Emotional Animals?
As you can see... working hard on my next video... working hard or hardly working..?
I stopped by a friend's shop this week and suddenly I find myself in the middle of a conversation about animals. Seeing that this is how my blog posts used to come about, this is the kind of post that you are now reading.
I found myself, my friend and some other lady who entered the shop talking about animals. Now we werent just talking about animals in general we were talking about animal behaviour, compassion and memory specific to elephants and camels. I find everything interesting, so of course I loved it. I'm pretty sure I was supposed to be somewhere else, doing something else so loved it even more.
The gist of it is, among other things we talked about, things elephants, snakes and camels did, or done and of course how interesting this was. The conversation concluded with recommending the lady who walked in to the shop called WIRES and got the giant python out of her ceilling after a few laughs about how much exactly a carpet snake will pee when it only has a pee. I just did a little follow up, out of curiousity of course.
Elephant Graveyards or Elephant Mourning
So as the conversation supposedly went, elephants travel to the same place every year to mourn their dead and they never forget. When I think about what this might mean I think 'Hmmm, ok. Maybe they visit a common burial site? Feel pain and go back to whatever they are doing?' Pretty deep. If this is fact though then shouldn't there be SOMETHING about it on the internet, somewhere..right?
I tried a few different search engines and browsers (because you just have different results) and it seems to me, that Elephant Graveyards are just as potentially a myth as they are potentially true. There are plenty of urban legends, but not facts about where elephants go to die and the behaviour that surrounds it but unfortunately no research or facts. I guess this means it either isn't true or we don't know enough about it. I found very little about it and found the most significant mass graves were often from Ivory trade (Cohen, 2012).
What I did find, that I wasnt aware of YET, though, was how elephants often responded to their own dead or bodies of other elephants as they came across them. Elephants have been known to recently mourn their dead for many days following their passing (Honeybourne, 2013) a sure sign of grief and loss. They will also inspect carefully, and thoroughly, the body or bones of others as they passed (Nat Geo, n.d).
Seeing that I won't go on and on about it forever, on this particular one, I will just remind you that an elephant supposedly never forgets. Scientific American (2009) reckons this is true,and most sources don't argue otherwise. If this is so, coupled with many years of memories, then I guess the rest is interesting enough and who knows just what kind of range of emotions elephants actually have.
Camel Tears
So, as the story went.... there was a camel who was not nursing it's young due to a difficult birth and somebody made an instrument out of camel hair. Apparnetly, the music that played was so touching that that the mother camel cried and it's young cried. The baby came running to it's mother and immediately began nursing. This one was mentioned, because as the lady says, animals are amzing and camels can cry. 'Wow', I thought. 'Crying camels. I have not seen this.'
Well. Firstly, there is a movie which was released in 2003/2004 and is a mix dramatisation and documentry. I read a few various sources before realising that I still was a little confused. Where do the facts end and the fiction begin? Apparantly the movie is based on real Gobi Desert Rituals and the film was created with a real family and their camels. So I guess it is so.
As our conversatihad a good laugh about how carpet snakes or pythons seem to pee about once a week and by half a bucket load and in the same spot everytime. Even if they kept the vermin populace down I would have to see this would probably be too much cleaning for me. My going recommendation has always been that you get someone to come get your snake out, preferably a professional and move on. When the lady left the store she stated she had not showered for four days as the snake had been in her shower and various other parts of her bathroom.
Not worth it. Get it out. You won't hear any different from me.
-Mez
References
Byrnes, P. (2004). The story of the Weeping Camel. Retirved from http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/09/29/1096401641459.html
Cohen, T. (2012). Haunting new photos reveal secret elephant graveyard in the heart of Africa where Ivory trade is booming. Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2128839/Haunting-new-photos-reveal-secret-elephant-graveyard-discovered-heart-Africa-illegal-ivory-trade-booming.html
Honeybourne, J. (2013). Elephants really do grieve like us: They shed tears and even try to 'bury' their dead - a leading wildlife film-maker reveals how the animals are like us. Retirved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2270977/Elephants-really-grieve-like-They-shed-tears-try-bury-dead--leading-wildlife-film-maker-reveals-animals-like-us.html
National Geographic (n.d). Elephant Mourning. Retrieved from http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/elephant_african_mourning
Scientific American (2009). Fact or Fiction?: Elephants Never forget. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/elephants-never-forget/