Elephant Day - Friday Part 1

Liese tells me I'm not writing fast enough for her! So I'll try to type faster, the problem with that becomes the spelling impossible for spell check to read my mind! But Liese, I'll give it a shot. I have a couple of more days to go through and there is a lot that happened in those days. For those who are keeping up and enjoying the blog/photos, thank you for your comments :)

I said before that Liese had typed up a very pretty and colorful itinerary for the weekend for me, but she left out a surprise. Down the road from where we stayed on Thursday night, there is the Elephant Sanctuary. This is a half way house for elephants who need temporary sanctuary until they are able to be moved into a safe environment when they are old enough. The day we were there, there were 2 elephants for the public to see and interact with. The key to survival, for tourist and resident alike is t remember that no matter how cute and cuddly they appear, they are called WILD animals for a reason. Kasper and Kitso, the elephants at the sanctuary, are trained and worked with every day. The trainers go out to their pen every morning and move them to their exercise yards. They then take them through their routine and here is where they check for elephants mood for the day! On cranky days, the trainers must work with them longer to help get them in the "mood" for their job. Their job is to entertain and educate tourists! Their trainers are never far from them at any time. Though they both came to the sanctuary when they were young, they are still wild animals. After interacting with them, it is easy to forget that they aren't domesticated, simply under control of their trainers. With that said, let's move on to the "hug an elephant day".

Santi has known for quite some time that my favorite animal is the elephant. He is such a "gentle giant", rather easy going up until he feel threatened. What Shepherd, our guide for the tour, said was that people actually would get wild animals (and again, I stress wild) for pets... They seem to think they have a large enough back yard to keep an elephant! It isn't long before they discover exactly how many acres it takes to support 1 elephant! The sad fact is that when nature becomes unbalanced then all of the wild life suffers. Right now at Kruger Park there are more elephants than the land can support. They eat more than their share of the grasses and leave other animals to go without. At this point Kruger is looking to move right about 200 elephants out of the park.

One thing that I did learn about elephants at the sanctuary is that elephants are very emotional animals. They have a gland that secretes a type of musk when they are happy, sad, excited and of course, in season! The elephant herds are bonded together as a family and they are very protective of their family! Even at the sanctuary they are torn between what is best for the elephant, yet they need to support their program which is why they have opened the sanctuary to the public. It's not their first choice but elephants just aren't cheap to keep! At the Elephant Sanctuary they strive to educate visitors about the elephants and give them a chance to look at them and even feel how different their skin feels from one part of the body to the other. Again, the trainer is very close to the animal and he uses a lot of treats to get the elephant to cooperate.

Cara and I were among the first visitors of the day. Kasper, the older of the 2 (he's about 25 and considered a young adult of breeding age) was a little fussy and his trainer did have to speak to him, but again, we were the first visitors of the day, maybe they stayed up too late watching TV? Kitso, is about 12 years old and considered a "teenager". He was very cooperative and almost seemed to enjoy the interaction with the group. He came to the Sanctuary when he was younger and he depends on Kasper to help guide him. Interestingly enough, I had always thought that the way the youngsters hold on to the tail of an adult was a "trick" that was taught, but it is a natural instinct that they learn from an early age!

Shepherd continued to educate us on the life and anatomy of the elephant while both Kasper and Kitso stood before us. Then it was time for each of us to come over to the elephant and get a "hands on" lesson about the elephant. I jumped up to be first, I couldn't wait any longer to feel the elephant! I went to Kasper and as I said, he was a bit fussy but his trainer spoke to him and he decided to be more cooperative, of course a hand full of elephant snacks didn't hurt either. I think he also may have his trainer a little trained as well! Cara did say that the Elephant Sanctuary (there are other such venues as well) had a reputation for a soft hand in training their elephants, they use the reward system in their training where as others do not. Kasper got a hand full of elephant treats and he also smiled as if to say, "see, who's the boss now?" I was amazed at how much expression that the elephants had! Of course I had seen them in zoos but never this close and never with an elephant who seemed at peace with where he was. Granted, his preference would probably be out in the wild to roam freely, but after they have so much interaction with humans they can never be released back into the wild. When man interferes with nature it seems he must continue to interfere... this is a sad but true fact.

I was guided through the parts of the elephant, such as the trunk. There are no bones in the trunk and it seems much softer than say his back or his legs. It's almost reptilian to the touch but not as cold I think. I've had snakes and reptiles and he has more the feel of a large lizard as opposed to a snake, but still not the same... Looking into his soulful eyes with his long eyelashes (that helped keep the flies out of his eyes), he watched me as closely as I watched him. You just want to hug him and tell him everything is going to be OK :) He uses the trunk much like we use our hands, to grab what he needs and to either eat it or throw it over himself! It's moist and warm, much like our noses, and the edges of the trunk are used as we use our fingers.

Being a young adult, Kasper's tusks aren't as long as a fully developed male at this point but I would estimate them about 14" (?) and I couldn't encircle them with one hand span where they were the thickest. They are basically the same material that teeth are made from and they feel cool to the touch but not as smooth as the polished ivory that you would see in a museum. I will mention that most countries in the world prohibit importing of ivory because the elephants were being slaughtered just for their tusks and the ivory. Make no mistake, there are still poachers who have a market for the tusks and the authorities are always on the look out for them. An interesting fact, the elephant replaces his back molars about every 5 years...

Moving down his body, the "elbows" are callused as he sleeps on his side on the ground at night. Kasper sleeps about 5 hours a night because his weight compresses on his lungs and it becomes hard for him to breath. I'm not sure how many times he may lay down in a 24 hour period, I think I forgot to ask that question. When he gets tired of standing on his feet, he does the same thing you and I do, he shifts his weight to one side and lets the other side take a little break for a while. Amazing isn't it? How much they are like us they are? His body is covered with wiry hair that alerts him to flies and other pests. He uses his tail to swat at them. One of the reasons they throw mud and dirt on themselves is to swat at the flies as well. His main body skin has a rougher texture to it. It feels more "man made" than biological in some ways.

He flaps his huge ears to cool himself. It's wonderful to be behind those ears when they flap when it's very warm outside! The ears themselves feel like soft leather and they are irregular shaped at the ends. I'm not sure if he's born that way or if that is just a natural development from flapping his ears as much as he does. He tolerates the heat with the help of those very large and soft ears! If I had ears like that I'm sure I'd do the same thing as Kasper does!

I believe he has 5 nails on each foot. The foot has a very rough texture to it, it has to to support his weight plus "bundu bashing" (walking in the brush). If you've looked at some of the photos on the Picasa site I'm sure you've noted the thorn bushes and their very large and SHARP thorns! Nature has given him the tools and ability to survive the areas, where he lives, in quite well!

Cara took her turn after me and she went to Kitso. Cara has been raised all of her life in South Africa and she has seen the elephants (as well as other animals) in the wild many times. I was eager to go play with the kids, while Cara was a little hesitant. I was laughing at her as she kept her distance from Kitso and she said that she had been raised all of her life to understand that these are wild animals! This was also Cara's first time being up close and personal with an elephant. So the "tourist" was accompanied by another tourist! I guess it's kind of like us, we have all of these tourist attractions around us, but we never really go there until we have visitors!

Before Cara was done with her up close and personal meeting with Kitso, he gave her a kiss! You can see by the expression on her face that she was surprised at this! He uses his trunk to give "kisses" and he even makes little kissing noises as he gives his kisses. Kasper doesn't give kisses, he was older when he came to the Sanctuary, where Kitso was much younger. Kitso's kisses are very gentile and oh so sweet!

After meeting the kids and seeing their pens it was time for the ride on the elephant. Now, since Kasper had a little attitude with me earlier, I wasn't exactly sure we needed a little "closer" relationship. Cara had also noted his little mood earlier so when it was time for the ride, she went first and chose Kitso, who is smaller and generally just a happy go lucky kind of a guy, at least from what we saw. OK so the problem with Kitso is that he is smaller, which was less of a problem for our tiny Cara but it did present problems for me and my ... ah.. mature figure shall we say? Now, we were told before we went that it was a bumpy ride and we should expect to be a little sore. I think the word "little" could have been modified just a bit here! Cara said that her bony "bum" was smarting a bit after the ride but she was fine the next day. Now, if you look at my more mature "bum" on the elephant you will see where tailbone meets elephant spine. Use your imagination on that one! I wasn't exactly "fine" on Saturday!

Here is the other thing, going uphill was easy really, the kids kind of sauntered up the hill and you start thinking, "OK, this isn't as bad as Shepherd said it was going to be..." Ha! Just remember, what goes up must come down... The down hill speed is a tad faster, which isn't a problem until the curves come up! It's kind of like being a passenger on a motorcycle. You are supposed to LEAN into the curves... NOT! For the record here, I'm not a good motorcycle passenger either! So as Kitso was going down hill and around corners I grabbed onto the trainer and very "politely" told him that to save himself he needed to save me too! LOL I kept telling him I was bigger than him and if I fell off he was going with me! I don't think a tourist has threatened him like that before because he just started to laugh! By the way, you do sign your life away before you go in there. There is a whole list of things you are agreeing to before you're allowed in. It was too much reading for me without reading glasses and I asked him why they just didn't make you sign a document saying "Nothing is Our Fault"! Seems to me that would cover just about anything!

So remember that "where human tailbone meets elephant spine" comment? Let's just say I had blisters where I never knew you could have blisters! It was a jarring experience and for someone who sits behind a computer all day, it was a workout as well! Santi asked me about it later and when I told her she just laughed! They had saved this as a surprise for me. I knew there was a surprise coming but no one let the cat (or should I say elephant?) out of the bag!

Although I think the experience as a whole was wonderful, that was only the beginning of the day. We said good bye to Kasper and Kito and continued on our merry way... This was going to prove to be a very educational and wonderful day by the time we were through!

For more information on the Elephant Sanctuary you can go to:

http://www.elephantsanctuary.co.za/hazyviewhome.htm