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Selects: Elephants: The Best Animals? · Stuff You Should Know

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