seem to recognize me, and I recognized him. It was really the strangest thing, the incident has stayed with me all these years. The sweet elephant couldn't take his eyes off of me and kept trying to get close to me. It was an incredible experience.

MID, that is interesting about your totems. Do you think elephant is your main totem and turtle has just come to lead you thru this phase of your life? We have 9 totems, maybe elephant is your inner totem and turtle is your above totem? Just a thought....

I don't know. I ddidn't know we have 9 totems. I knew that some are "temporary" to give us messages occasionally.

When my son was about 4 years old I took him to the Circus. We went in the back where they keep the animals, and we stopped to look at the elephants. One of the elephants walked over to us and she had the most quizzical look on her face. She then put her trunk down and picked my son up and lifted him over the small enclosure. She continued to hold him in her trunk, but did nothing threatening. I did not yell because I did not want to alarm her. She held him up for about 15 minutes, while I pleaded with her to please give him back to me. One of the trainers came over and went into the enclosure and said something to her and she put him down gently on the ground. By the way, my son never cried or got upset during this entire episode. It is something he will never forget.

MID I have to tell you something else. I went to an auction for one of the storage facilities, which I do sometimes for my business. They auction off the contents of the storage rooms when the renter becomes 6 months or more behind in the rent payments. Sometimes you bid on the contents without knowing what is in them, because they are full of boxes. Sometimes it is just a lot of junk or old clothes, which get donated to the goodwill, along with any linens or items of that nature. My friend bid on a storage room full of nothing but boxes (she bid $100) and it turned out to be a storage room for one of the major airlines. She got about 50 cases of those little tiny bottles of booze and about 15 cases of cloth napkins, but the surprise was the 15 cases of barf bags. LOL

Well anyway, to get to the point, I bid $50 on a storage room full of boxes about two months ago. Each box contained nothing but elephants. Wood elephants, hand carved elephants, gorgeous wooden boxes with carvings of elephants. Hundreds of elephants. Some are from India, and Africa. They are beautiful. Some of them have been intricately carved depicting herds of elephants walking in trees and grass with their trunks entwined into the tail of the elephant ahead. I am not even sure how many I have. I have not been able to count them all. They are fascinating. I am not sure what to do with them. There was nothing in the boxes but elephants. Very strange.

I usually don't bid on the box stuff. I bid on the furniture that I think I can refurbish, or paint and resell. It was weird that I bid on that stuff. I don't know why.

Perhaps elephant has come to give you a message? Better elephants than barf bags!!