Our World and Everything in It

This is a self portrait by an elephant. Catch the video on the You Tube link below. The picture was light and I had to go over the lines and couldn’t do it very well and I am an artist! Elephant painting is not new. There is Surapa of the Buffalo Zoo who paints, and quite well, although abstract and contemporary, and Lucky of Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs who paints well enough to be showcased in galleries. But this latest elephant painting is a little unsettling, and should make us reconsider our attitude toward animals, especially the needless slaughter of what we deem expendable because they are supposedly inferior to us.

Many earlier explanations about animals being  inferior to humans are slowly being dispelled. For instance, the idea that an animal doesn’t recognize itself in a mirror. It supposedly thinks it’s another animal. But,  I watched Good Morning America not long ago preview another elephant whose trainer put a white paint mark on its head. When the elephant looked in a mirror later on, it immediately went to a nearby wooden fence and tried to rub it off. As far as animals not having feelings, I watched a whole herd of elephants gather around the mother of a dead baby elephant that was lying at her feet, their trunks hanging down in mourning. They stood together for a long time. Another excuse for inferiority is relative to language. Apes have successfully learned sign language to communicate with humans, and Alex the African Grey parrot was phenomenal for not only stating what something was, but also the color, and composition of the object. Poor Alex died not long ago. As I write this my African Grey, Curtis, is trying to put a hole in my sweatshirt. He calls me Ree’rah for Ria. It sounds like Astro, the dog on the Jetsons, is saying my name. Having a pet that calls you by name feels way too human. I honestly think that by treating animals with a little more respect we too could become more human again. It’s called a reverence for life.

As an English major, I had the pleasure to run across some mighty powerful classic short stories about animals. One of the most poignant stories I read was particularly relative to elephants. I don’t really want to read it again because of the intense description at the end of the story. Take the time to read ”Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell. It’s short and powerful enough to bring up many ethical questions. When I think that elephants have been slaughtered for their tusks only, slaughtered because they stepped on coffee plants in a plantation that robbed them of most of their habitat, abused in circuses, given poor living conditions in many zoos because they need to belong to a large herd, like a society, not just in pairs, I have to wonder who the inferior species is sometimes. We’re supposed to have the big brains, and a conscience that leads to a big heart. But I’m not seeing a lot of that lately.

Read “Shooting an Elephant” : http://www.elephantcountryweb.com/Elliestories.html#Shooting%20an%20Elephant

About Surapa: http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/NYBUFsurapa.html

About Lucky: http://www.cmzoo.org/elephantart.html

You Tube video of self portrait painting elephant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po1KEPz43AE&feature=related