Mysterious deaths of hundreds of Elephants

Dirk Diggler · 5 Jul 2020 at 17:31

Hagar said:
To be fair, they are more victims of circumstance than humanity who pollutes, overpopulates and destroys wherever he goes.

You speak as if humanity doesn't include you. As for the elephants in question, there's currently no evidence of human foul play, therefore the self loathing may be a bit premature.

Hagar · 5 Jul 2020 at 17:59

Dirk Diggler said:
You speak as if humanity doesn't include you. As for the elephants in question, there's currently no evidence of human foul play, therefore the self loathing may be a bit premature.

Humanity does include me but there are 7.x billion humans and less than half a million elephants.

Strangely I wrote a creature feature recently before this pandemic. It started with extinction rebellion and Greta but jumped ahead a millennia or two to an era where man was almost extinct through war and disease. The most successful intelligence still organised and in control was the elephant.

So I have an interest in them surviving, skin in the game. The novel is incomplete.

Dirk Diggler · 5 Jul 2020 at 19:27

Hagar said:
The most successful intelligence still organised and in control was the elephant.

So I have an interest in them surviving, skin in the game. The novel is incomplete.

I'm not sure what to say to that, you're literally making reference to something that you've made up in your head and presenting it like a fact (although sounds like an interesting read, do you publish?)

Anyway, I just find it depressing how we've seemed to reach the stage where we have more compassion for animals we'll only ever interact with on a TV screen, than we do for our fellow human beings that we interact with every day.

Referring to humanity as "he" is a way of dehumanising and disassociating.

NVP · 5 Jul 2020 at 20:02

Dirk Diggler said:
When some animals die in a foreign land, it's Kleenex time.

That's some next-level fetish, my man!

NVP · 5 Jul 2020 at 20:06

Dirk Diggler said:
Anyway, I just find it depressing how we've seemed to reach the stage where we have more compassion for animals we'll only ever interact with on a TV screen, than we do for our fellow human beings that we interact with every day.

The truth is if they'd have had real life interactions with the majority of animals they'd realised they're all a bunch of ******* jerks and start wearing ivory buckles and ****.

glenimp617 · 5 Jul 2020 at 20:12

Dirk Diggler said:
Anyway, I just find it depressing how we've seemed to reach the stage where we have more compassion for animals we'll only ever interact with on a TV screen, than we do for our fellow human beings that we interact with every day..

as do I, but the reality is that elephants aren't actively going out of their way to destroy their habitat

I've no idea where humans will live after they've destroyed the earth

Given the choice between human extinction or elephant extinction, I would side with the one which gives the planet it's best chance of survival

NVP · 5 Jul 2020 at 20:14

TheOracle said:
Given the choice between human extinction or elephant extinction, I would side with the one which gives the planet it's best chance of survival

I'd like to see an elephant stop an asteroid from impacting earth...

"Hey Jerry! Watch me bat it away with my trunk!"

Roar87 · 5 Jul 2020 at 20:18

TheOracle said:
as do I, but the reality is that elephants aren't actively going out of their way to destroy their habitat

I've no idea where humans will live after they've destroyed the earth

Given the choice between human extinction or elephant extinction, I would side with the one which gives the planet it's best chance of survival

The Earth isn't alive, it's one of trillions of rocks orbiting a star, this one just happens to have life on it due to circumstance. Humans are special. Elephants are great but they aren't capable of the same things as we are.

Hagar · 5 Jul 2020 at 20:26

Dirk Diggler said:
I'm not sure what to say to that, you're literally making reference to something that you've made up in your head and presenting it like a fact (although sounds like an interesting read, do you publish?)

Anyway, I just find it depressing how we've seemed to reach the stage where we have more compassion for animals we'll only ever interact with on a TV screen, than we do for our fellow human beings that we interact with every day.

Referring to humanity as "he" is a way of dehumanising and disassociating.

I am unpublished at present.
The thing is not to think of them as entities on a TV screen but as sentient beings with whom we share an environment. I am not a raving environmentalist, I just have an interest in nature plants and animals.

NVP · 5 Jul 2020 at 20:44

Hagar said:
I am not a raving environmentalist, I just have an interest in nature plants and animals.

The best time I've ever had was out in the Canadian rockies on a huge frozen lake, "herb" in a wooden pipe and a Bison Ribeye on my plate. We have very similar interests, my friend

Dirk Diggler · 5 Jul 2020 at 20:46

Hagar said:
I am unpublished at present.
The thing is not to think of them as entities on a TV screen but as sentient beings with whom we share an environment. I am not a raving environmentalist, I just have an interest in nature plants and animals.

I commend you for that; it also saddens me to see majestic animals dying in such circumstances.

Anyway, my original comment was directed toward a different post/poster therefore we're probably veering off on a bit of a tangent here, as is the way.

McstylisT · 6 Jul 2020 at 09:07

This was certainly a horrible news report.
We don’t have many elephants left as it is.

From an article I read, they believe it could have been cyanide poisoning. A new poacher tactic possibly. ?
Due to studying the leftover remains, the positions of the elephants at death, it seems the incident happened rather quickly. Unlike a viral infection which would take time and space them out. But they were very close together over a certain area.
Also the other suggestions of swamp gas as mentioned in the thread is a good shout. The only other possibility is another natural phenomenon we are yet to understand.

2020 just keeps on giving.

kedge · 6 Jul 2020 at 14:12

McstylisT said:
From an article I read, they believe it could have been cyanide poisoning. A new poacher tactic possibly ?

Cyanide poisoning used by poachers is another possibility, but scavengers are not dying after eating the carcasses, Poaching has been ruled out, because no tusks have been removed from the elephants' bodies.

In ‘Conservation Disaster,’ Hundreds of Botswana's Elephants Are Dying From Mysterious Cause - EcoWatch

Efour · 6 Jul 2020 at 15:09

Itll be racism or climate change or something.

Meddling-Monk · 6 Jul 2020 at 15:32

Supposedly the Black Death has cropped up again somewhere out in a Tibet city, so... Yeah. Right now, it could be "any" number of reasons for the elephants casualties.

Dirk Diggler · 21 Sep 2020 at 16:32

Mystery solved; looks like self loathing was unnecessary after all. :rolleyes:

BBC News - Botswana: Mystery elephant deaths caused by cyanobacteria
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-54234396