Elephants are my first love

By Rosemary Rudd

IN THE LAST 30 YEARS 50% OF AFRICA’S ELEPHANT POPULATION HAS BEEN WIPED OUT

Elephants are my first love – they are such gentle giants. Let me take you on an elephant trip. Pachyderms are vegetarian – foraging about 16 hours a day. They depend heavily on the availability of water drinking up to 200 litres a day, during the dry season. They live in the wild to about 60-70 years. I was in Kenya in 1994, and my daughter and I fell in love with the country – just to be able to see herds of wild animals roaming free – galloping across the plains – manes flying is a sight one can never forget. This is their prerogative. Elephants live in a very tight knit community, led by the oldest female, called the “Matriarch”. Elephants don’t breed like rabbits, they are pregnant for nearly 2 years and don’t breed again for at least 3 years.

As “Matriarch”, her decisions are obeyed without question by the others throughout life. Ascending to the position of Matriarch is automatic by age – qualifications – a lifetime of learning from the elders. Under normal circumstances the Matriarch would probably never be under 40 years of age. Poaching for Ivory has removed most of Africa’s senior elephants of both sexes, leaving many populations unnaturally young, and relatively inexperienced. As is young bulls, naturally leave the family to apprentice themselves to senior bulls of the community, are there to learn the disciplines of rank and status that will stand them in good stead later on.

We had the privilege of meeting surely one of Kenya’s foremost elephant and rhino campaigners – Daphne Sheldrick MBE who runs an orphanage outside Nairobi. I’ve included a picture of two orphaned baby rhinos. She and her willing band of helpers work full time to care for these traumatized orphans – her love and devotion is a joy to behold and she is so knowledgeable and caring. Her late husband David was the first Park Ranger in Tsavo National Park. Once you have seen the baby elephants, rhinos and warthogs at play, beside their water hole – you won’t forget it – one must remember that all these orphans are the direct result of man’s insatiable greed – Poaching – I will be talking about poaching later.

Elephants in case you didn’t know play a vital role in the environment, and one that should never be under estimated. In case there are some of you who are a way behind us on the trip, let me tell you that the elephants create paths for themselves in the forests, for other animals. In other areas, they also create and seal the water holes, expose sub surface water in dry riverbeds making it available for others, and re-cycle the nutrients. As nature’s bulldozers, only they have the ability to change the face of the land, converting scrublands into grasslands, planting a new generation for trees far and wide by carrying seeds in their stomachs and depositing them in the dung.

Elephants need huge areas of land in which to live. Unfortunately, this brings them into conflict with the expanding human population in rural Africa. Crops are trampled and many people are killed every year by marauding elephants. It is argued that unless these people can gain a benefit from the elephants, such as sharing in the profits raised from hunting and culling – selective killing and the sale of ivory skins and meat, as well as from tourism, the spores will disappear in the world of relentless human development. We in the Trust, who are true conservations, DO NOT BELIEVE IN EITHER TROPHY HUNTING FOR BIG GAME OR CULLING.

Why do we object? Firstly, we believe that God created nature – animal and plant life – in all, it’s perfection. We believe it is our duty to be responsible for the well being of all animals in our countries – domestic or wild to treat them with the utmost respect and to protect them from all forms of cruelty. We must be “OUR BROTHER’S KEEPER” – TOWARDS OUR NON-HUMAN AS WELL AS OUR HUMAN BROTHERS.

Secondly, we think it is criminal for these rich Americans and European tourists to come out, bribe the Game Wardens (they turn a blind eye) and go off and kill animals who are endangered under the CITES agreement – just so they can show off and boast and bring home the tusks or the feet as their trophies.

I want to enlarge here on the Poaching as this, after all, is the kernel of the whole argument. We need to look after our Park Rangers/Game Wardens – to equip them with up-to-date jeeps, rifles and uniforms and above all, see that they and their families are properly taken care of and that the Rangers are paid a decent salary as long as you have got a happy family with food on the table, then the Ranger can do his job better. The Poachers are armed to the teeth to shoot – they don’t care about anything except dead or dying elephants – they shoot the elephants at close range, they hack off the tusks when they are still alive – can you imagine the torture and the pain and the terror? And all the time the little babies are chained to their dead or dying mother – traumatized for life – THIS IS WHOLESALE MURDER AND IT HAS TO BE STOPPED.

ONLY ELEPHANTS ARE ALLOWED TO WEAR IVORY

Thank God for caring people like Daphne Sheldrick and Kuki Gallman up in the north of Kenya. . As Daphne so aptly put it “through such close association with elephants we know that they have human emotions”.

Elephants share with man a sense of death, love, fear, sorrow etc. They often bury their dead by covering the body with sticks and leaves, and they will grieve and mourn a loved one as deeply as any human.

How would we feel if we heard the terrified screams of victims amongst which were our family and friends? The elephant’ suffering is transmitted through infrasound that travels long distances but is inaudible to humans.

Thirdly, we have to talk about culling. This means if there are too many elephants in one place. For instance, it would be considered inhumane and unacceptable to “cull” a human over population – to butcher the adults and abduct their young whilst the entire family has been rendered immobile, unable to even flutter an eyelid despite being fully conscious throughout such a grisly exercise when the drug SCHOLINE is used, which is the habitual way of culling elephants in Southern Africa. It would be unethical to sell human children to circuses and Zoos for monetary gain, or to force them into a lifetime of bondage carrying tourists on their backs denying them access to their own kind and chaining them by a leg at night so that they cannot escape, but also cannot even lie down to sleep. Yet all this is considered good “Elephant Management” in Southern Africa.

We are totally against circuses – getting animals to do degrading tricks – then put in tiny dark cages, beaten, prodded and worst of all deprived of food and water if they don’t perform and being locked up for up to 22 hours a day. Circuses are outdated and outmoded – by all means have circuses with human artists only.

To finish off, I would like to point your attention to the Junkie Jumbos in Thailand – these gentle giants are dragged and worked to death hauling wood out of the forests, so that their greedy owners can get rich. The animals are fed Opium and Amphetamines till they become addicted – it gives the animals false strength but their addiction eventually turns the junkie jumbos crazy – they have their toes hacked off – can you imagine someone doing that to you? Others are being poached for their Ivory or ill-treated by owners who show them off to unsuspecting tourists.

Thank God for the work of Soraida Salwala secretary of the charity “Friends of the Asian Elephant” which runs the hospital and other dedicated helpers, the only Elephant Sanctuary in Thailand. The Hang Chat Elephant Hospital in Lampang, Northern Thailand which is desperately in need of cash to carry out its vital life saving work. It costs £10.00 a day just to keep an elephant in food, without any medical treatment. Despite its cash problems, the Hospital has saved more than 100 animals from a miserable death. In Asia, there are under 2,000 elephants in the wild and another 2,500 in captivity.

THESE GENTLE ANIMALS, WHO SERVE MAN SO TOLERANTLY AND PATIENTLY, NEED OUR HELP.