Here’s a confession, I have a strange love for elephants. It’s not an obnoxious obsession- It’s a slight tug on my heartstrings every time I see one. I attribute it partly to the Serrano side of the family. My dad played college football at Tufts. Tufts’ mascot happens to be an adorable elephant, named Jumbo. Throughout my childhood, I remember attending sporting events at Tufts and seeing the elephants on the jerseys and one specific time, the athletic director gifted me a beautiful elephant statue he claimed he would, “Never give to just anyone.”
But the love does not come solely from Tufts. It is deeper than that. My dad’s father, my grandfather Grampy, was from the city of Catania, Sicily. And guess what the symbol of Catania is? 5 points to those of you who guessed an elephant. It wasn’t until I was walking around downtown Catania a few years ago that I even realized the significance of the elephant. When I saw the huge elephant statues in Catania I thought back and realized there are small elephant statues scattered in my grandparent’s house. And my dad went to Tufts, where their mascot is an elephant. Elephants seem to be woven throughout my Serrano family history.
In keeping with the elephant theme of this blog post, I want to share some elephant related news with you. One of my amazing friends Emily Max recently traveled to Africa (how awesome is that?), where she kept a blog of her travels and adventures. One of my favorite posts was about her experience at an elephant orphanage. Here is an excerpt from Emily’s blog about what she learned at the elephant orphanage:
"First, Linus, our driver, takes us to theThe David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust: A Haven for Elephants and Rhinos. We pull into the long, gravel drive to be greeted by a family of friendly monkeys hanging out in the trees. Once we pull into the parking lot we find small tribes of mzungu each escorted by their appointed Kenya leader. The feeding of the baby orphans started at 11:00. We were just in time to file in with the rest of the small groups and find a place along a roped off viewing area. In came six baby elephants. None taller than Katie and I. They were fed by their keepers, 24-48 pints of imported human baby formula from Great Britain. The elephant keepers then recited their information about elephant orphans, life in the wild, and unique features of elephant care.
Elephants can become orphaned for many reasons, but the causes boil down to three main issues. Elephant poaching is still a problem and becoming an increasing issue as ivory and game mean has become more and more valuable. Therefore, as poachers kill off the adults for their tusks and meat, typically snaring them with trip wire, the children elephants become orphaned. Secondly, elephants have become endangered (as Simon Hoffer could likely tell you) because of the drought that Kenya has seen over the last years. In particular, a few of the orphaned elephants we saw were found at the bottom of dried up wells! Quite sad. Lastly, elephants have become orphaned due to trouble interaction with humans, fighting over land and resources. The Sheldrick Trust is then established to take these orphaned animals in and reintroduce them to the wild.
However, this reintroduction can be very hard and takes a couple years due to the wild life of elephants and their unique features. Elephants are hard to reintroduce into the wild because they are very emotional and highly social animals. Firstly, becoming an orphan can be traumatic, and many orphans have been known to die in the first few days of coming to the orphanage due to the stress they have undergone in becoming orphaned. One elephant we saw was much greyer than the rest and had a blanket tied around it. We learned that this elephant was one of the newest and was very sad to be an orphan. He needed extra warmth to encourage him to stay well; the other elephants were also aware of his sadness and often huddled around him to bring him friendship.
We also learned that these elephants have a hard time being reintroduced because of the strong, maternal connection that they have lost in becoming orphans. They develop much like humans. The females mature in their early teens and then begin to have babies. However, much like we do, elephants look to their family to find out how to act and how to raise their young. They have a very strong familial connection. Unlike humans, it is the females who establish leadership in the herd because the men leave the herd to establish dominance among the other males to determine who is the best to mate. Talk about natural selection! To find out who is the strongest, the males will play games that look aggressive, but the weaker elephant is quickly revealed and backs down. We also learned that, in keeping with the emotional nature of elephants, they are among a hand full of mammals that bury their dead and can often be found tracking back to those burial sites.
Because of these emotional and familial features of elephants, the Center is careful to phase the elephants from human and individualized care to allow them build relations with other orphaned and wild elephants until they choose to become wild. This process takes from two to five years. However, they center has seen some great success! "
--Taken from Emily's Blog
Seriously guys, how interesting is that!? It made me fall in love with elephants even more, and want to go out and rescue them. The fact that elephants not only bury their dead, but also track back to those burial sites is beyond amazing to me. It breaks my heart that orphaned elephants initially have a tough time in the orphanage, but I am glad that with a little love and support they eventually can get back out into the wild. One day, I want to volunteer at an elephant orphanage. Anyone want to come with me?
I hope you learned a little about elephants. If you’re interested in learning more about Emily’s African Adventure, please check out her blog. It is a very interesting, entertaining and eye opening account of everything she went through.
I know it has been a while since I have posted anything on my blog, but now that the summer is coming to a close I will make more of an effort to post regularly! So check in often and leave your comments! And as always, stay curious, Actualists!
