In August, the Guardian Unlimited reported on an elephant love story. It’s a short piece, so I’ll quote it in its entirety:
It’s a very traditional love story — just on a bigger scale than usual. A tame female elephant has fled an Indian circus after eloping with a wild bull elephant that broke open a gate and led her off into the jungle, her distraught handler said today.
“I brought up Savitri since she joined the circus two decades ago,” Kalimudddin Sheikh, who unsuccessfully tried to lure his charge away from her new beau, added.
The wild male, who wildlife officials believe was probably in musth — the periodic condition in which bull elephants seek to mate — turned up at the travelling circus when it stopped in the village of Kumar Bazar, in West Bengal state, yesterday. It broke into an enclosure and led Savitri into the jungle, with the pair being followed by three other female elephants in the same pen. Their trumpeting alerted circus workers, who led them back.
Savitri’s mind, however, seemed made up. According to one forestry official, she was last seen bathing with the bull in a jungle pond. When handlers called for Savitri to come to them, she looped her trunk around the bull’s leg and “he protectively shielded her like in a Bollywood blockbuster,” the official said.
The forestry department said it would continue to monitor the pair to ensure they did not cause any damage.
Anyone who has spent a lot o time around animals knows that they show individual preferences for one person (or animal) over another. On a basic level, our cats and dogs prefer one family member to other family members. But as my past entries on interspecies friendships have shown, there’s more to it than that. Is it emotion? Is it instinctual? Is it an actual conscious preference?
[Guardian Unlimited: Jumbo romance]
Great story!
I do believe that it’s genuine affection between animals, just as people find themselves attracted to or preferring the company of certain people over others.
Informative site. I’m bookmarking this. Amusing about the “damage” those two might cause!
I volunteered at a zoo back in the late ’70’s doing behavioral observations. I spent an hour each week watching elephants. The first week I watched the bull and a cow who it was hoped would become pregnant. The were cooped up together inside to get acquainted and do the deed. She was very disinterested in him. He was gentle, interested and persistent, using his trunk to stroke her and sniff her. Nothing more happened in that hour. The following week, I observed the same two animals plus another female. My supervisor told me she was an experienced female who understood sex and might be useful in getting the reluctant young girl to mate w/ the bull. She was a flirty little thing. She and the bull twined their trunks around portions of each other’s bodies, they sniffed privates, they seemed to enjoy one another. The reluctant youngster, however, stood aside and virtually glared at the couple. During the hour I observed, the sexy couple attempted to copulate on three different occasions. Each time the couple was near an enormous door which had been outfitted w/ a car wash for the elephants to bathe when the mood struck them. A giant ring across the room had to be pulled to activate the car wash. The reluctant youngster stood by the ring watching the happy couple intensely. As soon as they amorously moved within reach of the carwash, young missy would pull the chain, douse the lovers, and the 5 foot long erection would disappear. She did this three times. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The following week I again observed for an hour. The experienced ‘older woman’ was gone. Little Miss Reluctance and the bull were having a ball with each other.
Thats incredible! Elephants are amazing!