Elephant facts

At the turn of the century of 1900 lived in Thailand there are still about 300.000 elephants, of which about one third are tame and two thirds live in the wild.

By 1960, this number had fallen alarmingly to only forty thousand, of which about eleven thousand were tame specimens.

A drastic decline that would take on even more serious forms. Currently, the wild animal population is only about XNUMX and the number of domesticated or farmed elephants has dropped to around XNUMX. A number that is expected to fall even further.

The causes

The reduction of forests and further exploitation of agricultural land. Wild elephants often move to the farmlands and destroy the crops, causing farmers to see them as a threat and shoot the animals. In 1989, the felling of hardwood in the jungle area was banned by the Thai authorities, resulting in the elephant becoming unemployed.

The pachyderms continued to work clandestinely here and there for their boss, but due to the poor care, the animals became ill and died. To increase work performance, coupled with long working days, even stimulants such as drugs were not shunned. Worst of all, however, was the hunting of the elephant for its tusks and the money that ivory brought in. Fortunately, Thailand has recently made more efforts to combat the banned ivory trade.

Things worth knowing

Female elephants are sexually mature between the ages of 9 and 15. The male elephant is potent until about the age of sixty. Females carry their baby between 18 and 22 months, and the newborn weighs about XNUMX kilograms at birth. Mother suckles her young for two to three years.

Domestic elephants in Thailand hardly get the opportunity to reproduce because of the economic interest of the owner. The expectant mother elephant is in fact unable to work for a longer period of her pregnancy and the long feeding time of a young is also an objectionable factor. Elephants reach an average age of 70-80 years. Just like with humans, Jumbo can, very exceptionally, live to be a hundred years old.

The trunk

An elephant uses his or her trunk like humans use their hands, arms and, last but not least, nose. The two nostrils in the proboscis are used for breathing, smelling, feeling, nurturing and exploring. The proboscis itself to attack and to defend, and not unimportantly to bring the not insignificant food and water to the mouth.

tusks

Oddly enough, not all male elephants have tusks, which become visible at about four years of age. Very sporadically, a female grows tusks that are only a few centimeters long.

Teeth

Elephants are born with teeth at the back of their mouths. Just as horses have a head in our colloquial language, the elephant has a mouth and no mouth. And speaking of the mouth; an elephant can consume a lot and eats between 170 and 200 kilos of grass, bamboo and leaves per day. Jumbo is thirsty to a considerable extent and therefore allows between 100 and 200 liters of water to flow down the throat every day.

Hear, see and smell

In daylight, our gray friends can see about forty meters away. It is not known whether they can distinguish colors or only black and white. The sense of smell, however, is highly developed, just like hearing. Smell and hearing are part of the compensation for the reduced eyesight.

Memory

An elephant will never forget those who treated it well or badly. The commercial of 'Rolo sweets' broadcast on television years ago will be remembered by many and did not just fall out of the blue.

Elephants are socially inclined and live in the wild in herds of ten to thirty animals. The leader is -note gentlemen- an older female elephant. An elephant is a beast that can easily remember 35 to 40 commands and trained in a circus, or for the well-known elephant shows in Thailand, even up to two hundred. The opposite expression of 'having a memory like a sieve' is therefore quite rightly 'having a memory like an elephant'.