Is there a need for an "Elephant Sisters" thread?
It seems like there are times here when something is so out of control, has people so floored and unable to breath, when we just don't feel like we can do it anymore.
Off the top of my head, HeatherBLocklear, me, and now ourlittlesweetpea have been held up by the Elephant Brigade.
I've seriously wanted to begin a nonprofit group in honor of the Elephants, I've wanted to name the book I'm writing (as a result of Annie's prodding) "The Elephant Sisters," but what I really think is that perhaps there should be a thread, very similar to the circle girls, where we determine sisters who just can't take another step and help them lean upon us.
You guys were TRULY the ones to get me through that terrible few months where I knew there was something wrong, was terrified, and suddenly found out it was colon cancer. I loved reading how the Elephants would pet my surgeon's head because he was so kind, and that the THWACK was when the Elephants saw the lousy nurse's aide cause me pain.
The Mama Elephants are checking in on a constant basis for Hannah.
What do you think? An official "Elephant Sisters" roll call is due? I can think of a few other sisters that need some leaning. We've got work to do.
Comments
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Elephant sistah reporting in for duty sir!
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I think you have a good idea Whoop. I haven't had the problems like others but will be there to help support others through the rough times. and I would love to get a copy of your book when published.
Sheila
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Count me in...in name and shape, I'm an elephant sister!
Susan
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Count me in as well!
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Love it!!!!
How are you doing anyway? My work has prohibited Facebook. WHATEVER!!
Love, Traci
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Deb, if you need any tech help, you know I can take care of it, like I can make your book available online for those want to read it etc.
Hugs,
Fumi
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Deb, Please do count me in...anything for my bc sisters.
hugs and prayers
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I have two thoughts. LauraGTO sent me a beautiful elephant necklace a few days ago. Laura, do you think the company that makes them would be able to donate them or let us pay an extremely low price? If the necklaces are not doable, maybe we can find a little statue/figure or something Elephant Sister related (again, donated would be awesome!).
I know dollars are tight right now, so if sending our sisters an elephant will be too costly, we will have to keep our eyes open for the women who are fumbling and stumbling blindly through another terrifying fork in the cancer road.
Perhaps once we spot the women who need us to lean on, we all make a point to go to the thread and do our Elephant thing.
This is just a thought, but I seriously loved when my Elephants would speak to me in Elephant words. It would make me giggle (still thinking of the comment about petting the kindly surgeon with her trunk), and it would really help take my mind off of what is terrifying me at the moment.
Of course, (last but not least!), I personally found HUGE amounts of comfort that the Elephants checked in on me constantly, either by PM, or on the thread where I am screaming in fear.
Maybe we can find Elephant Cards, or someone can create something much like the "History of the Hugahan" note, and we can send it to them.
These are all just thoughts......I don't want to be the ruler of the Elephant Sisters by any means, so if you guys have any ideas, PLEASE share them and we can get started!
PS-I have one sister in mind who seems on the verge of needing the Brigade. What do you think, do we make our Elephant in Need be anonymous until we storm their threads with our trumpeting Elephant trunks?
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Am I an elephant... if so can I be the one that links trunks and then just swings there with you for hours?
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I love you, dream! Swing away, sister!
Any thoughts on what we can do as the Elephant Brigade? Bump!
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Whoopsie
What a great idea! Another Elephant Sista ready to jump in!!
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I lurk most of the time, and support when I can. So, since I'm the size of an elephant, would you like another elephant sister? Can't help much moneywise, but can hold up people with one hand if need be.
Jennifer
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This is wonderful! What do you think about how to do this? Should we have Elephants scouting the boards for sisters who need to be held up? Should people nominate sisters quietly behind the scenes?
As for monetary stuff, these are just ideas. Honestly, the strength of my Elephants was all I needed, but the necklace LauraGTO sent me is simply beautiful and made me cry!
Thoughts?
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I now officially love Elephants. Amazing stuff. I got this from Wikipedia...
The elephant has one of the most closely knit societies of any living species. Elephant families can only be separated by death or capture. Cynthia Moss, an elephant researcher, recalls an event involving a family of African elephants. Two members of the family were shot by poachers, who were subsequently chased off by the remaining elephants. Although one of the elephants died, the other, named Tina, remained standing but with knees beginning to give way. Two family members, Trista and Teresia (Tina's mother) walked to both sides of Tina and leaned in to hold her up. Eventually, Tina grew so weak she fell to the ground and died. However, Trista and Teresia did not give up but continually tried to lift her. They managed to get Tina into a sitting position, but her body was lifeless and fell to the ground again. As the other elephant family members became more intensely involved in the aid, they tried to put grass into Tina's mouth. Teresia then put her tusks beneath Tina's head and front quarters and proceeded to lift her. As she did so, her right tusk broke completely off, right up to the lip and nerve cavity. The elephants gave up trying to lift Tina but didn't leave her; instead, they began to bury her in a shallow grave and throw leaves over her body. They stood over Tina for the night, and then began to leave in the morning. The last to leave was Teresia[15].
Because elephants are so closely knit and highly matriarchal, a family can be devastated by the death of another (especially a matriarch) and some groups never recover their organization. Cynthia Moss has observed a mother, after the death of her calf, walk sluggishly at the back of a family for many days[15].
Edward Topsell stated in his publication, The History of Four-Footed Beasts in 1658 that "There is no creature among all the Beasts of the world which hath so great and ample demonstration of the power and wisdom of almighty God as the elephant[16]."
[edit] Elephant altruism
Elephants are thought to be highly altruistic animals that will even aid other species, including humans, in distress. In India, an elephant was helping locals lift logs by following a truck and placing the logs in pre-dug holes upon instruction from the mahout (elephant trainer). At a certain hole, the elephant refused to lower the log. The mahout came to investigate the hold up and noticed a dog sleeping in the hole. The elephant only lowered the log when the dog was gone[17].
Cynthia Moss has often seen elephants going out of their way to avoid hurting or killing a human, even when it was difficult for them (such as having to walk backwards to avoid a person).
Joyce Poole documented an encounter told to her by Colin Francombe on Kuki Gallman's Laikipia Ranch. A ranch herder was out on his own with camels when he came across a family of elephants. The matriarch charged at him and knocked him over with her trunk, breaking one of his legs. In the evening, when he didn't return, a search party was sent in a truck to find him . When the party discovered him, he was being guarded by an elephant. The animal charged the truck, so they shot over her and scared her away. The herdsman later told them that when he couldn't stand up, the elephant used her trunk to lift him under the shade of a tree. She guarded him for the day and would gently touch him with her trunk[8].
[edit] Self medication
Further information: ZoopharmacognosyElephants in Africa will self-medicate by chewing on the leaves of a tree from the Boraginaceae family, which induces labor. Kenyans also use this tree for the same purpose[18].
[edit] Death ritual
Elephants are the only other species other than humans and neanderthals[19] known to have a ritual around death. They show a keen interest in the bones of their own kind (even unrelated elephants that have died long ago). They are often seen gently investigating the bones with their trunks and feet, and remaining very quiet. Sometimes elephants that are completely unrelated to the deceased will still visit their graves.[4] When an elephant is hurt, other elephants (also even if they are unrelated) will aid them.[8]
Martin Meredith recalls an occurrence in her book about a typical elephant death ritual that was witnessed by Anthony Martin-Hall, a South African biologist who had studied elephants in Addo, South Africa for over 8 years. The entire family of a dead matriarch, including her young calf were all gently touching her body with their trunks and tried to lift her. The elephant herd were all rumbling loudly. The calf was observed to be weeping and made sounds that sounded like a scream but then the entire herd fell incredibly silent. They then began to throw leaves and dirt over the body and broke off tree branches to cover her. They spent the next 2 days quietly standing over her body. They sometimes had to leave to get water or food, but they would always return.[20] Occurrences of elephants behaving this way around human beings are common through Africa. On many occasions, they have buried dead or sleeping humans or aided them when they were hurt.[8] Meredith also recalls an event told to her by George Adamson, a Kenyan Game Warden regarding an old Turkana woman who fell asleep under a tree after losing her way home. When she woke up, there was an elephant standing over her, gently touching her. She kept very still because she was very frightened. As other elephants arrived, they began to scream loudly and buried her under branches. She was found the next morning by the local herdsmen, unharmed.[20]
George Adamson also recalls when he shot a Bull elephant from a herd that kept breaking into the Government gardens of Northern Kenya. George gave the elephant's meat to local Turkana Tribesmen and then dragged the rest of the carcass half a mile away. That night, the other elephants found the body and took the shoulder blade and leg bone and returned the bones to the exact spot the elephant was killed.[21]Scientists often argue the extent that elephants feel emotion. A large variety of animals display what appears to be ‘sorrow' through body language, posture, movement and actions but seeing elephants standing over a body, burying them, refusing to leave and their trunks being observed hanging limp certainly seems evidence that perhaps much deeper and complex emotions are involved.[21]
[edit] Play
Joyce Poole on many occasions has observed wild African elephants at play. They apparently do things for their own and others' entertainment. Elephants have been seen sucking up water, holding their trunk high in the air, and then spraying the water like a fountain[8].
[edit] Mimicry
Recent studies have shown that elephants can also mimic sounds they hear. The discovery was found when Mlaika, an orphaned elephant, would copy the sound of trucks passing by. So far, the only other animals that are thought to mimic sounds are whales, dolphins, bats, primates and birds[22]. Calimero, an African elephant who was 23 years old also exhibited a unique form of mimicry. He was in a Swiss zoo with some Asian elephants. Compared with African elephants, Asian elephants use chirps that are different from African elephants' deep rumbling noises. Calimero also began to chirp and not make the deep calls like his species normally would [23]. Kosik, an Indian elephant at Everland Amusement Park, South Korea surprised trainers when they thought there was a person in his enclosure but it was actually Kosik imitating Jong Gap Kim, his trainer. Kosik can make sounds imitating up to eight Korean words, including "sit", "no", "yes" and "lie down". His mimicry is remarkably human-sounding. Kosik produces humanlike sounds by putting his trunk in his mouth and then shaking it while breathing out, similar to how people whistle with their fingers[24]. Elephants use contact calls to stay in touch with one another when they are out of one another's sight. Female elephants are able to remember and distinguish the contact calls of female family and bond group members from those of females outside of their extended family network. They can also distinguish between the calls of family units depending upon how frequently they came across them[25].
[edit] Tool use
Further information: Tool use by animalsElephants show a remarkable ability to use tools, despite having no hands. Instead, they use their trunk like an arm. Elephants have been observed digging holes to drink water and then ripping bark from a tree, chewing it into the shape of a ball, filling in the hole and covering over it with sand to avoid evaporation. The elephant later went back to this spot for a drink. They also often use branches to swat flies or scratch themselves[26]. Elephants have also been known to drop very large rocks onto an electric fence to either ruin the fence or cut off the electricity[8].
[edit] Art
Like several other species, elephants are able to produce abstract art using their trunks to hold brushes. Possibly unique is their ability to draw realistic images. An example of this was shown in the TV program 'Extraordinary Animals', where elephants at a camp in Thailand were able to draw a ' self portrait' with flower - see link for the case of 'Hong': [1]. Although the images are drawn by the elephants, there is always a human person assisting and guiding the movement. From those presentations it cannot be definitely evaluated, whether the elephants are conscious about the shape of their drawings or not.
This extraordinary video documentation of an elephant painting a picture of an elephant - possibly indicating self-awareness - has become widespread on internet news and video websites.[27] The quality of the painting is extremely high, leading many astonished viewers to doubt the video's authenticity. The website snopes.com, which specializes in debunking urban legends, lists the video as "true", in that the elephant produced the brush strokes, but notes that the similarity of the produced paintings is indicative of a learned sequence of strokes rather than a creative effort on the part of the elephant.[28]
[edit] Problem solving ability
Elephants are able to spend a lot of time working on problems. They are able to radically change their behavior to face a new challenge, a hallmark of complex intelligence. In the 1970s at Marine World Africa, USA, there lived an Asian elephant named Bandula. Bandula worked out how to break open or unlock several of the pieces of equipment used to keep the shackles on her feet secure. The most complex device was a 'brommel hook', a device that will close when two opposite points are slid together. Bandula used to fiddle with the hook until it slid apart when it was aligned. Once she had freed herself, she would help the other elephants escape also[18]. In Bandula's case and certainly with other captive elephants, there was an element of 'deception' involved during escapes, such as the animals looking around making sure no one was watching[18].
In another case, a female elephant worked out how she could unscrew iron rods with an eye hole that were an inch thick. She used her trunk to create leverage and then untwist the bolt[18].
Ruby, an Asian elephant at Phoenix Zoo would often ‘eavesdrop' onto conversations keepers would have talking about her. When she heard the word "paint", she became very excitable. The colours she favoured were green, yellow, blue and red. On one particular day, there was a fire truck that came and parked outside her enclosure where a man had just had a heart attack. The lights on the truck were flashing red, white and yellow. When Ruby painted later on in the day, she chose those colours. She also showed a preference for particular colours that the keepers wore[18].
Harry Peachey, an elephant trainer, developed a cooperative relationship with an elephant named Koko. Koko would help out the keepers, "prompting" the keepers to encourage him with various commands and words that Koko would learn. Peachey stated that elephants are almost 'predisposed' to cooperate and work with humans as long as they are treated with respect and sensitivity. Koko worked out when his keepers needed a bit of ‘elephant help' when they were transferring the females of the group to another zoo. When the keepers wanted to transfer a female, usually they would say her name, followed by the word 'transfer' (e.g. "Connie transfer"). Koko soon figured out what this meant. If the keepers asked an elephant to transfer and they didn't budge, they would say "Koko, give me a hand". When he heard this, Koko would help. Peachey firmly believes that after 27 years of working with elephants, they can understand semantics/syntax of some of the words they hear. This is something thought to be very rare in the animal kingdom[18].
[edit] Self awareness
Asian Elephants have joined a small group of animals, including great apes, bottlenose dolphins and magpies, that exhibit self awareness. The study was conducted with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) using elephants at the Bronx Zoo in New York. Although many animals will respond to a mirror, very few show any evidence that they recognize it is in fact themselves in the mirror reflection.
The Asian elephants in the study also displayed this type of behavior when standing in front of a 2.5m-by-2.5m mirror - they inspected the rear and brought food close to the mirror for consumption.
Absolute evidence of elephant self awareness was shown when "Happy" repeatedly touched a painted "X" on her head with her trunk, a mark which could only be seen in the mirror. Happy ignored another mark made with colourless paint that was also on her forehead to ensure she was not merely reacting to a smell or feeling.
Frans De Waal, who ran the study stated, "These parallels between humans and elephants suggest a convergent cognitive evolution possibly related to complex sociality and cooperation."[29]
Joyce Poole , of the Amboseli Elephant Research Project, Kenya, has demonstrated vocal learning and imitation in elephant of sounds made by each other and in the environment. She is beginning to research whether sounds made by elephants have dialects, a trait that is rare in the animal kingdom.[22]
[edit] References
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Bumping up for the Elephant Brigade!
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Bump!
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Another Elephant Sister/Mama here! Just checking in with you girls! Whoopsie - OM - what a handsome little guy! Adorable!
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Hey Elephants, would you mind loaning me your giant ears and long trunks for tomorrow? I'm going in for a HIDA scan because my gallbladder seems to be a bit psychotic since surgery. I'm a little freaked out, and have no idea what to expect!
Elephant hugs, Deb
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I am sending virtual giant ears and a reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally long trunk! Cyberspace is quick...you should have them any second now! Wear your neclace...I wear mine during every scan! Keep us posted. Good luck tomorrow!
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Elephants, I'm flapping my ears to signal that LisaSDCA and hopefor30 are having some really sucky issues right now. Can you guys pop in and offer your lovely tusks?
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Elephant here... sorry so late....
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Elephant Sister Lucy reporting for duty!......Lots of hugs and prayers to all who need them!.......I just got home from work a half hour ago.........
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Whoopsi how did the HIDA scan go?.....I remember mine like it was yesterday!......Not really bad just weird having to stand still fro so long.......Hope all is well........
Oh an dlittel Hannah need us Mamas..She has the stomach flu!......I talked to her Nana today and she told me Hannah is sick...Poor baby!......
Lisa and Deb.....Lots of hugs an dprayers coming your way!.......
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Thanks for stepping in and sounding the Elephant trumpets. The scan was much easier than expected. Too bad my doc was out of the office today for results!
I'll check in on Hannah now!
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Wow, funny you worded it that way! I just told Lisa I was blowing my trumpet at her doctors!
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I'll do my best with my elephant ears to listen and give comfort.
Whoopsie, I just had my gallbladder out last week and doing great now.
Trish
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Trish, that's wonderful! Nice to hear another success story. You done good!
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Whoopsie, I got the same elephant necklace from the lovely LauraGTO! How she knew I was feeling down and a bit blue, I have no idea but that out of the blue support to let me know i was surrounded touched my heart more than words could ever say.
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Thrummmppp! That's my best elephant trumpet. Tusks at the ready! Trunk ready for snuffling up any pesky suckage!
Susan Elephant Sister
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Hey, I thought we had an elephant thread. We got shut down for being too political,LOL
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