An Elephant a Day 2.0: rampaging elephants

Sunday, 18 January 2015

Elephant No. 107: Matchbox Elephant

I first encountered little matchbox animals about a year ago when looking for kids crafts, and thought it might be fun to try one sometime. I assumed it would be a bit fussy to make, so I waited until I had a bit of extra time to put it together.

I started by buying some small boxes of matches. I was originally going to try with a big box of matches, but I thought it might be more interesting to make a really tiny elephant.

Because the matchbox is ugly, I started by painting it with acrylic paint.

The idea with these seems to be to place a small animal under a little quilt, as though the matchbox is a bed. I decided to make the elephant first, and used needlefelting, because I thought it would be something I could do relatively quickly.

I began by making the head.

For the body, instead of making a grey elephant and then putting pyjamas over top, I decided to make the body as pyjamas. To finish the elephant, I added little grey feet. Sadly, they were too small for me to add toenails.

Along the way, I kept testing the elephant's size to make sure it would fit.

It's awfully cute on its own, but it's supposed to be in a matchbox bed, so I needlefelted a little fuzzy blanket and pillow.

And voilà. I really like this guy. It took way less time than I thought it would, and the final results appeal to the miniaturist in me.

Elephant Lore of the Day

This is one of the strangest stories I've ever read about an elephant.

In March 2014, in India's West Bengal province, a rampaging bull elephant crashed into a village seeking food. This elephant was well known to local forest rangers, and had already destroyed 17 houses in the district.

At 8:00 p.m. that evening, Dipak and Lalita Mahato were eating when they suddenly hear a loud cracking sound, followed by crash of rubble in their nearby bedroom. They rushed into the room to find a large male elephant standing over their baby. Debris from the wall and ceiling lay all around the little girl, who was whimpering.

Seemingly perturbed, the elephant began to back away. Astonishingly, as soon as the little girl began to cry again, the elephant moved forward. It began carefully removing all of the debris from the child, while gently patting her with its trunk. Once the debris was gone and the child stopped crying, the elephant backed out of the house and returned to the forest. The child was taken to the hospital and treated for minor injuries.

There are a number of explanations for the elephant's behaviour, but the most likely relates to an elephant's innate programming. Elephants are highly social creatures with a great tenderness for the weakest and smallest members of their herds. Although this elephant's behaviour is more common among females, all elephants will react to sounds of distress. A crying human child is no different, in an elephant's eyes, than an elephant calf.

Asian bull elehant.
Photo: Yathin S. Krishnappa
Source: The Independent

To Support Elephant Welfare

World Wildlife Fund

World Society for the Protection of Animals

Performing Animal Welfare Society

Zoocheck

Bring the Elephant Home

African Wildlife Foundation

Elephants Without Borders

Save the Elephants

International Elephant Foundation Elephant's World (Thailand)

David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

Elephant Nature Park (Thailand)

Wildlife Trust of India

Boon Lott's Elephant Sanctuary (Thailand)
Wildlife SOS (India)
The Elephant Sanctuary (Tennessee)

David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation

Big Life Foundation
The Asian Elephant Foundation

Wednesday, 7 January 2015

Elephant No. 96: Dead Elephant Beer

My sister came across this in a local liquor store a couple of months back, and bought it for me. I'm not much of a beer drinker, so she drank the beer (which she apparently didn't care for), then passed the can along to me.

When she first told me about it, and that it was made by the Railway City Brewing Company in in St. Thomas, Ontario, I figured right away that it was probably named for Jumbo, the famous elephant who died there. And I was right.

The back of the can reads:

Here's to Jumbo, world's largest elephant, friend and prized attraction of P.T. Barnum's traveling circus. It was 1885 here in St. Thomas where he met his early demise in a tragic railway accident that'll be forever remembered in the annals of beer and Canadian history. In his honour we've crafted this full bodied ale. Live Life Large. He'd have wanted it that way. And for you to drink responsibly.

Along with this: A Jumbo legend with an unforgettable taste!

Okey dokey, then.

I'm not so sure that Jumbo will be forever remembered in the annals of beer, unless this particular brew becomes a massive hit, but his story is indeed famous. The account below is a shortened version of elephant lore I used in my original Elephant a Day blog.

Born in 1861 in Mali, West Africa, Jumbo was first imported to a small Paris zoo. In 1865, he was transferred to the London Zoo, where he became a popular attraction. It was here that he was also given his name, which is a variation on either the Swahili word jumbe, which means "chief" or jambo, which means "hello".

In 1882, Jumbo was sold to the Barnum & Bailey Circus for the then-exorbitant sum of $10,000. When P.T. Barnum first offered to buy the elephant, 100,000 British schoolchildren wrote to Queen Victoria, begging her to keep Jumbo in Britain.

Source: http://virtualvictorian.blogspot.com/
2010/06/story-of-jumbo-elephant.html

Jumbo was indeed a very big elephant. By the time of his death, he was claimed to measure four metres (13.1 feet) in height, and weighed 5.9 tonnes (13,000 pounds). During his lifetime, his size would make his name synonymous with anything large—a trend that continues to this day.

Jumbo's arrival in America.
Source: http://virtualvictorian.blogspot.com/
2010/06/story-of-jumbo-elephant.html

Sadly, Jumbo died in September 1885, when he was accidentally hit and wounded by a locomotive in St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada. It was suggested that he had died saving the younger circus elephant, Tom Thumb—although not all witnesses agreed. Peculiarly, Jumbo's stomach was found to contain numerous metallic objects, including coins, keys and metal rivets.

Following his death, Jumbo's hide was stuffed and travelled with the Barnum & Bailey circus for several years. It was later donated to Tufts University in Massachusetts, where it was displayed until it was destroyed by fire in 1975. His heart was sold to Cornell University, and his skeleton was donated to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

Elephant Lore of the Day

Elephants are known to love alcoholic drinks. It is probably the sugar that attracts them, and they have been known to wreak havoc if prevented from bellying up to the bar. They can also be rather belligerent drunks.

In November 2012, the Times of India reported on the destruction caused by a herd of 50 inebriated elephants. After drinking some 500 litres (100 Imperial gallons) of Mahua liquor from a shop in rural Dumurkota, India, they ransacked adjoining huts looking for more of the tasty beverage.

Drawn out of the forest by the smell of the liquor, they destroyed the shop, several homes and crops before villagers were able to drive them off. Forestry officials finally coaxed them across a nearby river.

According to police spokesman, Asish Samanat, because the herd lives in close proximity to people, they recognized the smell of the drink. He described the rowdy elephants as being similar to drunk humans, in that they were "aggressive and unreasonable, but also "much, much bigger." He also noted that they'd "have one heck of a hangover."