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Elephants: The Best Animals? · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know from how Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:14
Speaker 1: There's Charles w Chuck, Bryan Jerry. We're just feeling wacky
0:17
Speaker 1: or here. You want to know why? Why? Because this
0:20
Speaker 1: is the stuff you should know about. Maybe the greatest
0:24
Speaker 1: animal walking the planet. And I'm including human beings elephants.
0:28
Speaker 1: I'm big on elephants. YEA love elephants. Might be emily
0:34
Speaker 1: spirit animals. She hasn't decided yet. Yeah, I can say,
0:38
Speaker 1: is really Oh yeah, wow, they have the same spirit
0:42
Speaker 1: animal that's gonna eat. Yeah, I know. I like that.
0:45
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. I didn't know you mean was
0:47
Speaker 1: an elephant or she is big time into elephant elephantist.
0:50
Speaker 1: M Um, all right, Charles, are you ready for this? Yes?
0:56
Speaker 1: And really quickly. Because we love elephants. We want to
1:01
Speaker 1: go on a safari one day. You know I've mentioned before,
1:04
Speaker 1: but now I know and we'll get to this later.
1:06
Speaker 1: I was like, man, I want to I want to
1:07
Speaker 1: swim with those things. Don't do it, No, I shouldn't
1:11
Speaker 1: do it. Don't write them, Nope, don't do any of
1:13
Speaker 1: those things where you see people on Facebook bragging about
1:17
Speaker 1: writing and getting bade by elephants. Don't do it. Yeah,
1:20
Speaker 1: it's true, Like that's not ethical or humane because we'll
1:25
Speaker 1: just say it now. The reason why is because too,
1:28
Speaker 1: elephants are wild animals. They're not domesticated. Although they display
1:32
Speaker 1: some really bizarre affectionate behavior towards humans there that can
1:37
Speaker 1: make you think they are domesticated, there's still wild animals.
1:40
Speaker 1: So to train them to basically ensure that they're not
1:46
Speaker 1: ever going to you know, stomp a person or something
1:50
Speaker 1: like that, you have to take them as as babies
1:52
Speaker 1: and what's called crushing their spirit and just basically scare
1:56
Speaker 1: them so bad or beat them physically, right, that's part
2:00
Speaker 1: of the process of crushing their spirit. Like yeah, beat them,
2:05
Speaker 1: the rate them, starve them, tie their legs together, keep
2:08
Speaker 1: them in a pen all to basically teach them that
2:11
Speaker 1: humans are in charge and that they should be scared
2:13
Speaker 1: to death of of doing anything untoward toward a human.
2:17
Speaker 1: That's how you can write an elephant, or how you
2:20
Speaker 1: can bathe with an elephant or um, you me wanted
2:24
Speaker 1: a painting by an elephant, Like, there's elephants that make paintings.
2:27
Speaker 1: There's one here in Atlanta, okay, that makes paintings. So
2:31
Speaker 1: we researched it right before we were about to order,
2:33
Speaker 1: and she's like, wait a minute, let me just see
2:35
Speaker 1: if this is okay. And it turns out that they
2:38
Speaker 1: basically use the same techniques. To to make an elephant
2:42
Speaker 1: do what human wants it to, you have to be
2:45
Speaker 1: very cruel to them usually, So there you go. People
2:51
Speaker 1: don't do it. Yeah, it was a weird intro. It
2:55
Speaker 1: was in my crawl. Uh, obviously it was in yours
2:59
Speaker 1: a little bit. But let's talk about elephants, the good stuff.
3:02
Speaker 1: There are three species. You probably grew up thinking like
3:05
Speaker 1: I did, that there's the African elephant and the Asian elephant.
3:09
Speaker 1: Sure that everybody knows that. But now they have broken
3:12
Speaker 1: down the African element element the elephant into two camps,
3:17
Speaker 1: the bush elephant and the forest elephant, both African and
3:21
Speaker 1: like I said, for many many years, and you will
3:23
Speaker 1: still see in a lot of places, um just two species.
3:28
Speaker 1: But that is that is not true anymore. No one
3:31
Speaker 1: to three um so, and the bush elephant and the
3:34
Speaker 1: forest elephant are so closely related that if they if
3:38
Speaker 1: they run up against one another because some of their
3:41
Speaker 1: their habitats kind of overlap, they could reproduce and have babies,
3:46
Speaker 1: which no problem whatsoever. But the Asian elephant is so
3:50
Speaker 1: distantly related to them, even though they seem, you know,
3:54
Speaker 1: it's just another kind of elephant, it's an elephant that
3:57
Speaker 1: they probably they could receivably have a kid. And actually
4:02
Speaker 1: one was born in a zoo in the seventies, but
4:05
Speaker 1: he died after like I think twelve days of an infection.
4:08
Speaker 1: UM that they probably aren't really supposed to aren't supposed
4:13
Speaker 1: to breed, I guess, is how you'd put it, right,
4:19
Speaker 1: have offspring. Yeah, so, uh, we're gonna be talking about
4:23
Speaker 1: all three, um not interchangeably. We'll we'll point out when
4:26
Speaker 1: we're talking about what but the African bush elephant, those
4:30
Speaker 1: are the biggest ones. They have the biggest ears um
4:34
Speaker 1: or at least larger than the Asian elephants, and both
4:37
Speaker 1: sexes for the African bush elephants are more likely to
4:41
Speaker 1: have tusks. UM. Some male Asian elephants have tusks, but
4:47
Speaker 1: they're not as prominent. That's where you see the smaller tusks.
4:51
Speaker 1: And then all three species have five toes on the
4:54
Speaker 1: front feet, but the African bush elephant has three toes
4:58
Speaker 1: on the rear. Asian l elephants have four toes on
5:02
Speaker 1: the rear on each foot. There's a lot of different
5:05
Speaker 1: toes going on, a lot of different toes uh. And
5:08
Speaker 1: the African forest elephant is generally about the same shape
5:13
Speaker 1: as his bush bush friend, but they have straighter tusks
5:17
Speaker 1: because they're going It makes sense they're going through the
5:20
Speaker 1: forest so their tests don't stick way out and get
5:23
Speaker 1: caught on every other tree that they're walking by. Yes,
5:26
Speaker 1: And I thought this was really interesting. Um, the the
5:30
Speaker 1: African um forest elephants are so elusive that like they
5:37
Speaker 1: don't they have no idea how many there are, all
5:40
Speaker 1: of the all the ideas about their behavior and the
5:43
Speaker 1: stuff that they do is just assumptions made based on
5:46
Speaker 1: the bush elephant that they're related to. They're that good
5:50
Speaker 1: at like keeping away from humans. I just think that's amazing. Yeah,
5:54
Speaker 1: And they have they're a little bit smaller um than
5:57
Speaker 1: the uh than they're they're ends on the savannah, but
6:01
Speaker 1: they have the same toe arrangement as the Asian elephant, right,
6:05
Speaker 1: which is interesting. So the I I had never really
6:08
Speaker 1: thought about it, but like, um, a lot of the elephants,
6:11
Speaker 1: when I think of elephants. I never realized I was
6:14
Speaker 1: thinking of two different species, but they really do. Like
6:17
Speaker 1: the Asian elephant and the African bush elephant, they have
6:20
Speaker 1: a lot of differences that you can just very quickly
6:23
Speaker 1: see which is which kind Like the Asian elephant has
6:26
Speaker 1: kind of like the rounded dome head, and they have
6:29
Speaker 1: kind of a hump back um and they are a
6:32
Speaker 1: little smaller. And then the African bush elephants they're very,
6:35
Speaker 1: very big with the big old ears, and they have
6:38
Speaker 1: basically what's called like a saddle back. It's kind of
6:40
Speaker 1: flatish or maybe even concave a little bit too. Yeah,
6:45
Speaker 1: and here's here's one of the facts of the show
6:47
Speaker 1: for me is there's like fifty and here, and there's
6:50
Speaker 1: so many but elephants have. They have tuskness like we
6:54
Speaker 1: have handedness. They use their right or their left tusk
6:58
Speaker 1: more often than the other. And if you ever wonder
7:01
Speaker 1: which tusk is the more dominant one, look and see
7:04
Speaker 1: which one shorter, because that's the one that gets worn
7:06
Speaker 1: down quicker. I thought that was amazing, pretty neat. I
7:09
Speaker 1: just figured they were interchangeable. Yep, nope, yep nope. So
7:17
Speaker 1: like it's really kind of I had to stop and
7:20
Speaker 1: put myself into this like standing like imagine myself standing
7:24
Speaker 1: next to these elephants for like measurements for the average Yeah,
7:28
Speaker 1: you're like, what six ft? Yeah just about I'm pretty good.
7:30
Speaker 1: I'm like a human dollar bill, you know, a dollar
7:33
Speaker 1: bills like a little about six inches. Same thing here,
7:36
Speaker 1: I'm six ft. Okay, so just stand me next to something.
7:39
Speaker 1: You'd be like, it's about six ft. Don't you know
7:42
Speaker 1: about the dollar bill? Well? No, is that used as
7:44
Speaker 1: a measuring device when you're short of ruler? Yeah, it's
7:48
Speaker 1: about six inches. What if you have no cash but
7:50
Speaker 1: you do have a ruler, then you're can you spend
7:53
Speaker 1: the ruler and a and a hat shop? You could
7:56
Speaker 1: consuerably trade it. Remember that guy who traded he moved.
8:00
Speaker 1: We went from a paper clip to like a house
8:02
Speaker 1: trading up. Oh yeah, that guy. That guy could turn
8:05
Speaker 1: a ruler into cash. He and soy Bombs share an
8:08
Speaker 1: apartment now and uh an upstate New York bomb. All right,
8:14
Speaker 1: so let's talk about the size of these ladies and
8:18
Speaker 1: men because okay, so everybody, imagine me standing next to
8:22
Speaker 1: an elephant, and you'll really drive all this home. Yes, right,
8:24
Speaker 1: so An African forest elephant is Josh's height up to
8:28
Speaker 1: about eight feet at the shoulder. Yeah, okay, yeah, you
8:33
Speaker 1: don't measure from the top of the dome. Um. I
8:36
Speaker 1: wonder why they do that with animals. That's always kind
8:39
Speaker 1: of the case, right, because I think if the animals, like, well,
8:42
Speaker 1: I want to seem taller, they could just lift their
8:44
Speaker 1: head up very high, you know, or if they're trying
8:47
Speaker 1: to keep a low profile, they keep their head down
8:49
Speaker 1: so the shoulder it's tough to you know, like when
8:51
Speaker 1: they're having their kindergarten class picture taken. Right. Uh, the
8:55
Speaker 1: African bush elephant is taller. It's about eight to ten
8:58
Speaker 1: feet at the shoulder. That's the biggest one. Yeah, four
9:02
Speaker 1: to six tons, two to five tons on the forest.
9:04
Speaker 1: African and then Asian is seven to nine ft about
9:08
Speaker 1: three to five short tons. And we should say there's
9:12
Speaker 1: a lot of variation in size here because I think
9:16
Speaker 1: one of these experts said that the the outliers can
9:19
Speaker 1: be as big as twenty taller or larger overall than
9:24
Speaker 1: the average, which is huge variation. Yeah, there's I think
9:27
Speaker 1: the record for an Asian elephant. And remember there, you know,
9:31
Speaker 1: at the shoulders seven to nine ft. That's still pretty
9:33
Speaker 1: pretty good size. But the record was eleven and a
9:37
Speaker 1: quarter feet. And that's a big elephant. Like can you
9:39
Speaker 1: imagine that's almost two of me. Yeah, like me standing
9:43
Speaker 1: on my own shoulders, maybe squatted you own just a
9:46
Speaker 1: little bit at the shoulder. That's how big that elephant was.
9:51
Speaker 1: And when you when you're talking short tons, that's two
9:53
Speaker 1: thousand pounds. So like an African bush elephant can get
9:58
Speaker 1: on average up to twelve thousand pounds. That's a big
10:02
Speaker 1: boy or a girl. Yeah, the boys are a little
10:05
Speaker 1: bit bigger. Um, and they live a long long time.
10:09
Speaker 1: Here's sort of some inspiring and sad facts. They can
10:14
Speaker 1: live fifty seventy years. Uh. They've found and recorded at
10:19
Speaker 1: least one elephant that lived to be eighty six that
10:22
Speaker 1: has set the record, which is just amazing. But here's
10:25
Speaker 1: the saddest thing. Um, if you are a zoo elephant,
10:30
Speaker 1: you live maybe less than half as long. So I
10:35
Speaker 1: have to say this. The RSPCA in West SUS six England,
10:40
Speaker 1: UM has been there. Their numbers have been controversial before,
10:45
Speaker 1: but in this two thousand and eight study they they
10:47
Speaker 1: they took hundred African and Asian elephants that lived in
10:53
Speaker 1: European zoos over the course of forty five years. And
10:56
Speaker 1: this is what they came up with. So, I mean
11:00
Speaker 1: even in the article that people weren't necessarily contesting this data.
11:04
Speaker 1: But I think the way that they explained it was
11:07
Speaker 1: that this was old data and so it gave you
11:09
Speaker 1: a good idea of how long elephants lived in captivity,
11:14
Speaker 1: you know, a few decades ago, back before they knew
11:17
Speaker 1: more about keeping them in zoos. Yeah, and here's what
11:21
Speaker 1: it says. It said, UM thirty six years and a
11:24
Speaker 1: national park in Kenya, UM seventeen years in a zoo.
11:29
Speaker 1: But it looks to me like, unless I'm reading this wrong,
11:31
Speaker 1: that UM elephants that work in timber camps. You know,
11:34
Speaker 1: they're very strong, so they are still using in timber
11:37
Speaker 1: camps to haul wood uh in trees and things. They
11:41
Speaker 1: actually live longer than zoo elephants. Yeah. So the timber
11:46
Speaker 1: elephants of Burma, of Me and mar are very well
11:50
Speaker 1: taken care of from what I understand, like they're they're
11:53
Speaker 1: considered semi captive and for like the last hundred years
11:56
Speaker 1: or so, UM, the people of Burma have you use
12:00
Speaker 1: them to basically move huge trees right to pull them
12:04
Speaker 1: out of the forest for like logging and stuff. But
12:07
Speaker 1: they're really well cared for. There's like government veterinarians that
12:10
Speaker 1: do health checks and each elephant has their own log
12:13
Speaker 1: and from what I saw, which just seems mind blowing
12:16
Speaker 1: to me, because there they're, you know, um, being held
12:20
Speaker 1: captive in a way to work for humans. And so
12:24
Speaker 1: just based on you know, our our track record of
12:28
Speaker 1: using animals like that, I it's just weird to me
12:31
Speaker 1: that they would be very well taken care of. But
12:33
Speaker 1: supposedly they are. UM, and they're considered semi captive because
12:36
Speaker 1: at night they're allowed to just kind of wander around
12:38
Speaker 1: and go free in the forest and they interact with
12:41
Speaker 1: wild Asian elephants and that's how they actually reproduce. Um,
12:45
Speaker 1: they're they're not like there's no kind of reproductive oversight.
12:49
Speaker 1: It's just go wild, you know. And UM, they apparently
12:53
Speaker 1: live very long because they're very well taken care of.
12:57
Speaker 1: And here is a little for you. When they get
13:01
Speaker 1: pregnant in those working camps, they get maternity leave for
13:05
Speaker 1: about a year. Yes, So a couple of more quick
13:09
Speaker 1: facts and then we'll take a break. Um, little BB
13:13
Speaker 1: Elephants are cared for by their mothers until they are
13:17
Speaker 1: anywhere between thirteen and twenty years old. So it's almost like, well,
13:23
Speaker 1: not quite, but it's almost like the human experience a
13:27
Speaker 1: little bit. Yeah, you know somewhere in there. I doubt
13:29
Speaker 1: if you're sitting your thirteen year old off, but if
13:32
Speaker 1: you're a terrible parent, maybe let's say it's you know,
13:34
Speaker 1: thirteen to twenty. Let's say that's eighteen years. It's about
13:37
Speaker 1: like a high school age. Uh. And that's also when
13:40
Speaker 1: they reach sexual maturity. It takes about twenty to twenty
13:43
Speaker 1: two months of gestation, which is the longest longest gestational
13:48
Speaker 1: period of any animal. I'm sorry, any mammal and a
13:51
Speaker 1: little bb elephant ways between a hundred and fifty and
13:53
Speaker 1: two fifty pounds. It's pretty cute. We take a break, Yes,
13:58
Speaker 1: all right, more pounded facts right after this, Chuck. I
14:21
Speaker 1: just think it's adorable that both of our wives got
14:23
Speaker 1: us into elephants. We're gonna have to take us safari together.
14:28
Speaker 1: We should do that, although that's very dangerous, Like we
14:30
Speaker 1: don't even fly to you know, Tennessee together. We feared
14:34
Speaker 1: that the plane will go down and the podcast will
14:35
Speaker 1: be over. I guess we could trade off. Then it
14:39
Speaker 1: would be pretty amazing story though, Like the podcast would
14:42
Speaker 1: go down in history. If you and I were eaten
14:44
Speaker 1: by tigers would be kind of it would be a
14:47
Speaker 1: heck of a way to go. Well, Emily, and you
14:49
Speaker 1: make it just take it over, there you go, and
14:51
Speaker 1: it would just all be about animals. They should do
14:54
Speaker 1: something together sometime, you know, you like, like they should
14:58
Speaker 1: read listener mail or something like bad or or or
15:01
Speaker 1: they should just start their own show called stuff you
15:03
Speaker 1: should Know about our husbands. There you go, people, good idea.
15:07
Speaker 1: I don't know if we would know, we would not.
15:10
Speaker 1: They'd be like, you think they're so great, Let's tell
15:13
Speaker 1: you about these slobs. No no, no, no, no, these puts.
15:16
Speaker 1: So there should be a ding sound because these puts
15:22
Speaker 1: on every show from now on. Alright, Elephants eat a
15:26
Speaker 1: hundred to six hundred pounds of food in a day
15:28
Speaker 1: and drink between sixteen and forty gallons of water. Say
15:31
Speaker 1: that again, brother, A hundred to six hundred pounds of
15:34
Speaker 1: food in a day. Um, and they are eating and
15:38
Speaker 1: I love this. They basically spend their day when they're
15:41
Speaker 1: awake fourteen to sixteen hours a day, just sort of
15:45
Speaker 1: looking to eat and drink. Yeah, which is it stinks
15:48
Speaker 1: like if you think about it, the reason why they
15:51
Speaker 1: have to eat that much is not because they're so big,
15:54
Speaker 1: but because, well it is in part but mostly because
15:57
Speaker 1: they're herbivores and they're digestives. To some is ridiculously inefficient.
16:03
Speaker 1: Like if if elephants are as intelligent as they appear
16:06
Speaker 1: to be, and probably even more than they appear to
16:08
Speaker 1: be once we start to like learn more about them,
16:10
Speaker 1: I think all it's gonna do is just provide it
16:13
Speaker 1: as cascading series of woes. Um. They like, if they
16:18
Speaker 1: didn't have to spend so much of their time looking
16:21
Speaker 1: for food, what would they be doing? Maybe they would
16:24
Speaker 1: learn to paint on their own. Maybe. So the reason
16:27
Speaker 1: why they're they're um, they eat so much again is
16:30
Speaker 1: because they don't digest a lot of that food, and
16:33
Speaker 1: so undigested stuff comes out as poop and such frequency
16:40
Speaker 1: that you can actually make paper out of it. There's
16:43
Speaker 1: elephant poop paper. People use it and they get the
16:45
Speaker 1: fiber out of the elephant poop to make paper with.
16:49
Speaker 1: That's how how undigested so much of their food is. Yeah,
16:53
Speaker 1: they eat like you said, they are herbivore, so they
16:55
Speaker 1: all kinds of plants. Um. They love fruit. I imagine
16:59
Speaker 1: that's like the sweet sweet nectar when compared to you know,
17:02
Speaker 1: like dry bamboo. Um. And they can study their poop
17:07
Speaker 1: and learn a lot from their poop, just like most animals. Well,
17:10
Speaker 1: elephants don't study their own poop. How do you know
17:14
Speaker 1: they might? Now, of course scientists study it and they can.
17:18
Speaker 1: They can learn a lot by you know, because like
17:21
Speaker 1: you said, those African forest elephants, they're very elusive in
17:24
Speaker 1: the forest and you can't find them, but you can't
17:26
Speaker 1: find their poop everywhere. Yeah, you can tell their anus
17:28
Speaker 1: size from the their poop size, which sounds hilarious and
17:32
Speaker 1: it is. But you also can tell like the age
17:36
Speaker 1: and the general size of the elephant based on their
17:39
Speaker 1: anus size, which you find based on their poop size.
17:43
Speaker 1: That's right. Plus you can make a banging paper out
17:46
Speaker 1: of it too. Sure. Uh. The range, the African bush
17:50
Speaker 1: elephants have a very wide range across Africa. Um south
17:53
Speaker 1: of the Sahara Desert and the forest elephant are in
17:57
Speaker 1: rainforest that's the name. Uh. Near the equator sort of
18:01
Speaker 1: around Cameroon is where they're largely centered as far as Asian.
18:05
Speaker 1: They're all over Southeast Asia. Um, they have some in
18:08
Speaker 1: China even, but India is really where you're going to
18:12
Speaker 1: find the most Asian elephants. Um see Thailand and Anesia, Sumatra,
18:16
Speaker 1: Sri Lanka they each have more than a thousand. And
18:19
Speaker 1: we already talked about Burma a little bit. They have
18:21
Speaker 1: the second largest total population worldwide, I guess, except for India.
18:26
Speaker 1: They have the the largest captive population though of at
18:30
Speaker 1: least five thousand, all working in those government timber camps,
18:33
Speaker 1: which again I'm just I'm sure somebody's gonna write and
18:36
Speaker 1: be like, h don't they're not taking very well care
18:39
Speaker 1: of But I didn't see anything like that, which I'm
18:41
Speaker 1: just astounded by. I don't know if that's coming across
18:44
Speaker 1: or not, but I'm really astounded. Yeah, and if you
18:48
Speaker 1: listen to our episode, um, well, I guess it's either
18:52
Speaker 1: from last week or it'll be next week. And then
18:55
Speaker 1: I'm predicting the future about elephants swimming in the which
18:59
Speaker 1: one set lock nest lock nests. They do love to swim,
19:03
Speaker 1: and they are very floaty, they're very buoyant. Um, they
19:06
Speaker 1: won't you're not gonna find an elephant drowned in the water.
19:09
Speaker 1: They can not only swim, but if they get tired,
19:12
Speaker 1: they can just float bob. Yeah, they can bob in
19:16
Speaker 1: the water and they apparently an elephant has been recorded
19:20
Speaker 1: as swimming forty eight kilometers thirty miles. Pretty amazing and
19:26
Speaker 1: six hours at a stretch. That's pretty nuts. And baby
19:31
Speaker 1: elephants one of the one of the greatest things you
19:33
Speaker 1: can do is sit around and watch baby elephants splashing
19:37
Speaker 1: in kittie pools on YouTube. They love it. They love
19:41
Speaker 1: to swim. Yeah, let's talk about the trunk. Because when
19:45
Speaker 1: you see an elephant and you watch this, if you'd like,
19:48
Speaker 1: really study an elephant for a while, you look at
19:50
Speaker 1: that trunk. It's it's it's amazing. It looks like a
19:55
Speaker 1: completely separate living thing almost sometimes it Yeah, but it's
20:01
Speaker 1: a nose. It's basically their upper lip and their nose
20:03
Speaker 1: combined together in this elongated form. Yeah. But when they
20:06
Speaker 1: you know, you watch an elephant, a lot of times
20:08
Speaker 1: they're just standing still. But this trunk is doing so
20:11
Speaker 1: many crazy looking things. I see what you mean. Yeah,
20:13
Speaker 1: it just looks like its own, like its own animal,
20:16
Speaker 1: almost like um the thing from the Adams Family, the
20:21
Speaker 1: disembodied hand, That's exactly what I was thinking, or the
20:25
Speaker 1: the alien hands syndrome guy from our short lived TV show,
20:29
Speaker 1: right right, basically the same thing, right exactly. Uh. And
20:33
Speaker 1: one of the big theories is is that trunk and
20:35
Speaker 1: this makes a lot of sense to me evolutionarily speaking,
20:39
Speaker 1: is that trunk developed um as compensation. Basically, I can
20:45
Speaker 1: reach things higher without having to grow, or I can
20:48
Speaker 1: get things on the ground without having to crouch down
20:50
Speaker 1: and put my head on the ground, which makes me
20:53
Speaker 1: very very vulnerable to attack. So I have this big, long,
20:56
Speaker 1: extended nose that can go get stuff on the ground
20:59
Speaker 1: or up above me, and I can still sort of
21:01
Speaker 1: be safe. Yes, Okay, So it's a knows that you
21:05
Speaker 1: can use to get things with, including water. Apparently it
21:08
Speaker 1: holds up to two gallons of water in the trunk,
21:11
Speaker 1: just in the trunk. Um. But it's also really um dextrous.
21:17
Speaker 1: I guess it has a hundred thousand muscles in it,
21:21
Speaker 1: both fast twitch and slow twitch. So I've read that
21:24
Speaker 1: an elephant can pull a limb off of a tree
21:27
Speaker 1: with its trunk or pluck a blade of grass out
21:30
Speaker 1: of the ground like it's it can it can do
21:33
Speaker 1: it all. Basically, it can deal cards whatever. But you
21:37
Speaker 1: shouldn't train an elephant to deal cards. No, just put
21:41
Speaker 1: the cards down and walk away. And if it happens,
21:44
Speaker 1: it happens. That is that is the motto of dealing
21:47
Speaker 1: with elephants. UM. And initially, you know, evolution might have said, hey,
21:53
Speaker 1: use these great things to drink water out of. But
21:56
Speaker 1: like we said, and we'll continue to hammer this home.
21:58
Speaker 1: Elephants are super smart. So they said, hey, I've got
22:02
Speaker 1: this really long fifth arm that has two hundred thousand
22:08
Speaker 1: muscles in it, So I can get food, and I
22:10
Speaker 1: can bathe myself, and I can pick up dust and
22:13
Speaker 1: mud and put it all over my body if I
22:15
Speaker 1: don't want to get sunburned, or if I want to
22:17
Speaker 1: have a sort of low fi insect repellent, or I
22:20
Speaker 1: can communicate with my buddy over there with my trunk. Yeah,
22:22
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff they do with their trunk
22:24
Speaker 1: that we're starting to figure out. There's a group called
22:27
Speaker 1: Elephant Voices UM and they have an elephant gestures database
22:32
Speaker 1: based on decades of studying elephants up close. UM and
22:36
Speaker 1: they have a really complex and intricate um basically a
22:41
Speaker 1: sign language that includes more than just their trunk, but
22:43
Speaker 1: their trunk plays a big role in it too. Yeah.
22:45
Speaker 1: There's one example on this article, flop trunk on head um,
22:50
Speaker 1: and that is an elephant basically raising the head vertically
22:55
Speaker 1: and then flipping their trunk really high up in the
22:58
Speaker 1: air and letting it PLoP down on their head. That
23:00
Speaker 1: is a very specific play based gesture, kind of a
23:04
Speaker 1: joyful play. Yeah. Like if you see an elephant doing that,
23:08
Speaker 1: they're having a good time. Yeah. The the Elephant Gestures
23:11
Speaker 1: Database the names of the different things the gestures sound
23:14
Speaker 1: like they were all written by Nell Flop trunk on
23:18
Speaker 1: head at least chicken make so I've got another factor
23:23
Speaker 1: the podcast for you ready, all right, baby elephants suck
23:27
Speaker 1: their trunks like human babies suck their thumbs. That amazing.
23:33
Speaker 1: I mean, forget about it, man, I can't even with
23:36
Speaker 1: the stuff I know. Uh. And in Tim Burton's going
23:41
Speaker 1: to ruin it all with a new Dumbo movie. Oh
23:43
Speaker 1: is it live action or you know? He's yeah, I
23:47
Speaker 1: think it's live action and c G. I why he's
23:49
Speaker 1: gonna ruin it? Sure he is, poor Tim Burton, He's
23:53
Speaker 1: the ruiner of things. You ruined everything. You ruiner Elephants.
23:59
Speaker 1: All elephants are jen ended in Africa and then spread
24:01
Speaker 1: throughout the world from there, including North America, across like
24:06
Speaker 1: everything else, across the Bearing straight Land Bridge or Ice
24:10
Speaker 1: Bridge depending on when it was, and then all the
24:13
Speaker 1: way into South America from there. Yeah, that you can
24:15
Speaker 1: make a pretty strong case that they drew humans into
24:18
Speaker 1: North America because they migrated first and humans probably followed
24:22
Speaker 1: them as hunters over like millions of years later. Oh yeah,
24:30
Speaker 1: so um, the this is weird. So the the mammoth
24:34
Speaker 1: and the elephant share a common ancestor, their most recent
24:40
Speaker 1: common ancestors six million years in the past, which means
24:45
Speaker 1: that elephants and mammoths coexisted at the same time. Like
24:48
Speaker 1: elephants have been around a really long time. It's just
24:51
Speaker 1: I guess when they moved out of Africa, um, and
24:55
Speaker 1: beyond Asia up into you know the Russian steps in
24:58
Speaker 1: Siberia and across the Lambridge, and then back down into
25:01
Speaker 1: North America and then eventually South America. They took them
25:04
Speaker 1: like many different forms, but the wooly mammoth is the
25:07
Speaker 1: one you typically think of. But there were elephants at
25:11
Speaker 1: the same time, there were also mammoths, and then there
25:13
Speaker 1: were other kinds of mammoths besides the wooly mammoth, which
25:16
Speaker 1: I think we did a wooly mammoth episode. We did
25:20
Speaker 1: do a wooly mammoth episode. Um, if you say so,
25:24
Speaker 1: we did, and they were all over. There was also
25:26
Speaker 1: a type of mammoth, or not even a mammoth. It
25:29
Speaker 1: was just a different type of elephant called a gampa
25:33
Speaker 1: theater um that was in South America. And if you
25:36
Speaker 1: look at a gampa theater I think it was a
25:38
Speaker 1: little bigger than the elephants of today, but it just
25:40
Speaker 1: looks like an elephant. And um, they used to hunt
25:44
Speaker 1: them down in South America and hunted them to extinction.
25:47
Speaker 1: They think possibly a combination of that and climate change.
25:50
Speaker 1: But you don't think of elephants in and the America's
25:53
Speaker 1: But there definitely were some here for a very long
25:56
Speaker 1: time that climate change can't be real, Josh, because it's
25:59
Speaker 1: snowed last week, right, Well, yeah, exactly. I mean just
26:02
Speaker 1: imagine that it hadn't snowed and we would all know
26:05
Speaker 1: that climate change is for real. Um, So there is
26:09
Speaker 1: a or was rather a naturalist in the eighteenth century
26:12
Speaker 1: France name. And this is a great name. You want
26:15
Speaker 1: to say it? Actually you're a French expert. Oh, I
26:18
Speaker 1: wasn't expected this. George Louis Leclerc, the Comte de Bouffon.
26:26
Speaker 1: Was that his title? Is that what that means? Yeah?
26:28
Speaker 1: He was the Count of Boufonka, which I'd be like,
26:32
Speaker 1: can I get another count Chip instead of Bouffon. Don't
26:36
Speaker 1: know what's wrong with buff It's so so, It's okay,
26:39
Speaker 1: it's it's a a kind of a garish word, you
26:43
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. Sure it sounds like Bufont. Yeah,
26:46
Speaker 1: and like he wants at Bouffont herity these days? Nobody,
26:49
Speaker 1: nobody except the B fifty two and maybe that lady
26:53
Speaker 1: from the old um. Now what was the name of
26:58
Speaker 1: that steakhouse? The local steakhouse outback steaks? No, what's the
27:05
Speaker 1: other one? Longhorn? Do you remember the ads of the
27:08
Speaker 1: nineties with the lady with the Buffont Yeah you do.
27:12
Speaker 1: I really don't. What was her deal? She was just
27:14
Speaker 1: like a proto hipster lady. It was. Yeah, it was
27:18
Speaker 1: on the Longhorn commercials. Very interesting, man. Now I could
27:22
Speaker 1: go for a steak, Yeah, me too. Um. All right,
27:25
Speaker 1: so where were we right? The eighteenth century century naturalist Um,
27:31
Speaker 1: he wrote a lot in about natural history, and he
27:36
Speaker 1: loved the elephant, and he was really knocked out by
27:39
Speaker 1: the intelligence of why's that funny? Just the idea of
27:44
Speaker 1: him being like, man, I am knocked out by that
27:46
Speaker 1: is far out man. Um. He was knocked out by
27:50
Speaker 1: the brain and the intelligence of the elephant. And he
27:55
Speaker 1: said it approaches near to man and understanding as much
27:58
Speaker 1: at least as matter can approach to mind, which I
28:02
Speaker 1: understood the first half of that. I think in eighteenth
28:05
Speaker 1: century speak, that means these dudes are really smart. And
28:09
Speaker 1: I mean like he wasn't just you know, making stuff
28:12
Speaker 1: up here like this is he was onto something because
28:15
Speaker 1: elephants are extremely intelligent from what we can tell. And
28:19
Speaker 1: again we're just learning more and more about him. And
28:22
Speaker 1: as we learn more about him and start like study
28:25
Speaker 1: the way that they interact with one another and how
28:27
Speaker 1: they interact with us, we're like, well, these are some
28:30
Speaker 1: of the sharpest animals on the planet. Yeah, they have
28:33
Speaker 1: different personalities. Uh, each elephant has its own personality, and
28:38
Speaker 1: you know you've heard about an elephant not forgetting they
28:40
Speaker 1: do have a great memory and great recognition ability. And
28:44
Speaker 1: this story, everyone, I love. This story is kind of
28:47
Speaker 1: the best thing ever. In at a sanctuary in uh
28:51
Speaker 1: Tennessee that was a resident elephant named Jenny. They introduced
28:56
Speaker 1: a new lady named Shirley, an Asian eleph and they
29:01
Speaker 1: went berserk for one another. They were checking each other out,
29:04
Speaker 1: they were slapping trunks, they were really animated. Uh. They
29:09
Speaker 1: described it as euphoria bellowing, and then Jenny starts bellowing,
29:14
Speaker 1: and they said that I've never experienced anything that intense
29:17
Speaker 1: without it being aggression. They did so a little digging, uh.
29:21
Speaker 1: And it turns out that twenty three years earlier, for
29:25
Speaker 1: just a few months, Jenny and Shirley were in the
29:28
Speaker 1: same circus together and they saw each other twenty three
29:32
Speaker 1: years later and we're like, girl, what do you what
29:35
Speaker 1: have you been up to? Well? I think is cool
29:37
Speaker 1: about that story in addition to the fact that like
29:40
Speaker 1: they remembered each other after twenty three years, but that
29:44
Speaker 1: also it says so much about them that they were
29:46
Speaker 1: able to form a bond like that just a few months.
29:49
Speaker 1: In just a few months. Yeah, I think this has
29:52
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount about elephants and elephants society. What a story.
29:56
Speaker 1: I love it, ye so um because they have these
30:00
Speaker 1: kind of relationships with one another. They have really complex
30:05
Speaker 1: um as puts it, very rich um societies and families
30:11
Speaker 1: and groups that they live in, their their their social
30:14
Speaker 1: networks are very rich and complex, right, And one of
30:19
Speaker 1: the ways, um, I mean, like, I didn't realize this,
30:22
Speaker 1: but I came across this in researching this article. Apparently,
30:27
Speaker 1: like if you see like a bunch of deer hanging around,
30:29
Speaker 1: or some birds flying together, they're not like buddies or friends.
30:33
Speaker 1: They don't know one from another. Typically don't say that,
30:38
Speaker 1: but I mean, I hadn't really thought about that before.
30:40
Speaker 1: I was just a second back. Always assumed at least
30:43
Speaker 1: they were they knew each other by smell or something
30:46
Speaker 1: like that. But from what I saw, I can't remember
30:49
Speaker 1: where I saw it, but they were they were saying like,
30:50
Speaker 1: it's atypical for animals to recognize one another as individuals,
30:55
Speaker 1: and the elephants definitely do and as as evidenced by
30:59
Speaker 1: that story. But that kind of lends evidence to the
31:02
Speaker 1: idea that elephants are self aware, which is a growing
31:05
Speaker 1: awareness among humans that elephants seem to be self aware.
31:09
Speaker 1: And one way we test animals to see if they're
31:11
Speaker 1: self aware is called the mirror test, which is kind
31:14
Speaker 1: of a test. I think we can improve on it,
31:16
Speaker 1: but it does it does suggest that the possibility that
31:21
Speaker 1: the animal sees itself as an individual. Yeah, so this
31:25
Speaker 1: was developed by Gordon Gallup Jr. Seventy So I definitely
31:29
Speaker 1: think there's an update that we need here. We need
31:32
Speaker 1: this uh two point o version. But they did. They
31:35
Speaker 1: test a lot of animals. Um apes, great apes, dolphins, orcas,
31:40
Speaker 1: and magpies have passed this test, along with one Asian
31:44
Speaker 1: elephant named Happy. And what they do is they get
31:47
Speaker 1: a mirror. They take the animal and put a red
31:50
Speaker 1: mark and paint this red mark and let's say, on
31:54
Speaker 1: their face something that they can't see without a mirror.
31:57
Speaker 1: They hold up the mirror and if the animal looks
32:01
Speaker 1: at the mirror and then doesn't like like, if they
32:04
Speaker 1: did this to me, I would throw my poop at
32:06
Speaker 1: the mirror and smash the mirror. But if the animal
32:09
Speaker 1: doesn't do that and they actually touch their own face,
32:12
Speaker 1: then they understand that they're seeing themselves and not some
32:16
Speaker 1: other weird animal across from them. Right, they see they
32:20
Speaker 1: realize that they're seeing their reflection in That shows self
32:23
Speaker 1: awarenes if they if they laugh at how silly they look,
32:27
Speaker 1: then that really shows self awareness, maybe even self consciousness,
32:30
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, and it takes human children a couple
32:33
Speaker 1: of years to pass this test. We should say, yes,
32:35
Speaker 1: did you I So there's apparently not all the great
32:40
Speaker 1: apes past the test that guerrillas don't, which is weird.
32:45
Speaker 1: But they think that possibly guerrillas don't because making eye
32:49
Speaker 1: contact in um, the guerrilla world is such an aggressive
32:53
Speaker 1: act that they just don't look at themselves in the
32:56
Speaker 1: mirror enough to see that they have that mark on
32:58
Speaker 1: their face. That's what they think. Yeah, and this doesn't
33:01
Speaker 1: you know, this isn't like we said, it's pretty low fi.
33:03
Speaker 1: It's not some you can't say this is proof that
33:06
Speaker 1: they are self aware and sentient. But um, it's a
33:09
Speaker 1: pretty cool test it is. Plus also, dogs don't pass it,
33:13
Speaker 1: which automatically means that it's a failure of a test
33:17
Speaker 1: because Momo herself proves that all and all dogs are
33:20
Speaker 1: self aware and smart, imperfect in every way. Yeah, and
33:23
Speaker 1: they also do point out with dogs like their their
33:26
Speaker 1: best Uh, the way they see the world is through
33:29
Speaker 1: their nose and so maybe this isn't the best test
33:31
Speaker 1: for them, right, so they could do a cent version
33:35
Speaker 1: maybe right. I don't know how you would do it.
33:37
Speaker 1: I've been trying to figure it out for days with
33:40
Speaker 1: Momo just in my head. But yeah, I'll eventually experiment
33:43
Speaker 1: on mo and then well, there is another test that
33:46
Speaker 1: they use to kind of show self awareness and the
33:49
Speaker 1: idea of individual identity, and that's the third party relationships. Yeah,
33:53
Speaker 1: this is pretty cool. So um they I guess they.
33:56
Speaker 1: It says they accidentally drive a jeep in between an
34:00
Speaker 1: elephant and her her offspringer baby, and the elephant might
34:04
Speaker 1: not notice because she's busy doing something else. But if
34:07
Speaker 1: another elephant trumpets to the mom elephant to say, hey,
34:12
Speaker 1: there's a jeep between you and your baby, that elephant
34:15
Speaker 1: is indicating that it's aware that that mom and that
34:17
Speaker 1: baby are related, that they have a relationship that has
34:22
Speaker 1: nothing to do necessarily with that third elephant who warned
34:25
Speaker 1: the mom. That's not supposed to exist among non sentient beings.
34:32
Speaker 1: And by the way, if all this talk about sentience
34:34
Speaker 1: and self awareness among animals is floating your boat. We
34:37
Speaker 1: did a two part series on animal rights that touched
34:40
Speaker 1: on this heavily. Yeah, that's right, because it was a
34:43
Speaker 1: famous case where they were trying to get a personhood
34:47
Speaker 1: and human rights for a chimp. Right, yeah, the Non
34:50
Speaker 1: Human Rights Project. They moved on to elephants, including the
34:54
Speaker 1: elephant Happy that passed the mirror test, and right now
34:58
Speaker 1: Happy is in the Bronx Zoo, and the Non Human
35:01
Speaker 1: Rights Projects position is basically like, um, an elephants range
35:07
Speaker 1: is like at least a hundred times what the exhibit
35:12
Speaker 1: that Happy lives in is. It's like an acre. And
35:16
Speaker 1: their range is so wide that in a single day,
35:18
Speaker 1: Happy in Africa would probably walk about a hundred acres.
35:23
Speaker 1: But Happy as an acre, and Happy is a sentient
35:27
Speaker 1: being and deserves better, and so they're trying to spring
35:30
Speaker 1: her by making her and by by bestowing personhood through
35:34
Speaker 1: the courts. And they actually got a habeas corpus issued,
35:38
Speaker 1: which you only do that for humans. And then the
35:40
Speaker 1: only other time it's it's happened is with chimps through
35:43
Speaker 1: the Non Human Rights Project. Uh, and it's up in
35:46
Speaker 1: the air. But the judge basically said, hey, uh, you
35:49
Speaker 1: guys need to show whether or not you're unlawfully imprisoning
35:53
Speaker 1: ascension being a person basically. Yeah, so that's where it
35:58
Speaker 1: stands right now. All right, let's take a break and
36:00
Speaker 1: contemplate that for a couple of hours, and then we'll
36:03
Speaker 1: dust ourselves off, come back and talk a little bit
36:06
Speaker 1: about the difference between male and female elephants and more
36:09
Speaker 1: about their social component right after this. So this is
36:32
Speaker 1: fun when you talk about the male and female elephants.
36:35
Speaker 1: This whole episode is fun. So males leave when they're
36:41
Speaker 1: young teenagers. They leave earlier than the little ladies do.
36:44
Speaker 1: They set off on their own. UM. They might move
36:47
Speaker 1: from group to group. They may join up with another family,
36:50
Speaker 1: but by and large they usually get around and live alone. UM.
36:56
Speaker 1: But they do, they do form groups when they need to. UM.
37:00
Speaker 1: It's not permanent, you know, it could change, and it
37:02
Speaker 1: is a static situation. UM. Kind of like going between
37:06
Speaker 1: different groups and different groups of males getting together. But
37:09
Speaker 1: when they do get together, the males, there is a
37:11
Speaker 1: definite hierarchy involved, um, seniority based on size and age.
37:17
Speaker 1: And that hierarchy is really important, UM to kind of
37:20
Speaker 1: maintain order when it comes to like who gets the
37:23
Speaker 1: water first and stuff like that. Right or where where
37:27
Speaker 1: which way we're gonna walk to go find water or
37:29
Speaker 1: something like that. There needs to be somebody in charge.
37:32
Speaker 1: But supposedly when when there's plenty of water and everybody's
37:36
Speaker 1: got all the food they need or whatever, that's that
37:38
Speaker 1: hierarchy can break down pretty easily. Um, but also informally
37:43
Speaker 1: not like it. It breaks down in like society just
37:45
Speaker 1: crumbles among this group of males, and it breaks down
37:49
Speaker 1: because it's not necessary, which is kind of neat. And
37:52
Speaker 1: apparently the groups of males that hang out together are
37:56
Speaker 1: um are likened to a group of old drinking buddies.
38:01
Speaker 1: They're just rowdy. Yeah, it's kind of funny, rough housing
38:05
Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff. Males occasionally will go
38:09
Speaker 1: through something it's kind of like being in heat. It
38:11
Speaker 1: sounds like called must well well done m us th
38:18
Speaker 1: h uh. And this is when they just their testosterone
38:22
Speaker 1: goes through the roof and they are like, I need
38:27
Speaker 1: to mate, Like yesterday I got the itch. I got
38:31
Speaker 1: a severe itch and I can't scratch it with my
38:33
Speaker 1: tusk because they're fixed. Rough housing with my drinking buddies
38:38
Speaker 1: isn't helping. None of that is helping. Um. And when
38:41
Speaker 1: they're going through this must phase, UM, they actually, like
38:46
Speaker 1: all the other male elephants recognize this and say, hey, um,
38:51
Speaker 1: freddie over. There's as you can tell, guys, is he's
38:54
Speaker 1: really feeling it. So why don't we let him drink first?
38:58
Speaker 1: And why don't we just kind of go where he
39:00
Speaker 1: wants to go? Right now, he's leaking a trail of
39:03
Speaker 1: urine everywhere. That's literal physical warning to the rest of
39:07
Speaker 1: us to stay back. Yeah, and to a little cent
39:10
Speaker 1: for for ladies to say, well, well, well let me
39:14
Speaker 1: follow this trail and see where it goes. It smells
39:17
Speaker 1: like sex panthers a hundred percent of the time. What
39:22
Speaker 1: is the half it works? Half the time? Half the
39:26
Speaker 1: time it works? I don't remember. I should know that
39:30
Speaker 1: we both should chuck. We both just failed spectacularly. Oh
39:33
Speaker 1: and occasionally, uh, and this is kind of what I've
39:36
Speaker 1: seen is the only times when elephants really get aggressive
39:38
Speaker 1: with one another. But um, if it gets pretty extreme, um,
39:42
Speaker 1: and these male elephants there's a couple of them, um
39:45
Speaker 1: going through must they will they will go at it
39:49
Speaker 1: to um to get the lady. They will go each other. Um.
39:53
Speaker 1: And you know, no one wants to talk about that
39:55
Speaker 1: because it's everyone wants to think elephants are always getting along,
39:59
Speaker 1: but sometimes when there's a couple of dudes around that
40:01
Speaker 1: are both super rebbed up, they can get in a
40:04
Speaker 1: fight over a lady to the death sometimes. And I
40:08
Speaker 1: think you kind of said it, but males mostly live
40:11
Speaker 1: on their own, and they do form these groups, and
40:14
Speaker 1: they do have friendships and bonds with other males, but
40:16
Speaker 1: they are very frequently found like traveling by themselves, probably
40:20
Speaker 1: to avoid stuff like that. But if you're bummed out
40:23
Speaker 1: by the fact that elephants will kill other elephants to
40:26
Speaker 1: to have access to females, you can take heart and
40:31
Speaker 1: that elephants aren't territorial at all. They don't have territory.
40:36
Speaker 1: And when different groups of elephants, whether it's males and
40:40
Speaker 1: uh groups of females or different groups of um of
40:45
Speaker 1: the same sex or whatever, you have a bunch of
40:47
Speaker 1: different groups of elephants coming together in the same place,
40:49
Speaker 1: they basically have a party, a jamboree. Do Like, if
40:53
Speaker 1: it's a body of water or a place where there's
40:55
Speaker 1: a lot of fruit or some reason for a bunch
40:58
Speaker 1: of elephants who don't know one another get together. It's
41:02
Speaker 1: not only a party, but at that party you can
41:05
Speaker 1: have like Shirley's in, uh, who is it? And Jenny's going,
41:09
Speaker 1: oh my god, I haven't seen you in twelve years.
41:13
Speaker 1: What are you up to? Is that your little baby?
41:15
Speaker 1: It's the sweetest thing. Yeah, they like they get really
41:18
Speaker 1: excited when they see old friends. They'll do like pirouettes
41:22
Speaker 1: pe poop. Sometimes they pee and poop out of excitement
41:25
Speaker 1: to see one another, which is adorable. Yeah, and is
41:29
Speaker 1: um kind of lone wolf. As the males can be, Um,
41:33
Speaker 1: the females are really um. This is when you really
41:36
Speaker 1: like get the heartwarm, going, heartwarm, heart warm, heartworm. They'll
41:42
Speaker 1: give you heartwarm thinking about this is when it can
41:45
Speaker 1: warm your heart. Because females they lived very much and organized, uh,
41:50
Speaker 1: in an organized way. They live in family groups. There
41:53
Speaker 1: are mothers sometimes three generations all together and their little
41:57
Speaker 1: pups and their aunts and their moms and grandmas. There
42:02
Speaker 1: might be up to thirty of them together with all
42:04
Speaker 1: their kids. And they're all led, which is usually the
42:08
Speaker 1: oldest one, but not always. But they're led by a matriarch.
42:10
Speaker 1: And the matriarch is the one that's like, let's go
42:13
Speaker 1: this way. Um, not because I just am older and smarter,
42:17
Speaker 1: but I actually have experience that I can remember that
42:21
Speaker 1: will help lead us to safety. Yeah, which is pretty spectacular.
42:25
Speaker 1: It's another thing that's that's remarkable about elephants is that
42:29
Speaker 1: the matriarchs lead by experience. There was this um this
42:33
Speaker 1: drought in Tanzania, and the different herds led by matriarchs,
42:40
Speaker 1: they were old enough to remember the last drought back
42:43
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty eight to nineteen sixty one, the ones
42:47
Speaker 1: that had lived through that before as younger, younger elephants
42:51
Speaker 1: um they remembered how the herd survived, and so their
42:54
Speaker 1: herd was likelier to survive that drought than herds that
42:58
Speaker 1: were led by younger atriarchs that hadn't lived through that
43:01
Speaker 1: previous drought. So they remember this stuff and they they
43:05
Speaker 1: lead their their herds based on this past experience and
43:09
Speaker 1: the wisdom that they gained from it. Let's just say
43:11
Speaker 1: it through from wisdom. They lead by wisdom, they do.
43:16
Speaker 1: And some matriarchs are very confident, uh, they are very um.
43:22
Speaker 1: Some are very vigilant though, and a little more nervous.
43:24
Speaker 1: It kind of depends on who your matriarch is. Some
43:26
Speaker 1: are very maternal, and you know when they they send
43:29
Speaker 1: the signal for everyone to go. They're like, well, let's
43:31
Speaker 1: wait because Janice's little pup is still bathing, so let's
43:36
Speaker 1: all hang out. Uh. Then some of them are more
43:40
Speaker 1: like no, no, no, come on, get get out of water.
43:42
Speaker 1: We're going. We're leaving now, come on, Janice, I'm going
43:46
Speaker 1: with or without you. Janice is like, what a bummer? Uh?
43:50
Speaker 1: And then they're together also for a very practical reason. Um,
43:54
Speaker 1: they help each other out. They babysit for one another
43:57
Speaker 1: God's sake. M h. I love that they babysit for
44:02
Speaker 1: each other, Josh. I know they like the mom can
44:06
Speaker 1: go off and forage for food for pup and know
44:09
Speaker 1: that the pup is being watched by some of her
44:12
Speaker 1: herd members. Her family members is what they're called. That's right.
44:16
Speaker 1: If a matriarch dies, Um, there's a little short time
44:21
Speaker 1: where they're like, all right, who's who's who's next? Who's
44:24
Speaker 1: gonna step up? They have ranked choice voting. That's how
44:29
Speaker 1: advanced they are. They're more advanced than every state in
44:31
Speaker 1: the Union besides main Um. A lot of times, like
44:37
Speaker 1: we said, it's the oldest remaining female, like she would
44:40
Speaker 1: be next up, but sometimes it is not. Sometimes it
44:42
Speaker 1: is the matriarch's daughter. Um, and she will just assume
44:46
Speaker 1: the position of mom of her mother as matriarch. Yeah,
44:50
Speaker 1: kind of like she like, um, oh, what is that
44:54
Speaker 1: called where where you like become king or queen because
45:00
Speaker 1: your father and mother was king or queen. I can't
45:04
Speaker 1: remember what it's called. But yeah, basically, uh, that that
45:09
Speaker 1: that can that exists in the elephant society, if that
45:12
Speaker 1: that elephant happens to be like suited for the job
45:16
Speaker 1: and if there's an issue, if there's a dispute, whereas
45:19
Speaker 1: some elephants are like, actually, I don't think she's ready yet.
45:22
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna follow her. I'm gonna follow Janie, and
45:25
Speaker 1: Janis will be like far out. That's it. Like the
45:28
Speaker 1: Janis and the other elephants that want to follow her,
45:31
Speaker 1: they go off on their own family. There's no battle,
45:34
Speaker 1: there's no there's no fight to the death over dominance.
45:37
Speaker 1: It's just like all right, we'll see later. And then
45:40
Speaker 1: they may see each other later at that clearing or
45:42
Speaker 1: at that watering hole and be just happy as pie
45:46
Speaker 1: to see one another. And they may also even travel together,
45:49
Speaker 1: but just at a much greater distance, but within communicating
45:53
Speaker 1: distance to like warn one another and kind of basically
45:56
Speaker 1: keep up the same pace, but they just keep their
45:58
Speaker 1: distance more. Yeah. They they'll growl at one another. They'll trumpet, um,
46:03
Speaker 1: they'll grunt, they will uh, they will stomp their feet,
46:07
Speaker 1: they will flick their ears, that will use their trunks. Um,
46:11
Speaker 1: they will angle their heads and tusks and switch their tails.
46:14
Speaker 1: These are all communications. Uh. And while they are stomping,
46:18
Speaker 1: and while they do have those big, sturdy feet, they're
46:19
Speaker 1: also really sensitive. So if an elephant is just standing still,
46:22
Speaker 1: it can feel the vibrations in the ground of something
46:26
Speaker 1: far away or someone calling them from far away, through
46:30
Speaker 1: through the ground through their feet, like the rumbling through
46:32
Speaker 1: the ground of an elephant growling like miles away. Yeah,
46:37
Speaker 1: and they also that trunk. I forgot to mention. It's
46:40
Speaker 1: they have a really sensitive sense of smell. Supposedly they
46:44
Speaker 1: can smell water up to twelve miles away, and that
46:48
Speaker 1: they've water has no smell, right, They've been shown to
46:51
Speaker 1: smell storms up to like a hundred and fifty miles away. Yeah, amazing,
46:57
Speaker 1: pretty amazing. I don't know if we've gotten this across
46:59
Speaker 1: or not, but elephants are pretty amazing. We do that
47:02
Speaker 1: with all our animal podcasts. I know, I love it.
47:05
Speaker 1: Should do one about like, I don't know, what's a
47:07
Speaker 1: boring animal that's not so impressive. Let's see, let's see
47:12
Speaker 1: they're all great. Yeah, I really can't think of a
47:14
Speaker 1: boring animal. Like, there's something fascinating about every animal. Yeah,
47:20
Speaker 1: I was gonna say frogs, but I was like, oh, no,
47:21
Speaker 1: frogs turned out to be pretty fascinating. Frogs are the best. No,
47:25
Speaker 1: elephants are the best. Uh. There's this one researcher that
47:30
Speaker 1: um firmly believes that elephants have a sense of humor. Uh.
47:34
Speaker 1: And she said she was recalling how they play and
47:37
Speaker 1: they would charge her car and she thought they were
47:40
Speaker 1: tripping and falling and tusk the ground and they kept
47:45
Speaker 1: doing it and she was like, no, I know what
47:48
Speaker 1: they're doing. Now. They're they're pratt falling. They're pretending to
47:53
Speaker 1: fall in front of the car and having a good
47:56
Speaker 1: time doing it. Yeah, like they pretended they were charging
47:59
Speaker 1: her car. Are in the sanctuary, and like within they
48:02
Speaker 1: tripped right before it. And it happened enough times that
48:05
Speaker 1: she realized that they were they were joking. Yeah, it's amazing. Uh.
48:12
Speaker 1: What else, Well, this is you know the saddest thing
48:15
Speaker 1: because everyone knows that elephants mourn. We've all seen the
48:18
Speaker 1: videos and it is true. And I think in our
48:21
Speaker 1: grief episode, I told the story of Domini, the elephant
48:24
Speaker 1: who basically died of a broken heart from grief. Don't
48:28
Speaker 1: retell that story, but um, they very famously grieve. Um.
48:35
Speaker 1: There will be extended morning periods for groups of elephants.
48:39
Speaker 1: There are grieving rituals over corpses. Uh. And they also
48:44
Speaker 1: suffer PTSD if they witness violence. So if they see
48:47
Speaker 1: a poacher kill and d tuscan elephant, they will have
48:52
Speaker 1: literal PTSD and stress syntones. So one thing I saw
48:56
Speaker 1: it was like that PTSD is that it's tough to
49:01
Speaker 1: compare it to human PTST, but that there are like
49:06
Speaker 1: real pronounced effects on them UM usually related to stress,
49:11
Speaker 1: but also apparently related to not having been brought up
49:16
Speaker 1: in their society, so that when they when they like
49:19
Speaker 1: wouldn't say like an orphan that survives a culling and
49:23
Speaker 1: is raised like outside of elephant society. It's just not
49:27
Speaker 1: quite right when you compare it to an elephant that
49:31
Speaker 1: was raised by elephants, you know, throughout its to maturity
49:36
Speaker 1: and that they frequently call it things like PTSD or
49:38
Speaker 1: things like that, but it's like it's almost its own thing.
49:42
Speaker 1: But again, if you did that to a deer or
49:45
Speaker 1: a bird or something, it's not going to have that
49:49
Speaker 1: same effect. It's it's not I hate to say it,
49:52
Speaker 1: but it doesn't appear to be smart enough to suffer
49:56
Speaker 1: psychological damage from a traumatic experience. Yeah, I mean, don't
50:02
Speaker 1: feel sorry for the deer. He was probably quite glad.
50:06
Speaker 1: You should still feel sorry for the deer for what
50:08
Speaker 1: we do to deer. No, well, yeah, that's a whole
50:11
Speaker 1: another that's whole other story. I bought these little things
50:14
Speaker 1: that go on the front of my car that's supposedly
50:17
Speaker 1: keep deer away, but I don't know if they work.
50:19
Speaker 1: I've seen him the giant hands that clap and saying,
50:21
Speaker 1: oh the wait, dear. I don't even know how this
50:24
Speaker 1: thing works, and it very well may not work at all.
50:28
Speaker 1: But the way I put it to Emily, I was like,
50:30
Speaker 1: unless these actually attract deer, then it's worth like the
50:33
Speaker 1: five dollars that it costs. Just just give it a shot.
50:37
Speaker 1: Do you remember those those hats um that like had
50:41
Speaker 1: a cord it would clap, do you remember that. Sure,
50:45
Speaker 1: my dad had one of those? Did he really? Oh? Man,
50:49
Speaker 1: did he ever have the hat with the two uh,
50:51
Speaker 1: the beers on both sides. He wasn't quite cool enough
50:54
Speaker 1: for that one, but he was cool enough for the
50:55
Speaker 1: clapping hat. Okay, I think that's the opposite of cool.
50:59
Speaker 1: Actually think so too the herbal Elvius. So we we
51:03
Speaker 1: mentioned before about um how to interact with elephants, and
51:08
Speaker 1: the only way that we found to interact with elephants
51:11
Speaker 1: ethically is if you go on an ethical safari and
51:14
Speaker 1: observe them from afar through your binoculars or you know there,
51:20
Speaker 1: if you're in the car and you can see them. Great.
51:22
Speaker 1: But if you see something that's advertised as an elephant sanctuary,
51:27
Speaker 1: say something, yeah, I mean sanctuary. There's no law that
51:32
Speaker 1: dictates when you can use that word. And when travelers
51:35
Speaker 1: hear that word, they think, oh, well, this means this
51:38
Speaker 1: is where elephants go to be taken care of because
51:43
Speaker 1: it's a sanctuary. I see it's right there on the sign, right.
51:46
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily what that means. That elephant that you
51:49
Speaker 1: ride or bathe in the pool with may have been
51:53
Speaker 1: had its spirit crushed by being kept in that tiny
51:56
Speaker 1: pin and starved and beaten for weeks at a time.
51:59
Speaker 1: This found or of the UK group called Action for
52:03
Speaker 1: Elephants UK, Maria Mossman. She basically says, any any place
52:10
Speaker 1: that advertises unnatural behavior just stay away from because they're
52:15
Speaker 1: not like elephants shouldn't be doing tricks for humans. And
52:19
Speaker 1: that includes like bathing with the elephants, which does sound awesome,
52:22
Speaker 1: and elephants do bathe and they love to swim and frolic.
52:25
Speaker 1: But the big problem with that is that in a
52:29
Speaker 1: sanctuary where that's how you get the people to come,
52:32
Speaker 1: that means you have to keep the elephant in the
52:34
Speaker 1: water all day and let people climb all over it
52:37
Speaker 1: all day. That's just genuinely unnatural. It's unnatural for human
52:42
Speaker 1: to ride an elephant like you just there. It's really
52:45
Speaker 1: easy to step back once you think in the broad
52:48
Speaker 1: term of unnatural behavior, all of this, all of the
52:53
Speaker 1: starts to to become quite clear. You know what you
52:57
Speaker 1: should and shouldn't do with an elephant, or you know,
53:00
Speaker 1: participate in with an elephant, and instead just let it
53:04
Speaker 1: do its elephant thing and observe it from afar and
53:06
Speaker 1: appreciate it from afar Yeah. I saw a video the
53:09
Speaker 1: other day though, of a black lab that was best
53:11
Speaker 1: friends with an elephant. I didn't see that one, and
53:14
Speaker 1: I just I don't I don't know the background of
53:16
Speaker 1: this elephant. But this black lab was climbing all over
53:19
Speaker 1: it and jumping off in the water, and they they
53:22
Speaker 1: look like they were having a good time. It's unnatural
53:25
Speaker 1: that dog should be punished for doing it. It wasn't natural,
53:28
Speaker 1: but it wasn't a human. It was a dog. Um
53:32
Speaker 1: Labs they're great. They're they're pretty great too. Uh, as
53:35
Speaker 1: far as there um their threats, obviously, all three species
53:41
Speaker 1: are in decline. It's super sad. Their range, which is
53:45
Speaker 1: um a great range like you're talking about, has been
53:49
Speaker 1: encumbered upon by humans for centuries and thousands of years.
53:55
Speaker 1: Even there, Uh, they just don't have as much room
53:59
Speaker 1: thanks to people and deforestation and fences and roads and
54:03
Speaker 1: oil pipelines and things. And then there's the poaching problem
54:07
Speaker 1: of killing elephants for their tusks and now their skin.
54:10
Speaker 1: That's a new thing. It's just horrific to think about. Yeah,
54:14
Speaker 1: brand new as of like two thousand thirteen, some I
54:18
Speaker 1: believe a Chinese entrepreneur said, hey, you know it would
54:21
Speaker 1: be cool as if I started a trend for beads
54:25
Speaker 1: jewelry made out of elephants skin. Let me do that.
54:28
Speaker 1: And now all of a sudden, the number of elephants
54:31
Speaker 1: that are killed for their skin jumped in Burma, just
54:35
Speaker 1: over the border from China, from ten a year in
54:38
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve to sixty one in two thousand and sixteen.
54:43
Speaker 1: And they'd already their skin had already been used in
54:45
Speaker 1: traditional Chinese medicine to cure gastritis and ulcers and regrows
54:50
Speaker 1: skin allegedly, um, which accounts for that ten and two
54:54
Speaker 1: thousand twelve. But apparently the jewelry really caused this jump
54:58
Speaker 1: over the last few years. Yeah, China looks like they
55:01
Speaker 1: have granted licenses to import at least thirty five elephants
55:04
Speaker 1: for skinning over the last couple of years. So that's
55:08
Speaker 1: just awful. It really is a great way to end
55:11
Speaker 1: the show. Yeah, and there's I mean, they're not endangered
55:15
Speaker 1: from what I understand. I think they're listed as vulnerable
55:18
Speaker 1: by the World Wildlife Foundation, but they um, their numbers
55:22
Speaker 1: have gone down dramatically. In nineteen thirty there were ten
55:26
Speaker 1: million wild elephants in Africa, there's four hundred and fifteen
55:30
Speaker 1: thousand today then and just in a decade, I believe
55:35
Speaker 1: in the two thousands, they dropped by a hundred and
55:39
Speaker 1: eleven thousand in just one decade. Um. And in some places,
55:43
Speaker 1: I mean most of it's poaching. Um, some countries still
55:48
Speaker 1: have like it's legal to trade in ivory um South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana,
55:54
Speaker 1: Namibia and as wat teeny which you may know and
55:57
Speaker 1: love Formuly Swaziland. It's legal to trade in elephant ivory
56:02
Speaker 1: in the US, the UK, Japan, and Thailand. It's legal
56:05
Speaker 1: to trade an antique elephant ivory um that was you know,
56:10
Speaker 1: brought into market before they start they enacted laws against it.
56:14
Speaker 1: But um, that's that's pretty much the biggest threat. And
56:18
Speaker 1: then also, like you said, their habitat encroachment, Like if
56:21
Speaker 1: you build a pipeline, the elephants just don't step over pipelines.
56:26
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, okay, well, our our range just got
56:29
Speaker 1: cut in half. And again their range is enormous, like
56:32
Speaker 1: an African bush elephant, their home range is like to
56:36
Speaker 1: almost three million acres. They'll walk hundreds of acres in
56:40
Speaker 1: a single day. So I mean even keeping one in
56:43
Speaker 1: the zoo. Even if you're keeping it alive, Even if
56:46
Speaker 1: you keep it alive for a while, like you're really
56:48
Speaker 1: robbing it of its experience. Even in a large sanctuary,
56:52
Speaker 1: you're still robbing it of a lot of its experience too.
56:54
Speaker 1: It's basically like we we we need to preserve and
56:58
Speaker 1: sustain their home ranges. It's really the best way to
57:01
Speaker 1: to to keep them around. It's like the whale shark.
57:05
Speaker 1: It's like you're used to the ocean. How about this
57:07
Speaker 1: large pool exactly. We've got a real problem with that.
57:11
Speaker 1: That's another episode we did our zoos Good or Bad
57:13
Speaker 1: for animals? Yeah, man, that was That was a good one.
57:16
Speaker 1: I got one last thing which got so you remember
57:20
Speaker 1: that that thing that went around It was like on
57:22
Speaker 1: Twitter for a while it was, um, elephants, sea humans
57:26
Speaker 1: and think we're cute the way that we see puppies
57:29
Speaker 1: and think they're cute. No, I don't remember that. Oh
57:32
Speaker 1: it was huge, massive, totally made up. All right, Well
57:37
Speaker 1: I'm glad I didn't see it. Yeah, Okay, well I
57:41
Speaker 1: guess that's it. Thanks for bursting that bubble. I couldn't
57:46
Speaker 1: just let that stay in No, of course not. Um. So, yeah,
57:50
Speaker 1: there's a good Snopes article about that that's worth checking out. Um,
57:54
Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean that they don't actually think we're cute.
57:57
Speaker 1: It's just never been proven. How about that If you
58:00
Speaker 1: want to know more about elephants, go learn more about elephants.
58:03
Speaker 1: Are definitely worse things you could do with your time.
58:05
Speaker 1: And since I said that it's listener mail time, I'm
58:10
Speaker 1: gonna call this a bit of a Maya Kalpa. On
58:12
Speaker 1: our Central Park episode, when we spoke about Robert Moses. UM,
58:17
Speaker 1: I don't remember like saying this guy was the best
58:20
Speaker 1: thing ever or anything, but there was a darker history
58:23
Speaker 1: there that I we did not know about, and we'd
58:25
Speaker 1: like to correct that. Yes, we heard from a few people.
58:28
Speaker 1: He said, Uh, and this is from Joe Kennedy. He said,
58:31
Speaker 1: if you do some deeper research on Robert Moses will
58:33
Speaker 1: discovered the troubling and true effect he had and continues
58:36
Speaker 1: to have on the racial and socio economic segregation and
58:39
Speaker 1: trenched in our cities. I won't fled your email with
58:41
Speaker 1: a book length argument, but many books and papers have
58:44
Speaker 1: been written on the topic, many of them mentioning Robert
58:46
Speaker 1: Moses specifically. UM, I would ask that you take a
58:50
Speaker 1: deeper dive into this particular character. Uh, if nothing else,
58:53
Speaker 1: and for your own opinions and views of his effect
58:56
Speaker 1: on our country and racial tensions that persist throughout I've
58:59
Speaker 1: never written to a podcast or radio show or website
59:01
Speaker 1: of any kind, really, but I thought this is important
59:03
Speaker 1: to point out because it's all too common that people
59:06
Speaker 1: who have committed heinously racist and hateful ax in this
59:09
Speaker 1: history of our country are excused on the basis of
59:12
Speaker 1: being a product of their times, we're having done good elsewhere,
59:15
Speaker 1: or whatever other excuses propped up to protect their character. Uh.
59:20
Speaker 1: And listen, guys, I have listened to enough of your
59:21
Speaker 1: shows to know that you were smart guys with broad,
59:24
Speaker 1: educated worldviews. It seemed like you were morally good people.
59:27
Speaker 1: So I'm not suggesting anything other than a little more
59:29
Speaker 1: research on this specific character. Uh, just so you know
59:33
Speaker 1: for yourselves. Thanks for the show, guys, and your endless
59:36
Speaker 1: hours of entertainment and education. I truly enjoyed them. That
59:40
Speaker 1: is Joe Kennedy, And we heard from other people, but uh,
59:42
Speaker 1: we appreciate you bringing that to light fort sure. Yeah, thanks, Joe,
59:46
Speaker 1: appreciate and everybody who wrote in to say, uh, he's
59:49
Speaker 1: actually a villain. Yeah, yeah, we just I And actually
59:53
Speaker 1: i'd heard about him before separately. I didn't connect the
59:56
Speaker 1: two and realize that that was the same guy. Yeah,
59:59
Speaker 1: we dropped the ball, Chuck. We'll try and do better everybody. Okay, uh, well,
1:00:04
Speaker 1: if you want to get in touch with us to
1:00:05
Speaker 1: tell us how we can do better, we always love
1:00:07
Speaker 1: to improve, So do that. Do it nicely, but do it.
1:00:11
Speaker 1: You can go to onto our website Stuff you Should
1:00:13
Speaker 1: Know dot com and check out our social links there.
1:00:16
Speaker 1: I have a website called the Josh Clark Way dot com.
1:00:19
Speaker 1: Check that out too, and you can send us an
1:00:21
Speaker 1: email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com
1:00:29
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1:00:32
Speaker 1: it how stuff Works dot com.