What would happen if I approached a wild elephant?

[Sapo]

Since this thread originated from Survivor, I think tonight’s episode pretty much answers the question. The elephant looked all non-plused by the puny humans since they were not too close and not being a threat. Hard to tell how used to humans are these particular elephants in a reserve, though.

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

The underside of an elephant’s foot has a surface area of 40+ square inches, and they always have two feet on the ground (even when running). Thus, they don’t have loud, booming footfalls like you’d expect- they make no more noise than a human wearing boots.

Pretty cool, trivia. Thanks. I had noticed that they were not particularly loud in nature shows, but then I just assumed editing took care of that.

@Autolycus

Maybe that’s why so many people miss the elephant in the room.

I hate it when I open the fridge and there are elephant footprints all over the butter.

[Freudian_Slit]

@Thudlow_Boink

“Well, animals are a lot like people, Mrs. Simpson. Some of them act badly because they’ve had a hard life, or have been mistreated…but, like people, some of them are just jerks.”

Heh heh. That’s actually what I thought of right after I posted.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Sapo

Pretty cool, trivia. Thanks. I had noticed that they were not particularly loud in nature shows, but then I just assumed editing took care of that.

FTR, I know they walk quietly from personal experience. I’ve never seen an elephant run, but I have it on good authority that they’re still pretty quiet.

[Siam_Sam]

@BaneSidhe

:eek: How something that big and heavy can sneak up on you scares me to bits.

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

The underside of an elephant’s foot has a surface area of 40+ square inches, and they always have two feet on the ground (even when running). Thus, they don’t have loud, booming footfalls like you’d expect- they make no more noise than a human wearing boots.

Yes, elephants are a marvel of nature’s engineering. They can indeed be incredibly quiet. Their feet exert less pressure per square inch than a deer’s foot (hoof?) They can use their trunks to pick up a log or a pencil.

@bordelond

Speaking of that … my understanding is that elephants are tamed, not domesticated. How is the taming done? Capture of baby elephants?

My assumption is that an adult elephant cannot be tamed (or at least it is so difficult and dangerous that it is almost never attempted).

There are domesticated elephants. They’re bred in several camps in Thailand. I do believe if you want to tame one, though, it needs to be captured as a baby. There is a fascinating sequence showing this in the 1927 silent film Chang, filmed in northern Thailand by the same team that would later go on to make the original King Kong. It is a fascinating film, and I urge you to check it out if at all possible. “Chang” is Thai for “elephant,” and the film wowed audiences in the West in its day. They had no idea what this “chang” creature was until they pulled it up out of the trap.

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

FTR, I know they walk quietly from personal experience. I’ve never seen an elephant run, but I have it on good authority that they’re still pretty quiet.

Not only have I seen elephants running, I’ve been on top of a couple of them! During elephant polo. Even then, I found them very silent.

[Petrobey_Mavromihalis]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

FTR, I know they walk quietly from personal experience. I’ve never seen an elephant run, but I have it on good authority that they’re still pretty quiet.

They certainly do walk soft.

I was 16 when I was charged, and in my memory it made a hell of a noise (pounding feet) as it came.

[Laughing_Lagomorph]

@Darryl_Lict

… God damn it if those Euro kids could not climb a tree worth a shit. There was about a dozen of us up in the tree and those fuckers would not climb up higher as to let the people lower down climb up. If that elephant kept after us, I would’ve yanked one of those fuckers down as a sacrifice.

I’m sure this was a terrifying experience but I laughed my ass off at this part. Thanks for that!

[cantara]

We went on safari in Tanzania in the spring, and yes, I can confirm that they will get quite upset at you. In Lake Manyara, one of the first few elephants that we had seen (mom with baby) let us know that she was not pleased with us being a hundred feet away. We were in trucks and (relatively) safe, but just the look she gave when she trumpetted and shook her head was dramatic enough for us.

On the other hand, we also had a bull elephant walk down the road beside our parked car, but he didn’t seem to have any issue with us being there. Had we the courage, we could have pet him as he walked by.

The elephant on the episode last night appeared quite irritated. I would certainly not be taunting it from a canoe 20’ from shore.

[Petrobey_Mavromihalis]

@cantara

We were in trucks and (relatively) safe, but just the look she gave when she trumpetted and shook her head was dramatic enough for us.

Apparently the noise and gesturing are mostly empty threats. It’s when they go quiet that they’re really pissed with you.

Another tip is how to spot a bull elephant in must (when they’re particularly aggressive). Look for dark stains dripping down from around the ears.

[Lust4Life]

Elephants?
I piss on them.
I once indian arm/trunk wrestled a herd leader to establish who was going to be capo de capo, a right old cow she was but I showed her who was boss by tying her trunk into a knot(A double bowline as I recall)

I never had a problem with hippos either after I removed an infected incisor from a suffering bull,I used two five kilo bales of Zambian Herbal for anasthetic which certainly did the job,he was out for three days but was fine when he came to.

After that the hippos all loved me,the bull asked me to become godfather of his first born and indeed I had many offers to actually adopt various calves,an offer I declined because changing a hippo calfs nappy/diaper is a fucking nightmare

I was also given the offer to take any virgin cow on the river as my bride,I picked one out but she turned out to be an American missionary and as such was not included in the offer.

Of course it helped that I could speak the language of the animals,though strangely only after I’d been hammering the Zambian Herbal.

I often had long interesting conversations with the local wild life and I can honestly attest to the wisdom of nature,an african ground squirrel predicted our present economic crash five,fucking months ago!

A little bit more impressive then the so called financial expertise I encounterd on returning to England !
Why next doors Border Collie only precicted it two weeks before it happened.
Yes they were good times back out there,it goes against my natural modesty to tell you this but the animals used to regard me as a god.

Much against my protestations they got together and built me a little temple out of the husks of Macedamia nuts,it was so sweet watching their little paws painstakingly put the husks together and bit by bit make a ten time life size statue of me made out of solidified baboon saliva.

I was totally astonished though when I saw a giraffe operating a Hilti Hammer drill!
Because I thought that the Makita franchise had cornered the market locally for power tools.
It was a fantastic sight also seeing them gather round every day to pray to me,their name for me was Ungomoggggggadoooooooobabababinchkweoingslap ididdletitimusgrovia,which tended to shorten the length of their prayers a bit because by the time they’d said hello to me it was time to fuck off home.

This could on occassion be a source of great frustration when I was left musing over unfinished appeals made for my consideration .

Oh great god(then my name) please help me remove this slimy,purple and green fungal parasite that is growing up my…fuck me is that the time ?
Sorry your godness I’ve got to get back now the missus is doing Wildebeest and she said that she’d keep it alive until I got there…
Leaving muggins here wondering what the the fuck it was growing up.

His porch?
His bedroom door?
His arsehole?

And the next day I’d try to ask what is was about and get fobbed off with “oh thats not important now,or I’ll tell you in a minute but first…”
I never did get to find out.
In Swahili their name for me meant Strange,vacantly staring, ugly bastard Englishman with incredibly small penis but got quite a nice smile though .

Like I say that was what my name meant in Swahili but what it meant in their language I have no fucking idea…

My time in Africa, happy though it was came to an end when I was deported under some obscure mental health act.

And anyway I cant sit here chatting to you guys all day,my neighbour, a little old lady, sweet old duck she is,normally has her afternoon nap around this time so for me its snare drum practice time …

Because I hate all old people or any one called Maurice,or tattoos depicting an angry sheep playing the banjo…or…

I think that I’ll have a little lie down first.
Being serious for once I’ve got some work to do and I’m trying to put it off by pissing about,can you tell?

[Chefguy]

We went on several photo safaris when we lived in Africa, including the aforementioned Okavango area, Tanzania, South Africa, Uganda, etc. One of our guides in Botswana deliberately provoked a charge by creeping too close with the vehicle, then rapidly accelerated away when it came. Afterwards, as we were still quaking, he told us that when an elephant trumpets and flaps his ears, generally making a big commotion and raising a lot of dust, it’s a mock charge meant to make you get out of the area. Or it’s a young bull practicing his art. When they lower their heads, trunk down, and come straight at you, it’s time to talk to your gods.

Hippos and cape buffalo are by far the cause of most injuries and deaths among locals. Neither of them mock charge and both have evil tempers.

[chowder]

Indian or African?

Enquiring minds need to know

[phouka]

I did a little reading on elephants this year, just to feed the Elephant’s Child.

One particular story that caught me was when some elephants and rhinoceros tangled at a water hold.

Apparently elephants and rhinos do not get along very well. A baby rhino became mired in mud next to the water hole, and its mother wasn’t able to push it out. The baby became increasingly frantic and made a lot of noise.

Over comes one of the elephants, the matriarch. Rhinos are not very happy. Elephant uses her tusks to try to lever the baby rhino out of the mud. One of the rhinos took this as an attempt to harm the baby rhino and charged the matriarch. Matriarch meets the charge, knocks the rhino down, puts a foot on it, and then stabs it through the chest with her tusk. Big rhino dies. Other rhinos run off. Matriarch then frees baby rhino, which runs off squealing to mama. Matriarch goes for a sip of water.

phouka ain’t messing with no elephants no time soon. No way, no how.

[Washoe]

This is completely off-topic, but I should bring it up while it’s still fresh in my mind. My father produced some educational films which he shot in India shortly after WWII. One of them shows a mass capture of hundreds of elephants—a practice that was banned in India sometime in the early 1950’s. It is about an hour in length and is on 16mm film. How much would it cost transfer this footage to optical disc? I still have his 16 mm projector—is there any way I could use it to do it myself?

[Chimera]

I’ll be alright if I just slather myself with peanut oil first, won’t I?

[Siam_Sam]

@Washoe

This is completely off-topic, but I should bring it up while it’s still fresh in my mind. My father produced some educational films which he shot in India shortly after WWII. One of them shows a mass capture of hundreds of elephants—a practice that was banned in India sometime in the early 1950’s. It is about an hour in length and is on 16mm film. How much would it cost transfer this footage to optical disc? I still have his 16 mm projector—is there any way I could use it to do it myself?

My only suggestion – and this is a wild guess – is check with a film-developing place. Maybe not one of the ones where you drop off film and pick it up in an hour or two, but rather a real little shop. Here in Thailand, film-developing shops, when they started to lose business because of the new digital cameras, started offering to transfer videotapes to DVD. Maybe one of these places or a photogographer’s studio could at least point you in the right direction.

[Santos_L_Halper]

@Washoe

How much would it cost transfer this footage to optical disc? I still have his 16 mm projector—is there any way I could use it to do it myself?

Last year I got three rolls of my great-uncles 8mm movies from the 1940’s transfered to DVD. I used www.homemoviedepot.com and was happy with the job they did.

[even_sven]

You may also have some luck with your local film school. They often have this kind of equipment around not doing anything and you can probably work out a very reasonable fee.

[Washoe]

@Gfactor

Here are some videos of elephant attacks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxCdECNUSIc&feature=related

It seems that the handler who was crushed to death got what was coming to him:

Allen Campbell

http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/team4/1800419/detail.html

Tyke (elephant)

[Dervorin]

@chowder

Indian or African?

Enquiring minds need to know

But then of course African elephants aren’t migratory, so they couldn’t bring a coconut back anyway.

I’ve often heard it said by forest guards and tribal people at home that Indian elephants are far more dangerous than anything else in the forest, including snakes and tigers. Elephants are nearly silent, can have nasty tempers and are quite unpredictable. You really don’t want to get on the bad side of a bull in musth, or make a mother jittery when her calf is around. The best bet is to quietly avoid them, at as great a distance as you can possibly manage.

Elephants regularly come past my house, which is on a traditional migratory route between two large forests, and we avoid them as far as possible. They tend to move more at night, which makes that fairly simple.

[Washoe]

Third link above doesn’t work, try this:

Tyke (elephant)