THE MAJESTIC, THE HIGHLY INTELLIGENT, AND HIGHLY ENDANGERED AFRICAN ELEPHANT

"Elephants, the animal that surpasses all in wit and mind." --- Aristotle

"The word 'ivory' hung in the air, was whispered, was sighed .  You would think they were praying to it."  --- The Heart of Darkness,
Joseph Conrad      




Elephant in Ngorongoro Crater                                            Ainslie Sheridan copyright 2016


       The first time I ever came close to a live elephant was in Bethpage, Long Island, where I spent most of my childhood.  It was the day the circus came to town.  Norman Rockwellian images of horses sporting plumes, dogs doing tricks, and elephants on parade all filled my head.   I remember walking into the tent where the elephants were kept.  Eating hay, they were wearing beautiful, custom made leather head harnesses.  I did not notice the chains that kept them in place; I'd like to think that was because they were concealed in the deep sawdust footing.

       That night as the magnificent pachyderms entered the Big Top I could not help but notice that most had open sores behind their ears. These were caused by the terrible bullhook their handlers carried.  These awful instruments designed for brutal control are now banned in California.   They should be banned worldwide. 

      Fast forward sixty years from that distressing Big Top day to the present.  Yes, it has taken this long for the largest circus in the U.S., Ringling Brothers, to announce that by the end of May 2016 it would no longer feature elephants in its shows. The tide of public opinion has risen.  People now no longer wish to see a twenty-minute act of elephants performing unnatural behaviors, enforced by bullhooks and electric cattle prods. Box office receipts had started to dry up. It's always about money, isn't it?  Only when Sea World felt monetary effects of Black Fish detailing the grim reality of life as an orca in captivity did its managers decide to put a stop to their breeding programs and shows.  

        The circus elephants will return to the Ringling farm in Florida, where some of them had been born and all had been trained.  However, while the elephants' suffering will be reduced, it will not have ended.  Elephants at the farm spend more than twelve hours a day chained to a concrete floor.  All suffer from resultant leg ailments or injuries.  One baby was found with two of its legs broken due to these chains. Another baby drowned in a pond in an attempt to flee his bullhook toting "trainer."  These elephants will now serve as lab animals in the study of pediatric cancer.  It seem elephants rarely get cancer due to a gene they carry.

       In Tanzania I was so lucky to see elephants in their natural habitat, and so tolerant of our proximity, too.  They seemed to know that those people in Land Rovers and Jeeps meant them no harm.
    
      Here a herd of mothers and babies is on the move.  Though at a considerable distance it was breathtaking:




       It wouldn't be long before we had numerous opportunities to get up close and almost too personal with them.  A few days later our three Land Rovers stopped so we could watch a mother with her three babies cross the savannah:


                                                 Ainslie Sheridan copyright 2016 



                                                                                                                     Ainslie Sheridan copyright 2016 

        She soon changed course and headed directly toward us.  Only two of her offspring are visible in the shot below.  The third is somewhere in that tall grass.  The cow's flaring ears indicate that she's displeased by our presence.


                                                                                                                    Ainslie Sheridan copyright 2016 


       She continued unafraid and resolute as she approached the Land Rover:



        Crossing   directly in front of the vehicle, she turned her head, flaring her ears and flinging her trunk in our direction. 

        Here's further evidence of just how unafraid they were.  This little fellow, eldest of his siblings, continued his meal no more than fifteen feet away, and a good thirty feet behind his mother and siblings:



       The next day our friends in one of the other Rovers had an even closer visit from a curious adolescent.  It required the guide to back up carefully:



       Freddie, our guide that day, later showed me a dent in our vehicle caused by a young elephant who simply enjoyed rocking it back and fourth on its chassis until the driver could safely back away.

      Elephants can be mischievous.  This cow is amusing herself by sending a Grant's gazelle packing:

       Poaching, as I wrote in an earlier entry, is a terrible problem in Africa, particularly Tanzania, which holds one quarter of Africa's elephants. One hundred thousand elephants have been killed in the past three years on the African continent. Poachers are armed with deadly force.  In spring 2016 a poacher shot and killed a British national on an anti-poaching mission.  Circling his helicopter to get a look at an elephant that had just been killed, poachers hiding in the brush shot him. He died shortly after landing.   Those involved, including the man who fired the gun, have been arrested and will serve from thirty years to life.  

       You'd think that the prospect of stiff sentences would deter these nefarious people.  However, on the black market a single pound of ivory sells for fifteen hundred dollars.  The average annual salary in Tanzania is five hundred and seventy dollars. Bribery of nearby villagers, as well as of officials who inspect cargo and luggage, is rampant.  The thugs who lace waterholes with cyanide, or inject it into pumpkins, a favorite treat of elephants, are highly trained, heavily armed, and usually part of a large criminal network.  They target elephants with the largest tusks, the older bulls and matriarchs, robbing herds of their leaders and its corporate memory, leaving each herd with traumatized orphans. It has been proven that elephants who go on rampages in circuses and zoos have, in almost all cases, witnessed their mothers, aunts, or others in their family group ruthlessly massacred, their bodies plundered. 

       Al Shabab, the Al Qaida offshoot operating out of Somalia, raises 600,000 dollars annually in its ivory operations.  The other major income source is selling and enslaving the children they have kidnapped, children who, like the elephants, have witnessed the murder of their parents.  Human slavery, environmental damage, and the exploitation of mothers and children, human and in the wild, are often connected in a dirty nexus of crime and illicit trade.

       The market for ivory is primarily the economically ascendant and burgeoning middle class in China, a class eager to demonstrate wealth and status.  Chinese diplomats visiting Tanzania shipped thousands of kilos of ivory tusks illegally back to China. Their rank as diplomats allows them to pass through Tanzanian customs without having their luggage inspected. 
       
      
         Elephant Graveyards, Do They Exist?

        The notion of an elephant graveyard has been called a myth but, like most myths, there is a nugget of truth in its origin.  Our guide Freddie told me that elephants whose teeth have worn down with years of chewing seek out areas with the softest grass.  And so it is, that when they finally die of starvation for failure to chew the food, or the ravages of old age, or at the hand of poachers, it is often in the soft grass that they die. This photo is of an elephant femur which was one among many bones on this soft patch.  You can see the grass is fine and soft.  Our guide told us that elephants often visit these sites and will spend time there, mostly near skulls belonging to former friends and close relatives.

 

       Not far from these bones was this grand and ancient fellow, below.  He reminded me of wise old Cornelius in the Babar books.  What tusks! This location will probably be his final resting place, but  I hope not for a long while. 



Stories of Elephant Altrusim, Empathy, Grief, and Love 

     A baby, together with his mother and aunt, wandered too close to a strange herd.  To demonstrate their ire at this intrusion the herd kidnapped the baby, preventing his return to his mother and aunt with their tusks and trunks. Though his two relatives tried to get him back, they were no match for the herd.  They finally left, giving up the distraught baby.  Or so it seemed. Within an hour, mother and aunt returned with their herd, charged the kidnappers, and rescued the baby.

       The matriarch of a herd charged a farm hand in Kenya and knocked him to the ground.  Leg broken and in a great deal of pain, he could not stand.  The elephant determined she'd caused him enough damage, turned, and left him to suffer in the hot sun.  When he failed to return to the farm that evening, a search party was sent out.  It wasn't until the next day that they spotted him lying under a tree, a female elephant standing by.  When they tried to get close the elephant charged their vehicle.  The men resorted to firing shots over her head, which finally frightened her off.  The farm hand told his rescuers that the elephant had come across him the previous afternoon, picked him up in her tusks, placed him under the shade of the tree, and stood guard over him through the night and into the next day.  

      In another instance, a female elephant spotted a baby rhino stuck in the mud.  Though the rhino's mother repeatedly charged, the elephant did not leave until she'd lifted the small rhino to safety.

       In Kenya George Adamson, husband of Joy Adamson, the author of Born Free, after exhausting all other options, had to shoot a bull elephant because of its destructive and dangerous behavior.  The elephant's meat was distributed to local villagers.  Adamson dragged the carcass a half mile away.  The next day those remains, covered in dirt and branches, were found in exactly the same place that the elephant had been shot.  A herd had returned and given the bull a proper elephant burial.

       Elephants can communicate with each other at distances up to fifty miles, and it is also thought that they can feel and evaluate earth's seismic behavior.  A full hour before the 2004 tsumami hit, elephants in Thailand broke from their chains and headed inland away from the beach.  Four year-old Ning Nong escaped her handler moments before the tsunami struck, taking off with her eight-year-old passenger Heather Mason. Here is a link to a re-creation of the event:             
        http://www.bigwavetv.com/productions/hero-animals-the-elephant-that-rescued-the-girl/

       This is another YouTube you might like.  A herd of elephants are rescuing a baby from a muddy waterhole:

       While this link contains information about how elephants https://

     While this youtube gives you audio sounds:  XXXX




       Several years ago I'd read in some book (I'm sorry I cannot remember its name) the story of a mahout trainer and his elephant in India. At the end of their workday of moving logs, the mahout would ride his elephant to a local outdoor bar and drink himself into oblivion.  When he fell off his stool, which he invariably did, the elephant would gently scoop him up in his tusks and carry him to his home placing him at his front door.

       By far the most extraordinary tale I've read about a human's relationship with elephants was in of a book by Lawrence Anthony entitled The Elephant Whisperer.  Mr. Anthony adopted a small herd of unwanted "rogue" elephants that no one wanted and that were slated to be shot.  Here is a short YouTube XXXXXX narrated by his wife:

               In his book, Anthony describes the extraordinary sixth sense demonstrated by the elephants he saved.  He occasionally traveled by plane from his Thula Thula Game Preserve outside of Durban.  Once he was at the airport about to return, the herd started for his home in order to greet him.  One time, however, at the exact moment Mr. Anthony learned that his flight was canceled, the elephants stopped their trek towards his house and returned to where they had been grazing.

       Sadly, a few years ago Mr. Anthony died unexpectedly of a heart attack while standing in his garden.  He was in his early sixties.  Incredibly,
the elephants, who now formed two herds, started walking towards Mr. Anthony's house shortly after his death.  They had not been there for well over a year.  People who saw it described the marches as two somber and resolute processions.  It took the elephants over twelve hours.  When they arrived they went to the garden, to the exact spot their savior and friend fell.  They remained in the garden for two days grieving.  

      How did they know?  There were no elephants near the house the day of Mr. Anthony's death, so there could not have been any inter-elephant low frequency rumbling.  Perhaps someday the biologists and behaviorists will find the scientific answer to extraordinary events such as this. Perhaps they  never will.  Maybe, just maybe, we will have to be satisfied the wisdom of seventeenth century French poet and mathematician Blaise Pascal:  "Le coeur as ses raisons que la raison ne connais pas." ("The heart has its reasons which reason does not know.")

    Thank you for reading The Windflower Weekly--

      Ainslie



Sources

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140818-elephants-africa-poaching-cites-census/

http://www.wild-facts.com/2009/interesting-stories-true-altruism/

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/01/160201-roger-gower-elephants-poaching-tanzania-/

http://www.peta.org/features/ringling-bros-elephant-cruelty/

http://www.animals24-7.org/2016/01/11/ringling-to-move-all-elephants-from-the-circus-ring-into-cancer-research-by-may-2016/

http://www.amazon.com/Elephant-Whisperer-Life-Herd-African-ebook/dp/B0050Q5WYS/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1459897682&sr=1-1&keywords=the+elephant+whisperer

http://www.elephantsforever.co.za/elephant-altruism.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeTk7KeVj5U

LINKS YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN:

http://www.thecloudfoundation.org/

http://www.mustangheritagefoundation.org

http://www.amazon.com/Trophies-An-Equestrian-Romance-ebook/dp/B00998J2B2

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-kaleidoscope-pony-ainslie-sheridan/1114272809?ean=2940015948592

http://windflowerfarmgiftsforani.smugmug.com

https://www.pinterest.com/Dollydressage

http://www.facebook.com/YonkersShelter

https://www.etsy.com/shop/WINDFLOWERDIGITALART

http://www.thomsonsafaris.com/

A VISIT WITH MAASAI CHILDREN IN THEIR VILLAGE

       Our group met these children while visiting a Maasai village not far from our Eastern Serengeti Nyumba (tents).  You met William, the Thomson Safari Maasai liaison, in my last entry when we went to a Maasai crafts market.  These children in their collage of dirty western and native clothing were initially quite shy.  I sat down on the ground and through hand signals asked a little boy if I could take his photo.

      He seemed not to mind, and as soon as I showed him his image in the LCD screen, his face changed from polite, cautious curiosity to surprise and delight.  The other children rushed forward to have a look.


 
                                                                                                                               Ainslie Sheridan copyright 2016 
      
      Now they all wanted their pictures taken.  Here are some:

                                                                                                        Ainslie Sheridan copyright 2016

                                                                                    

                                                                                                     Ainslie Sheridan copyright 2016

                                                                                                    Ainslie Sheridan copyright 2016 

       The darling girl below let me carry her about the village.  Note that the fabric of her clothing is a skier motif.   Eighty percent of the clothing Tanzanians wear are donations and resales from the United States and Europe:

      


       Adorable as she was, she, like the other children, was very dirty.  I took the above just after I brushed the flies off her face.  Seconds later they were back:

        No amount of brushing and swatting could keep the flies of this mucousy boy:

                                                                                                         Ainslie Sheridan copyright 2016



       Why on earth, I wondered, didn't their parents seemed troubled by the number of flies landing on their children?  And why were there so many flies to begin with?  I've been to lots of farms in my life and had never seen so many.  Certainly, they lived with a lot of livestock.  At night all animals are herded into the boma, a thorny fence surrounding the village to keep it safe from predators.  The youngest calves, goats, and sheep are brought into the mud homes and kept under elevated beds. These beds, by the way, are made of an assemblage of small branches.  None of us could have imagined lying awake, much less sleeping, on them for any length of time.

       During the visit I inadvertently became a source of laughter for several Maasai women. One of the numerous dogs, all thin, all in need, began to bark, while one of the women, through William, was explaining the set-up of the village to our group.  Another woman picked up a stick and began to beat the dog, which cried out, trying to make amends for whatever he might have done wrong by adopting a submissive posture.  I ran between the stick and the yelping dog and shouted, "No!" The Maasai women found this very funny.  I did not.  One of my group members attempted to calm me down by informing me that the people of Africa and Asia have a different attitude towards dogs.  You think?  I told her I didn't care.

      After dodging a final blow, the poor, emaciated dog ran off, so I resumed taking pictures.  At the same time, I noticed that the pervasive village dirt on every foot path and cleared area, was light brown.  Yet, in every other place that I had driven through or flown over, the soil was more orange because of its high ferrous content.  What accounted for the change?  It had to be dried cow, sheep, and goat dung.  The houses they lived in were made of thatch, manure, and cattle urine.  The Maasai were nomadic.  They traveled the plains of southern Kenya and northern Tanzania seeking fresh pasture for their herds.  As I mentioned in my previous entry, the Maasai would move onto new pasture, but not before they set fire to the depleted pasture.  This allowed new grass to grow again.  It surely also killed many of the parasites that their herds left behind in their dung.  The previous, completely nomadic life of the Maasai had to have been considerably more hygienic than it is now.

       These days the Maasai are adapting to a changing world.  The Serengeti in Tanzania and Kenya, and the Maasai Moro in Kenya, principal areas where the Maasai had previously moved freely, have been declared national parks.  The Maasai are no longer permitted to take their animals there.  Ngorongoro, an area with the greatest concentration of large, diverse animal wildlife in the world, does allow different tribes to use the area in a limited manner.  Individual villages must take turns guiding their livestock into the grass-rich crater.   Here are some villagers returning after the end of the day:


Ngorongoro Returning Herd                                                          Ainslie Sheridan copyright 2016 

      The Maasai pastoralists are most affected by Tanzania's burgeoning population and a government that successfully uses eco-tourism as a way to improve its economy.  In addition to their herds, the Maasai now raise guinea fowl and ostriches.  They growing a variety of crops including maize and red beans.  Hopefully, their health is improving with these changes.  

       The Tanzanian government is trying hard to discourage children from begging, and Thomson Safaris made it clear to us in their literature that it is not helpful to give candy to children holding out their palms as drove along various roads.  The prospect of sweets have caused children to miss school or even leave their herds unguarded.  These two Maasai boys were a case in point.  Our Land Rover got a flat as we traveled the road to Serengeti National Park.  These young men had not wasted any time coming down from the pasture to hold out their palms, but then decided that sweets were not forthcoming.

                                               Ainslie Sheridan copyright 2016


       
       However, we had opportunities to give in more constructive ways.  For instance, after a tour of the Maasai school, we followed the headmaster to his office where members of our group lined up to donate the calculators, pens, pencils, and notebooks that we had brought with us.  This certainly was a help, but the students need so much more.  The school was critically understaffed, and the Tanzanian government would not send any teachers to the school until the local villages had built housing for them.  It seems to me that if a government requires its children to attend school, it should supply the facilities to enable them to do so. 

        Maasai children have obstacles to gaining an education.  First, some Maasai don't see the applicability of a conventional curriculum to their daily lives.  What many believe that they need to learn is taught in the village by the elders.  They must learn to be good warriors and herdsman (the boys), good builders of fences and homes (the women).  Secondly, the children often live too far from even local schools to attend.  Some students at the school we saw walked over four miles each way.  

       On the way back to our nyumba I asked William why mothers, or the children themselves, didn't brush the flies away.  This is what he said:  

       "The cow is sacred to the Maasai.  Anything that comes from it is good.  Their blood and milk feed us,  our villages are constructed from cow dung and cow urine.  The flies that come out of that dung are therefore good, too."

       "So when the mothers saw me constantly brushing the flies of their children's faces, they thought I was crazy?"

        "Yes, crazy."  William paused then added, "Absolutely and completely crazy."

Stand by for my next Tanzanian entry, and thank you for reading The Windflower Weekly --

       Ainslie

LINKS YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN:

http://www.thecloudfoundation.org/

http://www.mustangheritagefoundation.org

http://www.amazon.com/Trophies-An-Equestrian-Romance-ebook/dp/B00998J2B2

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-kaleidoscope-pony-ainslie-sheridan/1114272809?ean=2940015948592

http://windflowerfarmgiftsforani.smugmug.com

https://www.pinterest.com/Dollydressage

http://www.facebook.com/YonkersShelter

https://www.etsy.com/shop/WINDFLOWERDIGITALART

http://www.thomsonsafaris.com/

Sources:

http://www.thecloudfoundation.org/

http://returntofreedom.org/

http://wildhorsepreservation.org/wild-horses-and-ecosystem

Looking for equine and pet related gifts?  Check out the photo pendants in my Etsy shop and a variety of t-shirts, mugs, travel mugs, on Cafe Press.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/WINDFLOWERDIGITALART

http://www.cafepress.com/windflowerfarmgiftsforanimallovers

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-kaleidoscope-pony-ainslie-sheridan/1114272809?ean=2940015948592

http://www.amazon.com/Trophies-Equestrian-Romance-Ainslie-Sheridan-ebook/dp/B00998J2B2

        

        
       

THE BEAUTIFUL AND REMARKABLE MAASAI

       Most of you have probably already heard of the Maasai people, the majority of whom reside in southern Kenya and northernTanzania.  They are principally pastoralists who moved across the great plains with their cattle, often burning the grasslands behind them to help new pastures emerge for their return.  They are a tall people, many of the men over six feet.  They are also warriors who believe that all cattle in the world have been bestowed upon them by their god Ngai. This has conveniently allowed them to consider anyone else's cattle as their own, though cattle rustling or recovery, whatever you want to call it, is on the wane.

       Our tour group's first encounter with a Maasai was with William, who works as liaison with the local Maasai villages and Thomson Safari at their Eastern Serengeti location:

       William spoke excellent English and, together with another Maasai, gave a brief presentation of the ways of the Maasai.  The following day he took us to the Enjipai Women's Group so that we might purchase some of the Maasai renowned and stunning beadwork.

       Before we were invited into the shopping compound, surrounded by a circular fence of thorn bush and wooden huts for shade, they performed a dance.  I wish I had taken more pictures, but I'm afraid I was too enthralled to think about it. 

       Soon, however, it was down to business:




Here are some examples the beadwork:

Maasai Beadwork                                           Ainslie Sheridan copyright 2016 

Maasai Beadwork                                                          Ainslie Sheridan copyright 2016


       While we were admiring the jewelry, the usual rhythms of Maasai life continued.  This little boy had been sent to fetch water quite a distance from the collaborative: 

Here Maasai teens herd their sheep to pasture:





     Our own adolescent boys on the tour, one American, two Canadians, and a Londoner, did not take any notice of the elaborately crafted beadwork.  Rather, they made a beeline for the tables offering traditional rungas, clubs thrown in warfare.   It is a symbol of the Maasai male's warrior status and is always on his person.  The rungas up for sale were ceremonial, with lovely beadwork woven around them, which did not deter our male adolescent travelers.  Here is a runga, with the de rigueur knife:

                                                               Ainslie Sheridan copyright 2016

       
Bargaining                                                                                Ainslie Sheridan copyright 2016


      I don't enjoy bargaining but it was expected, so I sent Jim into the fray with the items we had selected, two bracelets and some beautiful coasters.  He came out wiping his brow, and said, "These women are not shy, and they are very good at saying, 'No, too low!'" 

      William, Thomson's liaison with the Maasai, told us how vital the development of the Enjipai women's group has been.  A portion of the profit of each item goes to the original maker as well as the community funds.  Those funds are spent on education and healthcare.  In this patriarchal society, that these women bring in cash now gains them additional respect.

       It was a remarkable morning, and we came away with wonderful souvenirs and memories.  In my next entry I'll write about our trip to a Maasai village and the school that some of its children attend.

       Thank you for reading the Windflower Weekly.  See you soon --

                                       Ainslie

LINKS YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN:

http://www.thecloudfoundation.org/

http://www.mustangheritagefoundation.org

http://www.amazon.com/Trophies-An-Equestrian-Romance-ebook/dp/B00998J2B2

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-kaleidoscope-pony-ainslie-sheridan/1114272809?ean=2940015948592

http://windflowerfarmgiftsforani.smugmug.com

https://www.pinterest.com/Dollydressage

http://www.facebook.com/YonkersShelter

https://www.etsy.com/shop/WINDFLOWERDIGITALART

http://www.thomsonsafaris.com/

Sources:

http://www.thecloudfoundation.org/

http://returntofreedom.org/

http://wildhorsepreservation.org/wild-horses-and-ecosystem

Looking for equine and pet related gifts?  Check out the photo pendants in my Etsy shop and a variety of t-shirts, mugs, travel mugs, on Cafe Press.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/WINDFLOWERDIGITALART

http://www.cafepress.com/windflowerfarmgiftsforanimallovers

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-kaleidoscope-pony-ainslie-sheridan/1114272809?ean=2940015948592

http://www.amazon.com/Trophies-Equestrian-Romance-Ainslie-Sheridan-ebook/dp/B00998J2B2

                    

A Safari In Tanzania: Part 2: The Maasai Giraffe

Maasai Giraffe                                       Ainslie Sheridan copyright 2016



       The National Animal of Tanzania, The                           Magnificent Maasai Giraffe

       
       I have seen giraffes at various venues in the United States, and though I always thought them magnificent, I was not prepared for how incredibly magnificent they would be here in Tanzania, their natural environment:

Giraffe Eastern Serengeti                                                       Ainslie Sheridan copyright 2016 

Giraffe Facts:

1.  There are nine subspecies of giraffes. 
      (The one featured in this blog is the Maasai Giraffe)          
           
2.  They are the world's tallest animal.

3.  Just as the white pattern on the tail of the           humpback whale is unique, so too are the markings on any giraffe.
               
4.  You can easily distinguish male from the           female by looking at the head.  The two horn-like   growths or ossicones are larger on the males and smooth at the ends.

       Here is a male:


                                      Ainslie Sheridan copyright 2016        
     
5.  The females, who are smaller, have tufts of hair on their ossicones that look like upside down old-fashioned shaving brushes.  Below is a female calf sporting hers:           


 
                       Ainslie Sheridan copyright 2016    

6.  A cow (female giraffe) gives birth to her six-foot, two hundred pound baby standing up.  Clunk!           
      
7.  You can also tell how dominant a bull giraffe is by how dark his dappling. (I have no idea what the biological mechanism is for this.)  So the fellow on the right would be the boss of the one on the left.  But the bull pictured above the baby photo, being taller, would dominate both.


       

   
8.  Sadly, up to seventy-five percent of giraffe       babies are killed by predators, usually hyenas or lions, in the first months of their lives.

9.  Giraffes need only five to thirty minutes of sleep every twenty-four hours.  Like horses, they can sleep standing up, but they also sometimes lie down, tucking their heads over their hindquarters. 

10.  Giraffes only have seven vertebrae in their
necks enabling tremendous flexibility when eating, fighting, or stretching down to their young. (We humans have five.)

11.  In a number of my photos you will see tick birds on the giraffes.  They not only eat ticks but a number of other annoying parasites.  They also sound an alarm when predators approach.

12.  To keep their twenty-two pound heart from     pumping too much blood up top when they lower their heads, a network of valves keeps the amount steady.

13.  Bull giraffes intertwine and push each other     around with their necks.  In doing this they determine who is stronger, and usually before there is any real whacking, one bull will yield and walk off.  This behavior is referred to as "necking" (a different definition than the one I knew growing up in the '60s.)

14.  A herd of giraffes is appropriately referred to   as a "tower" of giraffes.  Here is one such tower, aligned in a defensive pose because we were getting too close for comfort:

   


                 They weren't terribly upset, however, because they simply left:



     


       Are giraffes in danger?  Currently, the world's oldest and largest conservation network, The International Union For Conservation of Nature or IUCN, classifies the giraffe as "least concern," with the exception of the Rothschild giraffe, which it lists as "endangered."  Indications are, however, that the "least concern" category may soon need to change. 
   




        Like western medical researchers, witch doctors, particularly in Tanzania, also seek to advance their studies to deal with current medical issues.  Many have recently declared that meat from a giraffe's head, as well as marrow from its bones, can cure HIV.  One in eight Tanzanians have HIV, so this is bad news for these calm, sweet creatures.  

       While giraffes are occasionally hunted for their meat, there has been a marked increase in poaching for two reasons, the HIV "cure," and poachers who are living in the bush poisoning or shooting elephants for the illegal ivory trade. Giraffes, so large and defenseless, are easy targets and supply quantities of meat so the poachers can eat well while decimating elephants.  

       Here are two darling babies.  The guides told me they were around eight months old.  They made it out of infancy, so let's hope the government of Tanzania continues to ramp up the fight against poachers so they can live a poacher-free life:




  




                                                Ainslie Sheridan copyright 2016





                                                                     Ainslie Sheridan copyright 216




Natural Giraffemanship?

       In my last entry I hinted that I had tried Natural Horsemanship techniques to the giraffes
at our first Nyumba in the Eastern Serengeti.  I was half-joking, of course:  a giraffe's legs are so long it would simply step out of a round pen even if one magically appeared on the savanna.  I did say, however, "half-joking":  what I did do was manage to approach them as if I were a fellow prey animal rather than a predator.  

       As many of you already know from other blog entries, as well as from personal experience, predators can be identified by their eyes, which are in the front of their heads, as well as by the way they approach their prey.  They move in a straight line and slowly creep, at all times keeping their eyes on the prize.  When they know they are close enough, they explode as if shot out of a cannon and the chase is on.   

       Because we too are predators, whether trying  to shoot with a gun or a camera, we approach an animal in the same way.  We think that by creeping slowly forward we won't scare the creatures we are pursuing.  Our equivalent of going from stalking to exploding is the report of a bullet or the sudden click and whirr of a camera.

      A few years ago I did have an experience applying this to a semi-wild animal--a young male deer here in Acton.  A woman in the next town over raised a fawn as a pet.  Habituated to humans, she became an adult and gave birth to a male fawn who also received the woman's attention.

       I don't know what became of the fawn's mother, but I do know about the baby.  I met him when he was nearly full grown at the local gun club where my son now and again shoots trap.  Looking for food, the little fellow showed up at the club where its members, deer hunters themselves, fed him.  Since someone was always shooting, the deer became not only habituated to gunfire, he recognized it as a dinner bell.

      I thought I might be able to get him to follow me into my horse trailer if I used the Natural Horsemanship approach and retreat method.  I would take a few indirect steps towards him, my eyes down, then retreat.  I then repeated this. After about fifteen minute he allowed me to stand by his side and stroke his neck and shoulder.  Then the magic happened.  When I walked off he followed me.  When I stopped he stopped.

      I never did get him into a trailer.  It would have taken the cooperation of the gun club members, who rightly kept repeating it was against the law.  Also, I didn't know where I could drive him that would keep him safe.  At the time I wasn't aware that loading a deer in a confined space could be the death of it.  If severely frightened, a wild animal can and frequently does die of what is called "broken heart syndrome." Catecholamines, a variety of stress hormone, release into the bloodstream causing the skeletal and cardiac muscles to break down, often resulting in death.  

      The deer continued to show up at the gun club but then he came no more.  One day, as I was riding on a trail about a mile away from there, I saw him.  He was dead, too ravaged by coyotes to tell if he had been shot by hunters.

       However, having had modest success with this poor little guy did give me the courage to try the approach and retreat method with the Serengeti giraffes.  Trying to get near to these grand creatures, nineteen feet tall, felt daunting.  I was also walking a bit away from the tents, something we had been counseled against doing. Well, I wouldn't walk that far away.

       I approached a bull who was munching the top leaves of an acacia tree.   I cast my eyes down and walked on a diagonal, stopped, backed up, and repeated my approach on a different diagonal:



        After a brief pause he walked around the tree, continuing to wrap his long tongue over the leaves, managing to avoid the terrible thorns.  He looked at me with his beautiful calm eyes and then resumed munching:




I watched him for quite a while before ambling closer:



                                                             Ainslie Sheridan copyright 2016



       He was soon joined by a compatriot.  I was quite close, so I could aim my camera up at those gorgeous curious heads:


                                                     Ainslie Sheridan copyright 2016   

      I wondered what would happen if I sat down on the grass.  The larger bull came out from behind the acacia tree and walked towards me:


       
Then closer:

       

      Okay, that was close enough to those powerful legs and neck.  I stood  up.  He thought it close enough, too, because as soon as I stood up:

 .
      
(Dressage people, don't you think that's the start of a lovely pirouette?  A giraffe walk is a pace with two legs moving on one side then the other two legs on the other side.  I didn't get to see a trot, but this bull's canter had plenty of suspension. )

       Discretion, it was decided by both of us, was the better part of valor: 




      I returned to my husband who had been watching my interactions with the giraffes and was on the verge of asking a guide to hop in 
a Land Rover to retrieve me.  After a lovely dinner I had a lovely sleep.   My hope is that every day and night will be without fear for these magnificent, gentle animals.  I know that is a vain wish and unlikely, but it is my hope:



       My next blog entry will focus  on the Maasai I met, their history, customs, and how they are navigating the changing world around them.

       Thanks you for reading The Windflower Weekly.


       See you soon --
             
                      Ainslie

                      



            

LINKS YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN:

http://www.thecloudfoundation.org/

http://www.mustangheritagefoundation.org

http://www.amazon.com/Trophies-An-Equestrian-Romance-ebook/dp/B00998J2B2

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-kaleidoscope-pony-ainslie-sheridan/1114272809?ean=2940015948592

http://windflowerfarmgiftsforani.smugmug.com

https://www.pinterest.com/Dollydressage

http://www.facebook.com/YonkersShelter

https://www.etsy.com/shop/WINDFLOWERDIGITALART

http://www.thomsonsafaris.com/

Sources:

http://www.thecloudfoundation.org/

http://returntofreedom.org/

http://wildhorsepreservation.org/wild-horses-and-ecosystem

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http://www.amazon.com/Trophies-Equestrian-Romance-Ainslie-Sheridan-ebook/dp/B00998J2B2