Never Forget the Elephants
What's up with elephants? Largest of land mammals, seemingly invincible, and subject to an enormous body of science, legend and lore, these creatures native to Asia and Africa have found their way into the news with increasing regularity of late. We wrote earlier about the growing number of human-elephant encounters that turn ugly, and the possibility that, in the words of researcher Charles Siebert, we’re witnessing a "species-wide trauma and the fraying of the fabric" of elephant society.
The news doesn’t get better. Just consult elephant-news.com for the latest stories in the media on elephant rampages, attacks, and tramplings, intentional and otherwise. Although sometimes a grim humor can be found, as in the outraged temple elephant that picked up an irritating horn-honking motorcyclist and hurled him to the ground (an act many of us can sympathize with), usually a far more grim reality underlies the news. A timber elephant runs amuck… a zoo worker is trampled by one of his charges at feeding time… camera-toting tourists are rushed and crushed… and, as many saw on CNN (or YouTube), an elephant attacked a minibus at a polo tournament in Sri Lanka.
Elephant-news.com also has the latest scientific discoveries, poaching incidents, books and other media, even job listings for the elephant enthusiast. Founded by Sweden’s Dan Koehl in 2001, elephant-news.com follows his earlier online projects Absolut Elephants (a virtual online elephant encyclopedia) and an elephant list serve. It may seem awkward to call elephants the canary in the coalmine of modern social disintegration, but it may not be off the mark.
Marching Onward...
Next item of news is the upcoming LUNAR ECLIPSE this weekend, Saturday night March 3. If you're not sure what that is, I don't know what to say - try this viewer's guide for orientation. Suffice it to say that, while it's nowhere near as wild and exhilarating as a solar eclipse, it's still worth staying up for or at least going outside to see. And who knows, you might have a transcendent experience, as this video shows (launches Windows Media player).
The news doesn’t get better. Just consult elephant-news.com for the latest stories in the media on elephant rampages, attacks, and tramplings, intentional and otherwise. Although sometimes a grim humor can be found, as in the outraged temple elephant that picked up an irritating horn-honking motorcyclist and hurled him to the ground (an act many of us can sympathize with), usually a far more grim reality underlies the news. A timber elephant runs amuck… a zoo worker is trampled by one of his charges at feeding time… camera-toting tourists are rushed and crushed… and, as many saw on CNN (or YouTube), an elephant attacked a minibus at a polo tournament in Sri Lanka.
Elephant-news.com also has the latest scientific discoveries, poaching incidents, books and other media, even job listings for the elephant enthusiast. Founded by Sweden’s Dan Koehl in 2001, elephant-news.com follows his earlier online projects Absolut Elephants (a virtual online elephant encyclopedia) and an elephant list serve. It may seem awkward to call elephants the canary in the coalmine of modern social disintegration, but it may not be off the mark.
Marching Onward...
Next item of news is the upcoming LUNAR ECLIPSE this weekend, Saturday night March 3. If you're not sure what that is, I don't know what to say - try this viewer's guide for orientation. Suffice it to say that, while it's nowhere near as wild and exhilarating as a solar eclipse, it's still worth staying up for or at least going outside to see. And who knows, you might have a transcendent experience, as this video shows (launches Windows Media player).
