Elephant Tears | Great Plains Conservation скачать в хорошем качестве

Elephant Tears | Great Plains Conservation

When a great and loved human passes away, (as did a friend of mine this weekend,) we gather to pay our respects and to remember. I’ve seen elephants gather around their fallen, silently, in remembrance perhaps, in silence, in a ritual that mirrors our own around loss. Like them, my friend was a gentle being, an elephant ambassador and protector, someone who cared beyond himself. Elephants show the same altruism, compassion and empathy, a deep understanding of relationships and a profound feeling of loss. They also feel joy and play, have compassion and a wide range of emotions that they express using their complex language. This year we’ve lost 20,000 elephants so far and while each individual is precious, we need to focus on the five super tuskers that were killed by trophy hunters as they crossed from Kenya to Tanzania. Five of the largest elephant tuskers in the world. They were extraordinary and killing them was unnecessary, their bodies burned or buried so no value from the meat went to communities, the tusks flown out to the USA. What was left behind was a tiny portion of the $20,000 that was paid for each, not much at all, but it also left a dark hole in the matrix of the planet that the most iconic elephants, once filled with such dignity and presence, have had their majestic lives cut short. This insanity and selfishness is becoming characteristic of who we are, probably a legacy we don’t want for ourselves. I was considering where I might recommend people visit to see elephants and to embed themselves into their culture best, and first thought of Ol Donyo Lodge, where you can see a live preview of your visit with the big tuskers on our ol Donyo Lodge Webcam Across the Mara, at Mara Plains we just spent some time with a herd of seventy wandering peacefully in front of camp. Further south in Botswana, a large bull elephant regularly sleeps on the steps at Zarafa Camp and of course the Selinda herds are famous. At Duba Plains, while famous for the lions, large elephant herds often serve as a backdrop to these predators. I just watched images of the Tembo Plains elephants in Zimbabwe, standing on their back legs reaching up with the tip of their trunks for Albida seed pods, and realized that our Great Plains camps are often right in the path of elephants. We seek out their companionship as guides to being our best selves. They have so much to teach us, but if we hunt the largest of them, or molest their young, they will shrink away from us and we will be lesser for this, excluded from some of the most meaningful lessons of life. I’m calling for restraint, for compassion, for peace with elephants. This week is about elephants, but it shouldn’t end with World Elephant Day. I wish we’d had more time with my dear friend, I don’t want us all to wish we had more time with elephants when they are gone. When elephants weep, we all weep.