The last of the Last

I had a lot of trouble deciding what to do my final project on.  I was originally going to do something Public Health focused, because that is my major.  But being a senior in Public Health I've done a lot of studying already on problems that have arised globally. I wanted to do a project on something that would allow me to learn something new, while also being something that I am passionate about.  Which led me to elephants.  I did some research and talked with my professor on what would be a valid question that would provide a lot of information, here's what I came up with.

What are the psychological and behavioral similarities between elephants and human beings?

Elephants, here in the remarkable land of Thailand, are a very worshipped and sacred animal. They are viewed as a religious icon, and were once used in the forests as loggers and transportation. It is very seldom now that elephants are used for that as their presence on this earth slowly diminishes. 

Besides being the two mammals walking the earth with the longest longevity, humans and elephants surprisingly share some of the same emotional, behavioral, and psychological similarities. They have long been known to display emotions such as grief, play, compassion, and language. They are able to recognize themselves and have the ability to learn. The elephant’s brain is similar to a human in terms of structure and complexity. Elephant’s brains are larger than those of any other ground walking animal on earth, with a mass of just over 11 pounds.  

The elephant in Thailand is everywhere you look, at every temple, on every street corner, and bedazzled onto many souvenirs along the markets. In Buddhism the elephant is a symbol of mental strength. At the beginning of one's journey into Buddhism the uncontrolled mind is symbolized by a gray elephant that can run wild any moment and destroy everything on his way. After practicing dharma and taming one's mind, it is then symbolized by a white elephant; strong and powerful, that can be directed wherever one wishes and destroy all the obstacles on his way. The elephant is said to represent power, strength and intelligence.

Said by Lek, owner of Elephant Nature Park, which is one of the places that I visited on my trip, “Elephants are the animal that surpasses all others in wit and mind.” Elephant Nature Park is a unique project set in Chiang Mai province, in Northern Thailand. It was established in 1990 and their aim has always been to provide a sanctuary and rescue center for tortured and mistreated elephants. I was able to spend a day at this extraordinary place during my trip. I hope to go back again soon and spend an extended period of time working at the sanctuary.

Me with one of the formerly abused elephants at Elephant Nature Park.

The ideal human family is a close and loving group of people who are involved in each other's lives. Elephants are the same; the roam in small packs, ranging from 6-10, like a very close group of friends or a family. When the family members have been separated for some time they tend to show great affection to one another. They intertwine their trunks, even hug or gently rub each other and give one another a friendly bump on the foreheads. Childcare is similar in the way that both elephant parents are also active in taking care of the infant for years. Older elephants use trunk-slaps, kicks and shoves to discipline younger ones.

 Matured elephants are sent away from the herd to roam as a "lone tusker" – much like human teenagers do after finishing high school. Both mammals are known to carry one child at a time and in some cases they may conceive twins.  Although, according to Lek, the owner of Elephant Nature Park, if an elephant does have twins, there is a 90% chance that one will die because raising it because each requires so much food and milk, and elephants only produce enough milk for one offspring.

As I saw in a documentary video at Elephant Nature Park, elephants are the only species of mammals other than Homo sapiens and neanderthals known to have or have had any recognizable ritual around death. When one of the members of the herd dies, the rest of the herd mourns that death. This is because elephants live such close-knit herds and live for about as long as humans (approximately 70 years), they form such strong bonds around them. They show a keen interest in the bones of their own kind (even unrelated elephants that have died long ago). They are often seen gently investigating the bones with their trunks and feet while remaining very quiet. Sometimes elephants that are completely unrelated to the deceased will still visit their graves. When an elephant is hurt, other elephants (even if they are unrelated) will aid them. Mothers and aunts are also prone to mourning a still-born calf. The mother of a dead calf (whether at birth or later on in its life) shows her grief through her physical disposition. Her eyes are sunken and her ears drooping, her mood is visibly miserable, and displays many physical side effects in the same which would happen to a human.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjtrdpSwEUY

Elephants mirror humans in terms of emotion, sense of family, sense of death. They possess all the best qualities of the human animal, and few of the bad.  The elephant’s capacity for sadness and grief is truly unique amongst members of the animal world, as it is particularly complex in terms of emotions. While most animals do not hesitate to leave the weak and young behind to die, elephants are distressed by the situation, and continue to show signs of this grieving for extended periods of time. When a member of the elephant family is injured or killed, the remaining members wail and walk around aimlessly, displaying grief. A mother of a dying infant will stay with the infant when all others have left. The remaining herd will gather around the grieving mother as though to support her through her pain. Although they have long been known to display human traits such as grief, the research shows they may also wince at each other's pain. In one example, that was displayed at Elephant Nature Park in 2002, when a young elephant approached an electric fence, an older female "looked alarmed, waiting for it to get zapped", said Lek. “She even winced at the pain.”

Elephants are one of the few species of animals that can “learn” and has also been seen to make tools for its use. They have been known to grab branches off of trees to scratch their backs, or drop rocks at electric fences in order to cut off the electricity. They have been seen stacking blocks in order to be able to reach food. They are able to change their behavior radically to face new challenges, a sign of remarkable intelligence.

One only needs to watch a herd of elephants in a river to see the “play” that is enjoyed by all of the group. They will spray each other and wrestle in the water much like  a group of human children would. They do things for their own entertainment as well as to entertain the rest of the herd. While in captivity they spend many hours “playing” to relieve their unbearable boredom.

My elephant spraying me in the river.

Elephants are one of the few animals that are “self aware” There are only a few species that have been determined to be able to recognize themselves, the Great Apes, dolphins, one bird species (a corvid), and elephants. Recognizing oneself in the mirror is an ability humans take for granted. We wake up in the morning, and head straight for the mirror - we brush our teeth, comb our hair, and clean our face. This is an ability that is a cognitive capacity that few animal species possess. Recognizing oneself in the mirror demonstrates that an animal is able to see itself as separate from others, one of the main traits of an animal having underlying empathy and complex sociality.

The secret “language” of elephants has fascinated researchers for years. The elephant's trumpeting call will be familiar to most people, but the animals also emit growls. Their growls, however, are only partly audible; two-thirds of the call is at frequencies that are too low to be picked up by our hearing. It has been determined that elephant emit different sounds to warn of predators, to announce that a birth is imminent as well as gathering lost members of a herd. Elephants often use physical gestures and signals with their ears in combination with sounds to communicate.  “When an elephant is flapping their ears and moving their feet, it means they are feeling uneasy and stressed”, says Lek. When an elephant is being territorial or protective, they make their ears as big and wide as possible to scare off any predator that may be watching.  Elephants communicate by touch, sight, and sound and use high frequency sounds long-distance communication.

Elephants live out their long lives in an exceptionally complex network of persistent relationships very much like humans do. The parallels betweens humans and elephants suggest that their behaviors many people believe to be unique to humans, like caring for their young, living in families, grieving their losses, learning about themselves and using tools to survive or make things easier, and communicating with others are in reality quite common among elephants and reveal social relationships between elephants that is hardly a world apart from our own.

There is something about this animal that is fascinating to me. They were my favorite animals before this trip for many of reasons, and after spending 2 full days with these amazing creatures, it has only made my compassion for them grow.