Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/02/12/baby-elephant-wants-man-to-sto.html
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Aw, what a cutie. Would be loads of fun playing with a baby elephant. It is distressing that elephants are a target for poachers though, we need more elephant playtime not less.
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squeeeeee!
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Long ago, before computers and such, I worked at the Bronx Zoo. One of the coolest things about ‘da Zoo!’ was i got to touch both a baby elephant and an adult female (different times). The baby’s hair was soft but thick, thicker than the hair on my calves. And quite a lot of it. The mother’s hair was like wire or much thicker than a boar bristle brush. And the skin itself was enormously different as well.
They are amazing creatures. Highly recommend Alastair Reynold’s Blue Remembered Earth (and the rest of the series really). Elephants play major roles in all the stories.
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That baby elephant is practicing for how it will treat poachers when it grows up. Just need to fix it a bullet proof vest too.
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Looks like it was filmed at the David Sheldrick sanctuary on the outskirts of Nairobi which fosters orphaned and injured elephants before returning them to the wild under the protection of the Wildlife Service.
Well worth a trip if you’re ever in Kenya, and they can always do with a donation:
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I’ve only heard of the Sheldrick Trust because I read Yashar Ali’s Twitter feed, as he regularly posts material from and about them. He also retweets posts from people who sponsor orphaned elephants there.
These folks do great and needed work, teaching orphaned elephants how to function as elephants and bringing them together into the groups that most elephants naturally feel safest in, so they can socialize, and grow together in as healthy a way as possible.
Hopefully bans going into place recently will drop the horrific losses of past years. But even if the killing stopped today, there’s also the residual effect of poaching and trophy hunting on the survivors:
http://conservationbiology.uw.edu/research-programs/effects-of-poaching-on-african-elephants/
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