Loading summary
Transcript60 lines
- [00:18]
A
Hello and welcome to Global Sanctuary for Elephants podcast. Global Rumblings. Global Sanctuary for Elephants, or GSE for short, is a non profit organization with a mission to create vast, safe spaces for captive elephants where they are able to heal fish physically and emotionally, often from very traumatic pasts. I'm your host, Nadia Mazzarati, and I'll be taking you to the lush jungle of the Mato Grosso region in central Brazil, home of GEC's initial project, Elephant Sanctuary Brazil, where four Mizu and circus elephants from across South America live their best lives. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Global Rumblings podcast. Whether you're a seasoned listener or you're new to the show, it's lovely to have you with us today as we get ready to talk again about elephants with Kat and Scott Blaise, co founders of Global Sanctuary for Elephants. In our last podcast, we kicked off with our new series, Rethinking Elephants, in which we talked about the role of the matriarch, we talked about the matrilineal structure of elephant societies, and we talked about what it means for elephants in captivity who possibly do not grow up and live within these social groups. Today we'll be talking more about the bonds, the shape, an elephant. So let's head over to Brazil to say hi to Kat and Scott. Hi, you two.
- [01:34]
B
Hey, Nadja.
- [01:35]
C
Hey, Nadja, how are you?
- [01:37]
A
I'm fine. Looking forward as always, to talk elephants with you. So is it raining with you guys? Because last time you said there was a storm coming and I didn't hear the rain at all. And when I was actually editing the podcast, I realized it was raining the whole time.
- [01:51]
C
Started off as a beautiful sunny morning, and then after, I think 11 o', clock, rain came, sun came back out, rain came out again, and it's just finishing with a little storm, so we'll see what happens.
- [02:03]
A
Okay. Well, it's very similar to the weather here in Germany, only it's only 7 degrees here, so probably you've got 27. I know, I know. I haven't been out all day. I'm totally stale. I must just poke my head out after the recording to get some fresh air. So I'd like to kick off today's podcast with a quote from Graydon Carter, a very well known quote which says a lot. We admire elephants, but because they demonstrate what we consider the finest of human traits, empathy, self awareness and social intelligence. But the way we treat them puts on display the worst of human behavior. A very powerful quote. And it all goes down. These traits all come down to the relationships that elephants have with each other and the bonds they form with each other, which we admire. So what can you tell us about the family bonds, the friendship bonds?
- [02:51]
C
I'm actually a little depressed from the quote, just the realizations of, you know, how much we undermine who they are. You know, we've talked about it before, and, you know, I know I'm already going off on a tangent and you're going to have to rein me back in, but it's one of the things we've said so many times of how grossly undervalued, underestimated, and unseen they are in captivity. Even those that are caring for them every day, what they're taught is they have to repeat the same behavior so they don't forget. And people treat them like they are just overly simplistic. And it's true. I mean, the traits that we admire about them are those things that are so magnificent and so, you know, we do revere about them, but then what we do to them, captivity, not only by putting them into confined state, but also how we're treating them every day, how we look at their intelligence every day, is completely contrary to the things that we value most, the traits that we value most. So with that, Kat, why don't you bring into some bonds and a little happier note to wear.
- [04:00]
A
Nope.
- [04:01]
B
All you, buddy. You started.
- [04:04]
A
I mean, that is a very, very powerful quote. And we can definitely. We'll be touching on that when we talk about why we continue to accept the way we treat elephants with everything we know. But today, yes, on a happier note, the emotional bonds that shape an elephant,
- [04:19]
C
I mean, if we're going back to the wild elephants, you know, wild herd structures, I mean, those emotional bonds are somewhat to describe as indescribable. You know, how do you define the bond between family members, especially with a species that is so nurturing and protective and empathetic and, you know, truly stay side by side for life. You know, if it's a female born into the herd, they don't leave, you know, and I think there's a level of that, that bond, that the depth of bond is something that I don't think we can even begin to fully fathom in our human world. We don't live our lives that way. Yes, we're in contact with our family, you know, sometimes most of the time, but not living side by side, helping each other raise each other's young, side by side by side all day, every day, for entire lifetime. And I don't know that we have the capacity in our human realm in modern day, in society, to fully fathom how strong that bond must be, to go further on that. Nadia, you know, into the next thing you had questioned before, which was, you know, what does these bonds look like? I know. And again, you know, what we can talk about personally is the bonds within captivity, but those bonds inside that wild herd structure. I mean, we see from the outside, we see through documentaries, but we haven't lived that, we haven't had that opportunity. Just the little glimpses that you see. And it is, again, it's incomparable to what we see in captivity. We see remarkable things at the sanctuary, but that normal family bond in a wild herd isn't something that we know.
- [06:03]
A
I think what I found very fascinating, when we were talking about the structure in our last podcast, I had to think about the Italian side of my family that, you know, do in the past have huge, have huge families when we get together. You know, it was grandparents, it was cousins, it was brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles and all the grown ups and one at one end the table and the kids are on the other end of the table. And it was just like, it was loud, it was fun, it was laughter. But after a while it did get sort of, you know, very strenuous, especially for the parents. And that is something that I've never, in the documentaries I've seen. It seems that the parents or the mums and the sisters and the aunts and they just never tend to be annoyed or, you know, say, that's enough now, off to bed. I think that's why when I look on these documentaries, what I find very fascinating about elephants, that it's just one huge family. They're just so gracious with each other all the time. Yeah.
- [06:57]
B
Unfortunately, captive elephants don't grow up in that. Most of them are taken away from their families around the age of three years old. So they have a little glimpse of what that life is supposed to be like, but unfortunately don't grow up in that scenario. So you have in captivity these pseudo herds that try to form even at sanctuary. You know, it's not like they're a real herd, but I think the biggest initial conflict is when you have small spaces and you have these elephants that just don't necessarily know what that bond is like and how to properly socialize and support each other. You know, they're in these tiny little spaces where they can't get away from each other when there are issues or when somebody does get annoying. I mean, I think we all know people in our lives that we love very much, but after a certain amount of time, you know, you need your space. You have to walk away. And they don't have that ability which causes more conflict. But then at least here, they have the ability to choose their friends and to have that space. And I think it creates a much healthier bond between elephants, Even though we've had Bambi, who has completely changed the group that she's been with, although the choice wasn't really hers. Yeah.
- [08:13]
C
And to tie back into what you talked about with the. The Italian family, you know, big celebration. You know, I think there's an element of our society is out of touch with what is nature. Also. Also, you know, we are still. We are living in. In a artificial world with artificial stimulations. And if we're still, you know, the going back to the true nature of humans living as hunter gatherers and exploring life in nature, you probably wouldn't have that level of annoying, screaming children that are bored and, you know, because they. Doing what they should be doing and learning traits that they should be learning out for survival. And I think you look at it with elephants as well, you know, there's so much stimulation for them, you know, and they can go off and play and not be, you know, causing problems for anybody else. And because they are truly interconnected with their natural world, you don't have that same level of, I guess, annoyance, for lack of a better one. They're better than we are. They're much more tolerant. But I think that those infants in a captive space also become much more annoying than they do in a wild space because they are also understimulated and they don't have the same capacity to go off and do their things. And that's when you end up having conflict within the herds and having aggression from moms to babies, as we talked about in another one, that you see artificial or atypical behavior in captivity. And I think it all goes back to having a complete separation from what is nature.
- [09:38]
B
But I think there are definitely elephants that come to sanctuary looking for that relationship, you know, to different degrees. You had Hana, who wanted so much to be best friends with Maya and Geeta, to her own detriment, because she tried to put herself between the two of them who were just starting to work on their own relationship. It was that bond was her goal, and it did not go how she wanted. But then she adjusted her approach when it came to Ramba, because, again, that was what she really, really wanted. But now she didn't know if she acted like she really wanted It. If it was going to have the same results as Maya and Gita. So you had the opposite, where the two didn't touch each other forever, but you have other elephants that I would say. Mara doesn't seem as necessarily. I don't want to say needy, but she's totally bonded to Hana. She loves Hana, but she's not maybe as dependent, you know. Although initially when the two met, Hana was the one who was like all sorts of crazy dinosaur noises, wanting to get in the same space with Mara and be close to her. But then when they were actually able to touch each other, Hana was like, okay. And Mara was the one who just kept chasing her around, touching her with her foot, touching her with her trunk, you know, vocalizing and so on and so forth.
- [11:01]
C
So in a very positive way. It wasn't like a chase, like one trying to get away. One chasing was following.
- [11:08]
B
Oh my God. No, it was. No, but I love you. Look, here's my foot. No, but I love. Learn.
- [11:12]
A
Oh, yeah. Remember that episode?
- [11:14]
B
Oh my God. Take. Damn that.
- [11:16]
C
That desire. I mean, go back to the desire of the bond. I mean, that is so instinctual.
- [11:21]
B
Sure.
- [11:21]
C
I mean, that's. That's what they want. That is their true nature to be within that family. And, you know, they don't know how that's supposed to be in captivity, you know, they don't know what that is. They don't know what they really want sometimes, you know, and I think Mara really likes having somebody close. She loves it when the others are. Are there for her. She doesn't want to be there necessarily for others in the same way, but she still is looking for.
- [11:47]
B
She's lovely. She just doesn't get the two way street.
- [11:50]
C
Sometimes I think it's so, you know, so instinctual for them to want that. Even with lady, you know, who stayed away. That doesn't mean she wasn't looking to bond with somebody.
- [12:00]
B
Sure.
- [12:00]
C
You know, it just was on different terms.
- [12:03]
B
Yeah. And I mean, if you look at Bambi, who had a very poor relationship with Mason only because of how people were trying to force that relationship, you know, she had a really bad experience at the zoo with being stuck in the pool and not being able to get out and Mason being on that side and her trying to climb up walls and, you know, it was a fairly awful experience that essentially caused her to hide in the back of her stall. And she still, when she got here and realized she was safe. Goodness. She wanted a relationship with Mara. I mean, she was about nothing else initially, immediately.
- [12:46]
C
Yeah. It Wasn't like this transition over several weeks or months. It was immediately one and not. And it happens with virtually every elephant. They are looking for that bond, that relationship, that bond.
- [12:58]
A
Going back to the topic of empathy, one thing that I definitely admire elephants for, and maybe that is one of the traits that makes them so close to human nature, I say, is their ability to grieve. We have these photos or these documentaries of especially African elephants coming across bones and tusks of deceased relatives. And also how you experienced your elephants. Maya when Gyda passed, Hana when Ramba passed, and then Giju and Pocha pass. So can you tell us more about the. Maybe the stories again of how elephants process grief?
- [13:40]
B
I mean, I think it's just like people. Everybody processes it differently. You know, some can go through it with grace and others, I don't know that they ever fully heal. And we see the same thing with elephants which. The examples you gave. I mean, Maya was the one, I think, that struggled the most. You know, when we were in Tennessee and Shirley and Jenny. Jenny died and everybody kind of had this expectation that Shirley would fall apart and she didn't, which is great. But her and Bunny bonded while Jenny was down. And then it was when Bunny passed away that Shirley really was affected in the way we expected her to. When Jenny passed away and she didn't want any elephants to come and socialize with her, she would leave and we could be around her, but not super close. But she seemed to want someone there at a distance, just in that space. And with Maya, she just emotionally closed down for sure, I think. And this is, of course, putting human stuff on them and not fully, but how we saw it, you know, they spent 40 something years together and had a terrible relationship. Maya was the one who was dominant. She would knock her down, she would beat her up. They came here and within 24 hours, they were a completely different pair. Gita was able to forgive, move on. And I think I would assume that there is a fair bit of sadness associated with the fact that you had a very poor relationship with this being for decades, and then, you know, they allow this friendship. And compared to the 40 years, 45 years before, where your relationship was terrible, I mean, it was a really short time for them to be so close and for her to open herself up and feel what that type of friendship felt like. And as we all know, when you have really beneficial and wonderful emotions, when you lose those, the pain is substantial and she definitely closed down.
- [15:41]
A
So what is it with elephants or African elephants? I've only Seen the documentary African elephants touching remains of other elephants tusks and bones. What does that tell us about memory and bonds? Are they able to smell who it is? What does science say?
- [15:57]
C
Honestly don't know, Nadia. I mean, for me as an individual in this, I live in a world where I don't feel I need to know all those answers. You know, sometimes drives people crazy here. You know, it's like I don't absolutely need to know exactly what's going on with an elephant. We have an idea, you know, we can't possibly know what's going on in their brains, you know, so if we're trying to get a pinpoint answer, then we're actually sometimes searching too hard instead of it just being a generalization of. It's impressive to watch what goes on with them. It's impressive to see that they actually. You can see the change in their vibe. You can see the change in their pace. You can see all those things. What's exactly going through their head? Do they know it's somebody that they have from their family? I honestly don't know. There may be research out there. Respect thing could be because we've even seen it with, you know, with going back to Tennessee. I don't think I've seen it here that I recall where there was a. The remains of a deer after some coyotes had killed the deer one night and the elephants came across it and there was initial like excitement, you know, like. Because like hyperstimulation, all the smells, everything else is relatively new for elephants that have been in a captive space. But then there was an immediately following that, a level of reverence for what transpired and you could see that change and that quiet. Clearly it's not a relative of theirs, you know, is it just because they're recognizing that this is something, an individual, a sacred individual that had passed. Does it have to be an elephant? Do they do that with other bones? You know, they might do it with other carcasses as well. So, you know, we don't really know that for sure. But for me, I think irrelevant to the exact still going show. Going to show their complexity and their understanding and that shift of energy that you see to have reverence for the moment.
- [17:49]
A
So we had one supporter. He's a member of the Facebook group, your independent Facebook group, Friends of Global Sanctuary for Elephant Greg. He said he'd like to know. He did ask about the topic of grief, but he also asked about this mystical knowing that elephants seem to have that they can move in the night undetected. And I remember you talking about Barbara was an elephant at Tess, who I think it was a couple of weeks before she died, seem to spend time with each individual elephant. I'll say, saying goodbye, quote unquote, or Ramba who lived life. I think the nine months she was with you, it was like nine years. She left poor Hana behind while she was out there discovering the sanctuary or pocha. When she came, she was. She wasn't well, but we all didn't know how. How unwell she was, how sick she was. She stepped back and let. Let Gigi take the lead and make friends and build those bonds. So is that just like anthropoformism? Do elephants really know things or sense things? What is your experience with over 45 years with elephants? Is there that mystical.
- [19:03]
C
Well, I'm not quite old enough for 45 years yet. I'm getting there, you know, over 35 years. Between both of you. Okay, okay. Between both of us. Okay, that works.
- [19:12]
B
I will say one quick thing. Before Scott goes in whatever direction he's going, I don't know that I would label it as mystical. I think again, going back to what Scott touched on earlier, there is just a connection to each other, to nature, to everything surrounding them that they haven't lost like humans have. So I don't. I mean, I don't know what you would call it, but I think there is just this awareness, could connectedness that they have that we can't really fathom at this point because we're so far removed from it, or at least most people.
- [19:49]
C
Yeah. So herding cats now. Yeah. There's so many different directions to go with this. First off, you know, you mentioned, is it anthropomorphism to. To label this way? I think it's just an observation. And we put those observations into terms that we can communicate with each other. So we're trying to communicate what we are seeing. I'm not putting that on them. I'm not trying to define what it is in a absolute term. You know, that may be adding human qualities to it. But we have to speak words that we are familiar with. And so we're speaking to humans about this human to human conversation about an observation that we see is vastly different than what I would say, anthropomorphism of labeling behavior as a specific emotion. What we can do is very generalize. This is what we see. You know, Barbara, she just seemed to have a way of knowing what life was going to bring. She changed everyone that entered her path. Elephants and humans. She had a Huge impact on everybody. And she's just one of those individuals that seem to have a sense of knowing. Can we prove that? No.
- [20:59]
B
It was just like people. I mean, sometimes you meet somebody who could be 12 and just has this feeling of being a really old soul or having this presence about them where you're like. You feel like you could be this 80 year old, you know, old man with the knowledge of an entire lifetime in this little body. And, you know, we get the same feeling from certain elephants. Gita was another one. She felt like she was so connected to everything and just had this understanding of everything that you can't really. You can't really comprehend or explain.
- [21:37]
C
So let's talk a little bit about Barbara, which may eat up all this episode in the next one as well. Barb's Barbara wasn't that much time, but we can extended version here. You know, the. She's just magic. There were several stories of her long before she passed away. One time, Sissy had crossed the creek for the first time. Did not have confidence to cross back, come back across the creek. Two inches of water a couple meters wide. But she could not get herself to go across the creek again. And we tried.
- [22:10]
B
Sissy did almost drown in her days at the zoo in a big flood. So she had reasons that she had a fear of water.
- [22:17]
C
We can go into the extended, extended version and talk about Sissy as well and all that it took to do that. But the really beautiful part about this is she's. Sissy is several hundred meters from the barn, several hundred yards from the barn. And Sissy was on her way back. It's getting dark. We had a really good relationship with Sissy. She'd followed me all over the place, but she would not follow me back across with the four wheeler, with food, with, you know, whatever. She would not come back across the creek. And you could tell she wanted to. She'd almost build up the courage and like go up to the water's edge and then just stop. And Barbara, without any request from us and completely unexpected, Barbara comes out of the barn, down the hill, over to Sissy, crosses the creek in front of Sissy, stands in front of sissy for just 30 seconds, turns around, goes back, and Sissy follows Barbara across the creek and back to the barn. This happened another time with Bunny. We can talk about Bunny for years also.
- [23:19]
A
Oh, she was the one who had nosebleeds because she was so excited.
- [23:25]
C
Bunny was, um. She actually slipped into the creek because she was sleeping and her friends got up. Her friends not Very good friends at the time. Got up and went back to the barn and left her. And she woke up from her nap and she was in the field on her own. And Barbara, same thing. And Barbara had not spent very much time with Bunny at that point. Barbara was a great, solitary wanderer. She went, she did interact with everybody. She was all over that property, all on her own, same thing. And even further away from the barn at night, came across, went down into the creek bed, went up to Bunny, turned around, and Bunny followed her right back in. So it's twice that she kind of had that type of behavior. Who knows what other type of magical things she did for the other girls on the way. And she had already started a shift. She wasn't wondering as much. She started having edemas in her body. She had a lot of swelling. Everything seemed to be slowing down a little bit. But we did not know that she was close to passing. But we saw this change where she was then interacting with all of the elephants more. We just thought it was a change in her behavior. She was interacting with all the elephants more. And then she was pulling one elephant to the side each day. And over the two weeks before she passed away, she pulled one elephant and then next day another elephant and the next day another elephant. And that happened over a two week period. And then she ended up, you know, declining rapidly and passed away. And then you stand back, wonder. It's like, was that intentional? As intentional as she lived her life, as influential as she was, as impactful as she was for all of us as humans, but with the behavior that we saw with other elephants, it just raises the question of was there more to this than we initially thought and was this an intentional saying goodbye? We don't know. But it's a behavior that we have never seen and it's an elephant that we know had a level of wisdom that was truly undefinable.
- [25:31]
A
Yeah. Oh, beautiful. Yeah, we are running out of time. Sorry. I'm the timekeeper as well. So, yeah, we could talk for. For ages, but that is what this series is about. You know, taking a step away from day to day happenings at the sanctuary. Taking a broader look and, yeah, picking your brains and pulling all the expertise and all the memories and all the beautiful stories you have. So in our next podcast, we can, yeah, maybe talk more about. About the knowing, the sense, and also then slowly move on to the topic of communication, which is a huge. A huge topic which we might spend maybe one or two episodes on. So what have you got planned for the rest of the day before we get cut off. I've asked you that for ages.
- [26:19]
C
Caregiver training and normally on Saturdays we do a sit down roundtable discussion. Talk about different things, different topics, different elements. Sometimes about individual people and then sometimes about general elephant care, all kinds of. So I have actually no idea what topic they're going to bring to the table today. So we'll see what that is.
- [26:38]
B
The caregivers pick the topic. So okay, that's not determined most of the time.
- [26:44]
C
Sometimes we throw something in their lap and then later on this evening we have a evening chat with our pathfinders. Our pathfinders are monthly donors. I believe that it starts at $10 a month and so once a, I think it's once a year we offer a for those pathfinders they can join us for an evening chat where the pathfinders send a bunch of questions before and then we try to answer as many of those as we can and
- [27:11]
B
they always come up with questions during as well. I think both of years last year we went over because there was like when we were supposed to be done there was like four questions left. So we tried to quote unquote rush through those which never works super well. But we try to get to everybody's questions and people end up asking different questions while we're talking because as is our typical type of conversation you go in different directions and then that makes people think about other questions. So it's fun, it's a chance to
- [27:39]
C
just get that more intimate conversation that we don't normally get to have and it's actually really enjoyable for everybody I think. I know we enjoy it and then normally it's at sunset or just before sunset so you can watch the sun go down over the hills and watch everything change throughout the sanctuary. However, we have lots of cloud cover today and lots of rain so we may not have a sunset but we should have a nice chat nonetheless.
- [28:02]
B
I know this year for the first time they did more of a push for getting people signed up for Pathfinders so they had different gifts and bonuses for different levels of signing up for pathfinders. I don't know what those rewards are. I know some of it was hats or totes and other things and I'll
- [28:25]
A
check the emails and I'll put it in the, put the link into the show notes regarding that pathfinder because yeah, $10 a month is very fair, very reasonable and yeah, the supporters have the wonderful one hour chat with you.
- [28:37]
B
Yeah, we had a supporter actually put forward the money for all of the gifts. So none of that is coming out of the Sanctuary's pocket. That was all taken care of by a supporter. And it's the same supporter who agreed to match any of the sign up gifts. So if somebody decides they want to do $10 a month, it turns into 20 because of her.
- [29:00]
A
Oh, that's wonderful.
- [29:01]
B
Yeah.
- [29:02]
A
Okay.
- [29:02]
B
Very nice.
- [29:03]
A
Fantastic. Okay, I'll let you go. We've only got two minutes before we do get cut off, so. Yeah, have a. Have a lovely rest of your afternoon and we'll catch up whenever your time permits for the next podc.
- [29:14]
C
Sounds good, Nadia. Thank you very much. It's always a pleasure.
- [29:17]
B
Bye, Nadia.
- [29:18]
A
Okay, bye. As we wrap up this week's episode, a reminder that you can stay up to date with current events at the Sanctuary by following GSE on their various social media channels. You'll find all the details in the show notes or directly on their website, global elephants.org. thank you so much for your support and until we meet up for our next episode. Take care,
- [29:44]
C
Sam.