# Elephant music **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 8, 2007, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-music/429237 "2007-12-08T00:51:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2007, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-music/429237/1 "2007-12-08T00:51:15Z")
There is a [kink here to mp3s](http://www.mulatta.org/thaieleorch.html) of Thai elephants playing music. It is certainly MPSIMS, but kind of interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2007, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-music/429237/2 "2007-12-08T01:00:45Z")
I’ve not actually seen them do that in person, but from time to time they run a clip on the news. There are also elephants that paint pictures. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2007, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-music/429237/3 "2007-12-08T01:17:18Z")
And, let’s be fair, on the flip side, elephants who get drunk. Though I always have had a soft spot for the elephants who paint pictures. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2007, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-music/429237/4 "2007-12-08T01:51:55Z")
[QUOTE=Freudian Slit] And, let’s be fair, on the flip side, elephants who get drunk. [/QUOTE] Some of them claim they jam better that way. ---
**Author:** ![Mindfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mindfield/32/19759_2.png) [@Mindfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mindfield)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2007, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-music/429237/5 "2007-12-08T01:58:04Z")
What the hell? That was just a sloppy performance. Did they just get out of rehab? And where was the lead singer? I swear, these comeback performances keep getting worse. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2007, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-music/429237/6 "2007-12-08T02:00:43Z")
[QUOTE=Mindfield] Did they just get out of rehab? [/QUOTE] I understand their cocaine habit is quite expensive. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2007, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-music/429237/7 "2007-12-08T02:23:45Z")
[QUOTE=Freudian Slit] And, let’s be fair, on the flip side, elephants who get drunk. Though I always have had a soft spot for the elephants who paint pictures. [/QUOTE] I’ve heard that in India, there’s a problem with drunken wild elephants rampaging and smashing entire villages. They get drunk from eating fruit that’s been fermenting naturally or something like that. I’ve not heard of that happening in Thailand. As for the painters, I wonder if any elephant has ever cut off his ear. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2007, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-music/429237/8 "2007-12-08T04:01:21Z")
[QUOTE=Siam Sam] I’ve heard that in India, there’s a problem with drunken wild elephants rampaging and smashing entire villages. They get drunk from eating fruit that’s been fermenting naturally or something like that. I’ve not heard of that happening in Thailand. [/QUOTE] Yeah, I think it was the Indian elephants that I meant. Though there were some African elephants who lived through Idi Amin’s reign as little elephants and when they grew up were kind of mentally screwed up–they went on rampages and sodomized rhinos. Now those are elephants not to invite to a kegger. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2007, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-music/429237/9 "2007-12-08T04:48:00Z")
I don’t know what they had to do with Idi Amin. [Raping and killing Rhinos](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/642731.stm) by young male elephants was obviously abnormal behavior. Their herds had been culled (the herd was an annoyance and most of them were killed). The behavior ceased when adult bulls were introduced to the area. Maybe they drank all the beer. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2007, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-music/429237/10 "2007-12-08T05:00:56Z")
Well, it had to do with him being overthrown, I guess…all the instability in the area was basically bad for the elephants, too. From the Times: [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/magazine/08elephant.html?pagewanted=all](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/magazine/08elephant.html?pagewanted=all) > [@](#): > > The bulk of the decimation occurred during the war with Tanzania that led to Amin’s overthrow: soldiers from both armies grabbed all the ivory they could get their hands on — and did so with such cravenness that the word ‘‘poaching’’ seems woefully inadequate. ‘‘Normally when you say ‘poaching,’ ’’ Abe said, ‘‘you think of people shooting one or two and going off. But this was war. They’d just throw hand grenades at the elephants, bring whole families down and cut out the ivory. I call that mass destruction.’’ ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2007, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-music/429237/11 "2007-12-08T05:11:38Z")
I suppose killing of the adults could cause the problem. More often third world dictators move people off land they covet for one reason or another, and relocate them where elephants have been foraging for thousands of years. The gardens or silos are a windfall for the elephants, death to the people whose food they eat, so conflict is inevitable. In India I believe the problem is more human expansion. Recently [lethal electric fences](http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Dec42007/spectrum2007120339203.asp) have been a problem. Interesting behavior of the mother whose calf was electrocuted in the article. She trashed the village the fence protected. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2007, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-music/429237/12 "2007-12-08T05:22:47Z")
Also, I heard that these elephants saw their mothers killed by poachers and were then chained to their mothers…that would turn most humans pretty crazy, so I’m not surprised the elphants succumbed. They are sensitive souls. ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2007, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elephant-music/429237/13 "2007-12-08T07:52:02Z")
Geez, there’s a kink for everything these days.