Page 22 - Dark Matter Women Witnessing

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and location of those that have perished.Elephants have an unerring, psychic intuition.

The morning that legendary conservationist and ‘elephant whisperer’ Lawrence Anthony

died of a heart attack in 2012, the two herds of rescued elephants that live at Thula

Thula, his private game reserve in South Africa, gathered in the predawn light in front of

his house. Each year, on the anniversary of his death, they return.6 In both Sudan and

Liberia, when peace came at last after protracted war, elephants returned that had fled

into neighboring countries.

Male elephant elders keep young males in check. Like humans, when juvenile males are

not properly eldered, they go berserk, raping and killing. (Elephants attack not only their

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own species but others as well.)Elephants, humans, and dozens of other species

(including birds, reptiles, dogs, and many others) currently suffer from PTSD. Elephants,

like humans and other animals, are able to heal once they find safety, kindness, and the

opportunity to devote themselves to helping others.8

It used to be that elephant hunting was a gory colonial sport, and modern poaching was

the province of hungry villagers or resentful farmers. Now elephants (and rhinos) are

being gunned down from helicopters by criminal gangs armed with automatic weapons

and night-vision scopes. Rangers who attempt to protect the animals are often executed.

The numbers are staggering: it is estimated that in 1900, there were 10 million elephants

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in Africa. In 1980, 1.2 million. In 2013, 450,000.Each day, about 100 elephants are

killed in Africa - one every 15 minutes, 35,000 or more per year.10 At this rate, viable

populations of elephants in the wild will be gone within our lifetime. The situation for

rhinos is even worse. Yet, despite hundreds of years of torture, enslavement and

genocide at human hands, elephants remain miraculously steadfast in their willingness

to connect with us. They are a keystone species and then some. In the refined

complexity of their social behavior as well as in their physiology, elephants are deeply,

exquisitely sane.

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Lawrence Anthony, The Last Rhinos, and The Elephant Whisperer
6
http://zululandobserver.co.za/26978/elephants-commemorate-late-conservation-hero/ and

http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/news/2012/03/rescued-wild-elephant-herds-inexplicably-gather-to-
mourn-lawrence-anthony-south-africas-elephant-whisperer.php/
7 G.A. Bradshaw, Elephants on the Edge
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G.A. Bradshaw, Elephants, Us and Other Kin, www.gabradshaw.com
9 http://www.howmanyelephants.co/
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CA4Elephants.org, & savetheelephants.org

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