SAVE THE JUMBO PLEASE!
SAVE THE JUMBO PLEASE!
Elephants provoke different reactions from different groups of people.
From conservationists they provoke dread; from the tourist awe and wonder; from the subsistence farmer hostility and from the general public-myths.
Elephants are the largest living land mammals and are found in the continents of Asia and Africa . The African elephant is larger than its Asian relative.
African elephants are divided into forest and bush elephants. The bush elephants are larger and live longer than the forest elephants.
Physical Structure and behavior
The forest elephant has a height ranging from 2.4-3m, its total length (from tip of trunk to tail 5-5.5m) and weighs between 2800 and 3500kgs. Its trunk length ranges between 1.2-1.5m while the tusks grow to a length of 1.8m and weigh between 6-25kgs for the male and 2-5kgs for the female.
Forest elephants roam seasonally in search of locally blooming growth and fruiting food plants and love to wander into people’s farms at night in search of crops to supplement their diet. They sleep during the day and feed in the late afternoon and at night.
The bush elephant has a height ranging from 3-4m; its total length (from tip of trunk to tail) is 7-7.3m and weighs between 4500-7000kgs. The trunk length ranges between 2and 2.2m while the tusks grow to a length of 3.45m and weigh upto117kgs for the male and 30kgs for the female.
The bush elephant lives in the moist savanna, forest edges and marshy swamps where food and mud wallows are in plenty. It detects rain from great distances and moves to dry areas (sometimes moving up to 500km) in herds of up to 1000 in search of blooming growth and fruiting plants. After the rainy season, they go back and feed on the new vegetation.
They are mainly active during the mornings, afternoons, evening and at night, resting during the noon day heat. They feed once or twice at night with short rest periods of 1-2 hours and often sleep standing than lying down.
After drinking, they take daily baths (if there is plenty of water) and then wallow in mud and dust and form a thick crust of mud that protects them from insects and the sun. Cows bathe their calves while teaching them to bathe and wallow. They later scrap off the mud crusts against trees and termite mounds.
Both forms used to have migration trails which today have been lost due to human settlements.
They have small eyes and large sized ears. Their sight is poor and one can come very close to a group when the wind is moving in one direction. They see better at dusk than in broad day light.
They have tusks which are elongated incisors which they use in debarking trees, digging for roots and for fighting. Just like human beings who are right handed or left handed, elephants are either right tusked or left tusked. The commonly used tusk is known as the master tusk and it is usually rounded and worn at the tip. The tusks grow through out life and have no enamel. Their dentine is known as ivory which is usually the target of poachers.
The elephant has an elongated nose which forms the long powerful trunk which serves for breathing, smelling, drinking, seizing and fighting. The tip of the trunk has two fingers or lips which enable it to grasp food.
Elephants have six large sets of bricklike teeth. The teeth grow at the back of their mouths and move to the front as they wear out. The teeth then fall out and are replaced by fresh ones. The sixth set wears out at the age of between 55 and 60. Elephants starve to death at this stage because they can no longer chew food.
They have five hoofed toes on the front legs and four on the hind legs.
Males are larger than females. Males have no scrotum and their testes are internal. Both female and male have loose folds of skin between their hind legs. It is therefore difficult for the layman to differentiate between male and female elephants in the field. The female is identified by its pronounced forehead.
Reproduction
Elephants mate just like the domestic cattle where the male mounts the female. They have a gestation period of between 21 and 22 months. At birth the cow looks for a shady place, cleans it and births while standing.
They give birth to 1 active calf which can start walking a half hour after birth. They rarely give birth to twins. The calves weigh between 90-135kgs and have a height of 1m. Their monthly increase in weight is about 20-25kgs.
A female will have an average of 4 calves in her lifetime. Females have 2 teats at the breast. They suckle their young ones up to the age of 4 years when they give birth to a new calf or when the tusks of the calf disturb the mother while suckling.
Communication
They use movements, position of the trunk, ears and tail and voices to communicate. For example to warn the rest of the herd about danger, they spread their ears, bring them forward and extend them.
The use the trunk to show affection when the cow rests it on her calf. The bulls intertwine their trunks in a dispute.
They use the trunk to produce various sounds – the trumpet as an expression of rage or a commanding signal from the leading female, the young squeal when playing while the adults squeal when frightened. They growl, bellow and scream when attacking and use rumblings in the stomach as contact sounds which are not heard by the human ear to communicate to animals 1or 2 miles away.
Feeding
They are voracious and careless feeders destroying as much as they eat. They consume between 100kgs and 300kgs of food. They eat grass, trees and branches, maize, sugarcane, sweet potatoes, fruits, oil palms, baobabs.
They drink between 100 and 300 litres of water which they squirt into their mouths with the trunk. The young ones drink and suckle with their mouths early in life. They are later trained by their mothers to drink with their trunks.
They produce dung that ranges between 140-275kg and defaecate between 10-30 times in a day.
Social life
Elephants live in matriarchal (society controlled by female) groups. They have friendly relations and fights are rare especially those leading to death. The cows usually live with their 2 to 3 calves forming family groups. The bulls are however driven away from the groups at puberty and later form bachelor herds.
Family groups form bond groups which later form clans and may unite into herds of 40 or more. Bonds between close relatives are very strong and may last a lifetime.
Old males are known to be solitary and only join the group when the females are in oestrus.
Elephants learn important details of living like what to eat, where to find food, blooming and fruiting seasons, drinking, resting, wallowing, trails, enemies and other dangers from the older animals. Killing the older generation can therefore result in harmful behavioural effects on the species.
Similarities with man
Elephants are more alike with human beings that most people realize.
They have long life spans of between 60 and 70 years with some known to live up to 80 years, they have no specialization in food, have a wide range of habitat; from the savannah to the forest to marshy swamps and also have the ability to modify their habitat. They have extended families, have no predators for the adults (except man), and have deferred sexual maturity, menopause and naked skin (not hairy or furred). They suffer heart disease and arthritis and have albinos which are pinkish grey.
They have a long childhood most of which they spend learning. They are also known to manufacture and use tools. For example when there is a scarcity of water, elephants have been known to dig for water and after having their fill, chew a large ball of vegetation and block the tunnel with it and cover it with soil and return to the same place to drink.
They are compassionate and have awareness for death. With the death of a member of the group, they are known to watch a body or a cow may drag off her calf for a whole day. They are known to cover human and elephant carcasses with branches.
Myths
Many people have myths concerning elephants.
For example some people say that elephants are afraid of mice – they are not. This is probably a human attempt to create a ridiculous weakness in elephants.
The Western mythology explains that elephants have graves where they bury their dead. Elephants crash the bones and tusks against rocks probably out of memory of the departed. Some people think that they are usually moving the bones to graves. They don’t move the bones. Also old elephants, due to loss of teeth, gather around marshy swamps where they can eat soft vegetation. Most of them die at the swamps hence the collection of skeletons.
The Maasai have a myth that God, Enkai created all things big and small. The smaller version of the elephants complained to Enkai that they were unable to move because of their long tusks and trunks. He became angry and cut their tusks and trunks and let them live.
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