July 31, 2026 • 48 mins
Elephants are amazing. In addition to being huge, they're also some of the smartest land animals out there (seriously, they have the biggest brains). Yet despite their unique nature, humans have historically mistreated elephants -- and continue to do so today. In tonight's episode, Ben, Noel and Dylan explore the hidden horrors of 'elephant shows'.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, and welcome back to the show. My name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Our colleague Matt is Audit Ventures, but will be returning soon.
They pulled me, Ben. We're joined Asultwoods with our super
producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. And Noel, you and Tennessee and
I are going to do a little bit something a
(00:51):
little bit different today. We are going to talk about elephants. Now,
my friend, when's the last time you saw an elephant
in person?
Speaker 4 (00:59):
Well, the elephant in the room, Ben, is that I
have not seen an elephant in person in many, many years.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I seem to recall.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Okay, they do have elephants here at the Atlanta Zoo,
and a zoo's can be a little bit ethically fraught.
I do believe the Atlanta Zoo is one of the
better ones, and that most of the animals there would
not make it in the wild because they've either been
injured or some issue has led to them, you know,
existing in captivity and that kind of being the best
thing for them. I do remember when I was a kid, though,
(01:28):
growing up, there was a park of some kind in
Germany where you could get elephant rides, and that seems
problematic now thinking back on it and knowing what we're
going to talk about today.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Yeah, what about you, Tennessee, how familiar are you with
the elephant?
Speaker 5 (01:44):
I've probably seen elephants at like three different zoos, but
only at Zoo's never you know, had the privilege of
traveling to see elephants in Africa and he or somewhere
like that.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Right, Yeah, that makes sense. Those can be difficult places
for a lot of us in the States to get to,
right and you know, quiet, part out loud in your
regular garden variety, huge American town or city, you're going
to see a lot of things, but you're probably not
going to see just a rando elephant, you know, waiting
(02:15):
in line at Goldberg's Deli or sorry.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
Just roam in the streets like here in Atlanta occasionally
see I believe it's like a horse farm not too
far from the city, so you will occasionally see urban
cowboys or riding their steeds around, but not so with elephants.
I do think we've both been fascinated about the history
of like war elephants and some of the misreporting around
what that even looked like, or like war rhinoceroses as
(02:41):
another example.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Right, absolutely, and stay tuned, folks for an upcoming episode
of Ridiculous History, where our returning guest Lorn Vogelbaum, will
help us explore the story of mammoths and mastodons in
these United States once upon a time. And I love
the point we're making here about elephants at the top.
They can be genuine gentle giants in some cases, as
(03:06):
we'll see tonight, they can also be very similar to
wait for it, serial killers. Elephants have increasingly forced humanity
to rethink what it means to be sapients, to be
aware and for a lot of us, for Noel and
Tennessee and yours, truly, elephants are something you only see
in zoos or Once upon a Time and circuses. But
(03:28):
tonight we're looking at an ongoing case of true crime
and something that doesn't often get reported because the victims
are not human. This is the hidden horror of elephant shows.
Here are the facts. Okay, this is going to be
(03:49):
a bit of a dark on folks, as you just
said there, Noel, So let's seize into it by talking
a little bit about these noble, humble creatures, these elephants,
and why we all unanimously agree that they are amazing
for sure.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
I mean, they're just so majestic and regal, you know,
I mean it's like you just need to take a
look at them to realize how incredible they are. And
to your point, Bent, they are just so incredibly gentle.
African bush elephants as their known Luxodonta africana. We've also
got the African forest elephants L. Psyclotis and the Asian
(04:29):
elephant or Alphas maximus.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Three.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Yes, indeed, right, they're the ones that probably should be
fitted up with like mad Max armor and out there,
you know, doing war.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
But no, definitely not. These are the three.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
Extant species of elephants that are recognized today. In previous
evenings throughout history, these fellas had cousins, including, but not
limited to the mastodon the great wooly mammoth, both of
course sadly extinct for now right, right, But we just
had lots of crazy stuff going on labs.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Right, we're actually uh full disclosure, folks. H Dule Tennessee
and I are coming off the heels of a phenomenal
interview with our friend Mangesh had a Quatre who is
exploring the science of cloning and longevity in his show
Skyline Drive. And I can't stop thinking about it, man,
(05:22):
how close humanity is to potentially recreating the mammoth. In particular,
what do we do you know when the mammoths are back?
Speaker 4 (05:32):
Yeah, it does become an interesting question because it does
feel a little Jurassic parkified, right, Like, what is the
function of bringing back the mammoth?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Is there a place in the world for them other.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
Than like, you know, entertainments, right, Like, and I don't
mean that in any dismissive way of these incredible creatures,
but like, where.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Would they Where would we put them? Yeah? Exactly? Yeah? Yeah?
Where could they go?
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Because all species of l elephants are bigger than you think,
kind of like meeting a moose in person. If you've
never seen an elephant up close in person, you will
be astonished by their size. These are chonky chonky guys.
The African bush elephant is the largest they Their height
(06:18):
can go somewhere between ten and eleven feet. At their
upper limit, they can weigh in at seven tons. And remember,
we had these conversations a few years back, weirdly serious
conversations about whether we can successfully go toe to toe
one on one with a kangaroo.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
PvP, right, PvP.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Yeah, But I think you and I have concluded that
if you are a human being, you have no chance
against a full grown elephant unarmed.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
What do they say, Ben, when elephants make war, it's
only the grass that suffers, right, Yes, something along those lines. Yeah, man,
I mean you're gonna get squished. These guys are big boys.
The name, but does pacoderm a catch all for elephants?
There is that more have more specificity than maybe I'm remembering,
because the word itself just has that air of majesty
(07:12):
and power, doesn't it?
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Packaderm Yeah, pacoderm is a sort of a group name
for elephants, rhinos, hippos, and tapers.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
Got I didn't know that, Ben, I did not know
that the hippos were included in that, But it makes sense.
They do all have a similar air of majesty and
just absolute impenetrable strength.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Absolutely, and you know, stay on their good side. If
you're looking at your average elephant to the untrained human eye,
the biggest difference you're gonna see is the size. But
if you know what to look for, just like differentiating
between ravens and crows, you can easily discern little differences
like the nature of the dronk or the arrangement of
(07:55):
the ears.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Wait, pacaderm is to elephant what corvid is to crows
and ravens said the vibe.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Oh that's interesting. Yeah, I guess it would be similar.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Yeah, because packa dermata is in obsolete order of mammals.
But the term packoderm when you hear it thrown around
in English, is describing those other animals. We gain so little,
little loose on the science here, folks. Yeah, but we
can't tell you. One interesting thing is that all three
(08:25):
of the extant elephant species can interbreed. There are proven
cases of all of them creating a viable offspring. And they,
despite their differences, and despite the fact that they're divided
by geography, they have a lot more in common than
they do. In contrast, and one of the biggest commonalities.
(08:46):
The thing that still shocks humanity today it has thousands
of years, is that elephants are so crazy smart.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
They are so smart.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
Yeah, they're smart and empathetic like they mourn right, yes, yeah,
m hm.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
They also have the largest brain of any land animal.
We know that they the average elephant brain. We don't
want to offend any human listeners here, thanks for tuning in.
The average elephant brain has about three times as many
neurons as a human brain.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
That's probably why they say an elephant never forgets ben.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Yeah, and like you said, no, they exhibit a wide
range of behaviors that really challenge what we assume about humanity.
They can have grief, like you said, they can have empathy,
they can learn, they can mimic, they play. Play is
actually a huge indicator of intelligence. They'll just get out
there and horse around. I guess, poor choice of words.
(09:45):
They can use tools, they have self awareness, they cooperate.
It's bizarre how they can also transmit knowledge across generations.
They're superfamily oriented. They have deep personal lives, just like
all of u us listening tonight. I mean, we could
kind of say, again, if we're being loose with the
(10:05):
science that elephants are just like humans who happen to
be way bigger than average, and they use your they
use their nose or you would use your thumb.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Correct.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
Yeah, and the old folk tales about their phenomenal memories
as we were mentioning, are in fact based in reality,
similar to how Homo sapiens or corvid I as we mentioned, Ben,
the corvia is your favorite or Cetacea cetaceai stasia I
believe can transmit knowledge generationally like you were saying, And
elephants can also do that. They are incredibly family oriented
(10:37):
and to your point, Band, they do have deep personal lives.
And elephants are also extremely aware of human beings. Unfortunately,
as you can imagine, this is sort of because human
beings kind of insist upon themselves, don't they. Yeah, sort
of just turn up and make themselves pretty hard to ignore.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Yes, the elephant looks at the world and says, oh wow,
this is nice, And the human looks at the savannah
and says, what about me?
Speaker 4 (11:05):
How can I so? How can I make this work
for me? How can I tame this majesty and make
it turn a profit?
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Yeah, and it should be no surprise that the elephant
and the human have deeply complex, often deeply troubled relationships.
It's similar to, like you're saying, any other case of
intelligent non human animals. We see throughout cultures instances of
communities worshiping the elephant, and we also see real life
(11:35):
examples of elephant altruism for seemingly no other reason than
they think something is the right thing to do. The
elephant will aid humans, it will aid other animals, with
no discernible benefit to itself. One of the most famous
stories about this involves an elephant that was being used
(11:58):
to place dig post or you know, place post in
the ground, and it was going one by one to
these posts, putting them in the ground, and then it
stopped and despite its handler it's Mahout's efforts to hit
it and smack it or whatever, the elephant refused to
put the next post in. They looked into the post
(12:20):
or they looked into the post hole, and they found
that there was a little dog in there, and the
elephant was like, I'm not hurting the pooch.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
No way. Yeah, no, you can't.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
You can't have those kind of feelings without some sort
of like moral compass.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
I guess kind of.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
I mean, I don't know how else to put it,
but it does seem like there is an intense drive
towards goodness and thinking of others.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
They're thoughtful creatures. Thoughtful, Yeah, that's the perfect word. We
also knew that the human has historically not been super
great reciprocating this affection. It's the story between the human
and the elephant is a story of a toxic relationship. Obviously,
there are tons of humans, tons of animal rights activists
(13:04):
to this day who have formed deep kinship with their
larger brethren. But still, overall, most of the relationship's history
is a study in victimization and terror. So we can't
blame the elephant for looking around and all these terrible
things happening and saying more humans means more problems.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
I mean, you need to look no further than the
original animated Disney film Dumbo to see some of the
ways in which humans are pretty awful for elephant kind.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Oh yeah, humans have committed a litany of sins against
elephant populations. First, they hunted the mammoth to extinction, and
the ivory trade continues today. Humans did and do hunt
the elephant for ivory, and then also big game recreational hunting,
which we'll get into in a second. And also, you know,
(13:57):
we continually return to this point. Humans don't seem to
particularly care about the natural environments of most other creatures,
including other humans. And because elephants are again, like you said,
so cartoonishly big, they need a lot of land to roam,
you know what I mean, and they kind of prefer
(14:17):
that humans not be a huge part of that.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
Well in man, I mean, it's even in the best
of circumstances, these types of creatures and their habitats have
always been under threat, despite the best efforts of conservation
groups and maybe more conservation minded lawmakers. But in the
current political climate that we're in, it just seems like
these if there ever was any protection, it's just getting
(14:40):
rolled back on the daily.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Oh yeah, absolutely, I mean, protection for humans is getting
rolled back.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
So yeah, what's gonna happen to the elephants?
Speaker 3 (14:50):
We also know that historically, and we're using this word correctly,
humans have enslaved elephants, and this is the crux of
our exploration tonight. We have to ask you, folks, have
you ever been to an elephant show? Not the one
on Nickelodeon.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Right now, that's the one that just comes to mind.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
That's a very kind and gentle elephant show, not like
the ones we're going to talk about.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
After a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Here's where it gets crazy. All right, Elephants, folks have
been enslaved or what you will call working animals since
at least four thousand years ago. Humans have been messing
with these guys for a long long time.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
It's yet I wonder too, it's like another one of
those historical precedents kind of things where it's like, who's
the first person that realized that these giant, kind of
borderline terrifying creatures, if you don't know better, can be
tamed and basically, you know, tricked into submitting to your will.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah, somebody had to.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
There had to have been some some mishaps before you know,
they figured out how to do that quote unquote right right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
You know.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
The way I'm thinking of it, man, and this is
entirely speculation on our part, is I imagine an innocent elephant
helping an early human who was in a jam.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Oh now, you're right then, and they're like, wait a minute,
what if we could weaponize that.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
For lack of a thing exactly, the elephants, the elephants
saying this is knops what we signed up for.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
You know, we were just trying to help. What have
you helped us all the time? Forever? Yeah? I did
nothing else. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
And if you are a conspiracy realist of a certain age,
not calling anybody out, you may remember the great circuses
of old Barnum and Bailey, for instance, as the most
famous one.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
Well, we're of an age where I'm pretty sure I
can't speak for you, Ben, but certainly they would have
been available or come through our cities.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
But I absolutely went.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
To Barnum and Bailey circuses growing up, where elephants were
a huge part of the show.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Standing on the little, you know, little little footstool.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Things and getting lightly smacked around by these little lips
didn't seem as a child like I didn't. I didn't
clock that there was anything wrong. But thinking back on it,
and it's like they didn't want to be there. That's
not cool, No, exactly. Yeah, And that's a very common
experience I think a lot of us have had because elephants,
(17:22):
like you said, were historically one of the biggest draws
of the most popular circuses. They're up there with tigers
and you know, the unfortunately named Freak Show. So you
also notice, as we get older, despite the great spectacle
in so many people's childhoods, off stage, those elephants often
(17:47):
had horrific lives. They're tortured into performing these tricks, like
you said, they're getting whipped, they have to live in tiny,
unnatural environments. A lot of them get forced to breed,
they're worked to death, and then they are discarded when
they're no longer of use. This was pretty prevalent all
the way up into late twenty sixteen Asterisk in the
(18:09):
United States for sure, and as we already mentioned, the
major US circuses, including the quite mouthful tough to say
Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Circus, they were doing this.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
I mean, it was a major part of their show,
a big draw, like you said, and I definitely went
to a couple of those, not realizing how kind of
gross what I was seeing was until I grew up
a little bit and realized some of the contexts around
what we're talking about today. Thankfully, these operations did stop
using elephants in May of twenty sixteen, largely driven by
public pressure and local laws which made it difficult for
(18:46):
them to being a touring operation, you know, be able
to do this in different locations. However, there are still
elephant shows in smaller US venues like local fairs, and
of course in other countries. We do not want to
cast aspersions on any of the ethics of the handlers
(19:08):
that are maybe doing a fine job and treating these
creatures as equals, and they often, as you can imagine,
farm deep and complex relationships with their animal friends, and
you know, oftentimes, like I was mentioning about the Atlanta Zoo,
there are situations where these creatures might be of the
kind that couldn't flourish in the wild.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Yeah, that's a huge part of it. And that's a
great point with that caveat. We have to realize that
not every elephant handler or mahout is ethical. There are
a lot of countries that are still hotbeds for elephant
abuse Thailand, BMMR, India, Paul. Because you know, you're a tourist,
right You're on a once in a lifetime trip across
(19:53):
the world. You want a picture of you riding an
elephant or washing one, or you know, like patent. It's trunk.
I have a few pictures of stuff like that. But
if you go to a twenty seventeen study by the
World Animal Protection Organization or WOP, what you find is
(20:13):
that this well intentioned, seemingly harmless tourism has fueled a
rise in elephants being abducted from the wild and kept
for entertainment. The BBC had a great ride up of this,
and you can also bread the study online.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
That's right, And they summarized the issue this way, saying
that after inspecting two hundred and twenty venues and three
thousand elephants, it was found that only two hundred of
them were living in acceptable captive conditions. These were where
there was no direct interaction with people, no rides, no
(20:53):
washing of the elephants, and no circus tricks. So that
was definitely the exception to the rule, given the stats there.
And you know, and maybe that several of us are
in the audience may have seen some of these shows
outside of the circus of it all, perhaps while traveling abroad,
perhaps something you just sort of stumbled upon.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
It would not be beyond the realm.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
Of possibility for that to be the case, And you know,
even if you didn't seek this thing out. They are
pretty prevalent in some of the countries that you mentioned earlier.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Ben.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Oh, yeah, yeah, where the elephant population has naturally been
right for thousands for years.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Sure, yeah, we know.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
In twenty twenty, World Animal Production released yet another expos
a about the training process that you were mentioning there earlier.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
Nol.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
This is.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Traumatization, it's torture. It is in doctrination, we could use
that word correctly, because they start the elephants very young.
They want to make them submissive enough to interact with tourists,
right to give people rides to perform those tricks. And
this investigation, it found that young elephants are forcibly separated
(22:05):
from their mothers. They're tied to these different wooden strictures.
They're beaten over and over again. They're forced to walk
in Chaine, They're hobbled to teach them the right cadence
of walking.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
A lot of it is depicted in Dumbo.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
That is a lot of my experience of what you're
talking about, Ben, and it's portrayed horrifically as not cool.
So props to the whole Disney company for kind of
I don't know. I mean, I truly do think it's
a bit of an act of empathy and trying to
shed light on some of the stuff. And it's children's
animated film. That's a particularly heavy one. Ben, Yeah, bumbo, right.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Yeah, that's one of those ones you and I have
talked about this. I think it was off here. That's
one of those Disney movies where you and I are
pretty certain it wouldn't be made today.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
No, I mean, and I did not see the Tim
Burton remake. I can't imagine that they leaned as hard
into some of that really really traumatic imagery.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
But I heard it wasn't very good. I haven't seen it.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
I'm equally uh not super excited to learn that there's
a new reboot of the Ebenezer Scrooge story coming out.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Yeah. Sorry, Johnny Depp, Yeah, get him back in the fold. Yes.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
So this process of torturing elephants is so common that
it has a name. It's called the brush And yeah,
that's terrible. We've got to we've got to think about this,
because you know, we're all amazed by the depths of
elephant intelligence. I think we can say the crush is
pretty similar to abusing a human child.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
It's crushing their soul, their will to live, I mean,
or their will to live as individuals.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
You know.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
It's just like, yeah, it's submission, is what it is.
And yes, absolutely I see what you're saying in terms
of that parallel between, you know, with child abuse, because
of just the degree of sense hands that these animals exhibit.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Yeah, and we we encountered two extremely different examples of
human elephant relationships in.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Thailand earlier this year.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
I think you remember I was very excited, you and
Tennessee and Nat, all of us we're texting about a
very weird place I happened across called nong Nuts.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Do you remember those pictures?
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Man? I do, And I just remember you had two
very distinctly different experiences and one of them, you know,
really did a number on you. I know you weren't
feeling particularly good about it. But now nutche was not
that one, right, Oh yeah, this is.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
The this is the very very well, they're both very disturbing,
but non Nuts is like you remember, well, we've all
been to amusement parks, but do you remember Rock City?
Speaker 2 (24:56):
See it? Sorry?
Speaker 4 (24:59):
I anyone's from the region here, Atlanta, It's a tourist
trap kind of a roadside attraction. I guess you could
call it. On a certain route traveling the interstates here
around Atlanta, you will see signs for Sea Rock City.
I have not had the pleasure, although I did just
stop by BUCkies, which is its own kind of roadside attraction.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Rock City.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
I believe it has like like gnomes and stuff and
like a magical woodland kind of garden experience.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Right, it's so it is so close in the dark, Yes, yes,
close the dark. It is just it's just up in Chattanoogat.
So it's a day trip if you ever want to
do something weird on the weekend. We had a little
group of co workers who went there a while back
in Tennessee. We got to hear your take. How would
(25:49):
you describe Rock City to someone who's not familiar with it.
Speaker 5 (25:53):
It's a muss see, is how I would describe it.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
See for yourself.
Speaker 5 (25:57):
Yeah, there's there's two. There's two very different experiences. You
walk through a rock path where you can see they
say seven states at the end where there's a little waterfall.
But then to get out of the park you have
to go through a black light tunnel filled with kind
of scary dioramas of fairy tales, and they don't really
(26:19):
warn you about that at the beginning. But yeah, I
love it and I have one of them birdhouses. There's
that's another thing that you can buy City bird.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
I feel st left out. I can't wait to check
it out. I gotta, I gotta do it. Is it
something you can get to, like maybe on the way
to Nashville.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Yeah, like if you're driving up to Chattanooga, that's.
Speaker 5 (26:38):
Where seventy five and forty split, so there you go.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Yeah, and then you can also while you're there. We're
not part of the tourism board, but while you're there,
why not check out Ruby Falls and Lookout Mountain.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
We've done our bit, and I have.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
Been to Chattanooga in the last handful of years. And
that's also a lovely town, really, really a beautiful place
worth visiting. There's a really good place called Aretha Frankenstein's.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Really good pancakes. Yeah, very good.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Yeah, don't eat the day before if you go to Aretha's.
But let us know when you're going, Noel, let's make
a road trip. It looked too fun and Ed Dylan,
you were right to warn Noel about that subterranean exit path.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Rock City.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
I've never been, dude, I've never I've been many times,
have never been there without seeing at least one child
freaked out by the.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Global by the chests. Okay, yeah, okay.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
So we're minted in Rock City because we love it
and we can't wait to go as a group, but
we're also mentioning it because everything you've heard about Rock
City times ten times ten thousand, that is nol neuche.
It's it's so wild. It's essentially it's a sprawling complex,
hundreds and hundreds of acres of whatever interested the founder
(27:58):
a tie billionaire at the time, so you'll see all
these recreation sculptures with no rhyme or reason. There's a
sick car museum, and right next to it there are
recreations of the Pyramids in Egypt. There's a weird propaganda
heavy theater show, and then of course there are elephants.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Yeah, no, Ben, I'm sorry, I think I misunderstood, but
this was there was some fascinating and kind of you know.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Kooky facets of this visit, but once.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
You got to the elephant show of it all, it
did kind of turn dark.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Dude.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Yeah, because if you're watching it and you don't know
what you're looking for, you might think, oh, these are
really intelligent creatures who are having fun with their human friends.
But the handlers who got in big trouble in twenty nineteen,
they are wielding these these stick looking things that have
a couple of feathers at the end, and it looks
(28:57):
like they're just tapping the elephant when they want it
to lift the leg or bend down and let somebody
hop on it. But underneath the feathers those things have
hooks like sickles, and so during the crush, during the
trading process, they're attacking the elephants with this at a
very young age to program those movements.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Okay, so they're digging into their flesh with this, but
the flesh is so their highs are so tough that
it's not like you're seeing wounds or anything, but it's
definitely painful and unpleasant at the very least.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Right, Yeah, one hundred percent. Man and the gardens Nong
nutche They have always disputed the idea that they're mistreating
those elephants. Animal rights activists decry this practice, but nothing's
really been done because Nong NUC is a very popular
tourist attraction, and the management is very well connected with
(29:51):
the government and the royal family because Thailand is still
a monarchy where technically you can get arrested for talking
trash about the king. So if you're friends with the king,
it's very easy to get away with doing whatever you.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Want for sure.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
However, you know, we have seen things that tourists have shared.
Right in twenty nineteen, for example, controversy really kind of
hit when a tourist uploaded images that suggested some of
the mistreatment of the elephants that you're talking about. This
is an accusation that the garden, like you said, has disputed,
(30:30):
but we can attest, at least you can attest, Ben firsthand,
that the elephants in question did seem heavily trained.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
These handlers or hounts.
Speaker 4 (30:39):
Wheeled those sticks, like you said, Ben, they can make
them play soccer and carry visitors around and all their
shoulders and all of that stuff. So in sharp contrast
to that, Ben, far to the north of the country,
you can find the antithesis to this, and the form
of elephants sanctuaries that are run by conservationists to protect
(31:03):
these creatures and allow them to live together in harmony
with which you might refer the less as handler has
been as you point out on that one, and more
like tenders, and this would be a much more harmonious situation.
They don't make them do tricks. All the contact is regulated.
In fact, only a very small number of elephants interact
with visitors to the sanctuaries at all. I mean, you
(31:25):
can take a picture of them, but it is all
kind of at the comfort level of the animals themselves.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
That is highly guarded. Yeah, you nailed it.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
It's exactly what you were describing with other conservation efforts.
A lot of these animals, simply to earlier point Noel,
cannot live in the wild anymore, right, because they have
been physically abused or they have been harshly mentally abused.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
To point out too, I mean like the wild is harsh.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
I mean, these animals will be excommunicated for of a
better term, from their groups. And given that you know
that these animals are pack animals, they would be essentially
left to die, right Yeah, it even like bullied to
the point of potentially death, right Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Yeah, And that's such an important point because the wild
is the wild creatures live and die, right. It's a
very brutal environment. So these elephants, at least in some
of the conservation places we visited are they're well taken
care of, but you still see that shadow of exploitation.
(32:37):
A lot of these were orphaned when their parents were
killed or they were rescued from slavery at like timber
camps and meandmar There was one we saw whose front
left fore limb was broken because it was enslaved at
a timber operation in Meanmar. You could see scars around
(32:58):
its neck where it's been chained up for years. Its
leg never healed correctly, so it has to hobble. And
keep in mind, folks, this thing weighs tons and tons.
It has to hobble on its broken leg around the
around its sanctuary because the best veterinarians in the country
can't fix its leg. It's just stuck like that for
(33:19):
the rest of its life. And these things live a
very long time.
Speaker 4 (33:23):
For sure, Ben, and you should speak to this. I mean,
you witnessed this firsthand, and this this scene that you observe,
I believe you know, really really got under your skin.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Yeah, yes, sir, we saw there a middle aged female
elephant that looked like you know you and I have
seen clips of humans who have been indoctrinated in a
cult or like deprogramming stuff where you try to bring
somebody back from brainwashing.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
It's chilling. Yes, Yeah, when.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
We saw what I suspect to be that with an elephant.
This elephant is still stuck in a training loop from
their experience during the crush, that torture and training program.
So this elephant would wander around aimlessly, and like you
were describing, it has trouble interacting with peers, other elephants
(34:18):
in the herd. And every few minutes this thing would
stop seemingly no reason, and it would act out a
training pattern. It would bow, I remember it specifically would
bow a number of times. It would stamp one of
its feet, counting out something. It would bow again and
then would turn around. It would wander somewhere else, and
(34:38):
then it would do the same process.
Speaker 4 (34:40):
And that speaks to how aggressively beaten into this creature
those routines must have been yeah, for it to manifest
itself like that, like unprompted. I mean, you're basically seeing
a creature that has for lack of a better way
of putting it lost its mind.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Absolutely yeah, and I I hate how correct that is,
but you're absolutely right. We know that they are vast
differences between these two encounters, but if you're going to
be on the safe side, it's best to assume that
in less a place is like you were saying, Noel, specifically,
an elephant sanctuary. You have to realize the elephants in
(35:20):
the show are probably not being treated in an ethical way.
That's the elephant show part. But there's more for us
to get to. So what say we take a break
and then we get to another thing that's going to
be very familiar to a lot of us in the audience,
the idea of hunting.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
And we're back and we're talking, of course about the
other elephant in the room. Man, you gotta do it.
I mean, that's what it is, which is big game hunting.
You know, we've seen images of folks like what is it,
Jimmy John Magnates, right, you know, posing with these you know,
(36:07):
corpses of these you know, large game animals. That's the
I don't like using that term because game animals implies
that that's what they're there for. You know, that's I don't.
I don't like that one bit. And of course that
you know, the Trump sons have been, you know, known
to do that kind of thing, and images exist of
(36:29):
them as well posing with their prey. Elephants in particular,
uh is even I don't know. Elephants in particular have
a just very incredibly heartbreaking story when it comes to
their role in this industry.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Let's speak call it what it is.
Speaker 4 (36:46):
The issue of elephant abuse does take on a different form,
especially in the African continent, where elephant hunting is permitted
and selects subsoherent African countries such as Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia.
It is regularly wildlife management and conservation funding tool, sort
of like having a hunting license here in the States.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
There are seasons.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
It is, of course justified by maintaining population and not
having certain species populations explode to the point of it
causing encroachment upon habitat for other animals. And I imagine
that in parts of Africa the elephants can also cause
some real problems. Right, We've heard stories about elephants trampling
(37:32):
crops and things like that. So I do understand the
rationale of this as a wildlife management tool, but there
are still some aspects of it that make it tough
to stomach.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
We also have to ask how much of that, how
much of that positive messaging it's just pr spin, like, hey,
we know we're letting you play hitman on these innocent creatures,
but it goes to a good cause.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Remember that.
Speaker 4 (38:00):
We've definitely heard stories of, like you know, villages that
are being having their food supply threatened by rogue elephants.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
That kind of it is a thing, and I'm just
I'm very much a thing. Yes, yes, sir.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
And that's that's a great point. We know that regardless
of where you fall on the hunting aspect of that
elephants in general, you can go to websites like book
your hunt dot com and you'll see their starting price
to kill an elephant is a little bit less than
eleven thousand US dollars. That is chump change to a
(38:36):
lot of wealthy people, to the Jimmy Johns guy, you know.
Speaker 4 (38:39):
For sure, Ben, And it's like, you know, I understand
the tourist draw of things like safaris, right, yeah, that
makes sense, And that doesn't feel like that's as you know,
not of course, not nearly as invasive as allowing the
animals to be killed. But I would say, you know,
go for one of those, maybe just take a look.
(39:00):
You don't have to murder them to experience them. However,
you know, it reminds me too. There are examples here
in the States of kind of dirty pool when it
comes to game hunting, where they'll have these pens where
the animals are like bread to be killed and released
in these like literal kind of pens, or you can
(39:22):
just like fish in a barrel, right.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
And it's like, I think that's the case with some
of these.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
And I'm not even saying like I'm a sporting chance
and that makes it better. I mean, hunting is a
fraud issue. And of course we know that hunting is
a far as a way of life for many indigenous
you know, communities, and has been historically. There is, of course,
the idea of really truly using every part of the
animal and relying on it for sustenance.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
It just seems like in this day.
Speaker 4 (39:49):
And age, it feels a little bit more like a
weird flex Yeah, yeah, because especially the right, these people
are not defending themselves from an elephant attack.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
They're paying a premium for a very strange vacation that
features a massacre, and then you know that again.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
That is legal.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
That's a legal thing you can do in several of
these countries. Another issue, as we know, is the ivory trade,
which is very much illegal. It's one of the greatest
threats to the survival of elephants. And if you go
to different activist sources, they're going to say they're going
to tell you that thousands of elephants, especially in the
African continent die every year of the entirety of the
(40:34):
body to your earlier point is not used. They're killing
them for ivory. This is a poaching epidemic. It continues today.
I read one guy named Q Ferenly Wittenstall, which just
is an amazing name.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Install by the way, is a hyphen it Yes, yes, sir.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
This researcher and others who agree with say that if
the ivory trade continues unabated, elephants could be gone from
the wild within as little as twenty five years, so
within your lifetime. As you're watching this show.
Speaker 4 (41:11):
And to step it back again, I do it is illegal, right,
These are poachers that are doing this, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah,
So I mean think about how you know the mastodon
became extinct, it was because there wasn't any measure in place. Right,
So even with measures in place, the illegal sort of
black market trade still enough to potentially wipe out these
(41:35):
creatures in as little as twenty five years.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
Yeah, there's huge economic inequality involved because a lot of
the buyer markets are from more wealthy countries and the suppliers,
a lot of those folks are if we exercise empathy,
just like the elephants want us to a lot of
those folks who are approaching are doing it because they
have to survive. They don't feel they have any other option.
(41:58):
So you have to cut it off at the wealthy countries,
at the destination countries. In twenty sixteen, the US almost
entirely banned the ivory trade. Singapore and Hong Kong followed
because a big demand for ivory came from came from Asia.
(42:18):
People wanted it for status, for decoration. There were talks
of folk medicine. But there's something else. There's a bit
of a twist here.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
Folks are wild. Yeah, this is wild right.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
You may not have heard this, but Noel can tell
us a little bit about whether or not elephants hunt back.
Speaker 4 (42:38):
Well, that's the thing, Ben, I mean, think about the
whole memory aspect that we keep talking about, Like the
way crows will hold a grudge, you know, and come
at you, you know, weeks later and remember that you
wronged them in some way. Well, such is the case
for elephants as well. And I think maybe when I
was mentioning the idea of these elephants sort of trampling
(43:00):
crops in these smaller communities, I just don't I don't
know that that necessarily would even happen as much. They'd
probably stick to their own areas if it weren't for
this human intervention that is causing them to lash out
and kind of go rogue or almost exhibit the dark
side of that intelligence. They certainly don't hunt humans for food,
(43:22):
but they are elephants responsible for around one hundreds to
five hundred human deaths every year. And just like humans,
elephants do seem, as we said, they mourn they're dead,
they would also seem to understand revenge.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Yeah, we've got two quick examples for you. There's the
case of infamous killer elephant. Remember we mentioned serial killers
located in Nepal. This elephant is named derbate d h
u rb.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Eas like what wales are doing.
Speaker 4 (43:54):
Now, there's this whole epidemic of whales attacking ships. I
mean you push and you push ben and eventually these
animals are going.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
To push back.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
Yeah, you hang out at a barber shop long enough,
you get a haircut, and Derby has a human death
toll that was just reported earlier this month to be
up to twenty five. This elephant has killed twenty five people.
And then if you go to the nearby country of India,
you see a story of a herd of elephants that
(44:24):
trampled a sixty eight year old woman and then returned
during her funeral and attacked her dead body.
Speaker 4 (44:32):
Again, that is dark and just like their eyes. Like
I mentioned of or attacks on boats. These elephant attacks
are increasing as human encroachment further invades the elephants already
dwindling natural habitats, and so you doesn't seem like it's
going anywhere. You're probably going to see more of these
types of conflicts before you see less. Dude.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
That's the question.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
Right now that we know all this, we're asking what
can we do to help? Not everybody is a billionaire
from Thailand not everybody is a well connected son of
the president or something. I mean, honestly, we've been talking
about this quite a while now. These days, most normal
people are doing their best just to keep their own
(45:16):
households going. So it can be offensive, not the right word,
but something like offensive.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
It can be to.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
Go to people or struggling to survive and say, hey,
give more money to these animals that you're never going
to meet in person for sure.
Speaker 4 (45:34):
Yet the elephant does remain one of I think we're
all on the same page about this.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Most amazing life forms on Earth.
Speaker 4 (45:43):
They have this deep ability to feel emotion, to remember
the past, to take care of their loved ones, to
mourn their passing. Studies even show that their brains actually
light up when they see humans that they like, hand
form interspecies bonds, you know, just like how a human
(46:04):
brain might recognize like a real cute puppy. So it
does appear that, under the best of circumstances, elephants dig
us and they think we're kind of cute.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
Yeah, that's the That's something that still needs to be
studied more because even though we know elephants are super intelligent,
we got to be careful not to anthropomorphize them too much.
So we will hear people who say elephants thinking humans
are cute is just a myth.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
But I think it's nice, man. I think it's a
nice way to think. It's a nice way to wrap
up the episode. Two.
Speaker 4 (46:38):
There's hope, guys. Just you know, they don't start nothing,
ain't gonna be nothing, right, it'd be cool, be nice
to help exist. That'll be nice to you.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
Exactly. Yes, well said there, mister Brown.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
We know this episode again is a little bit of
a weird win for us, maybe not our usual remit,
but it's worth the exploration. So thank you for tuning in.
Fellow conspiracy realists. Want to know what you think of
the future of the elephant, and also let us know
if you want to hear more explorations of other wild animals,
their relationships with humans, and the fascinating continuing investigation into
(47:13):
non human intelligence. We have, folks, we have so many
random animal facts. We have like too many random animal facts.
They're just waiting for you to reach out. What's the
best way to find this?
Speaker 4 (47:25):
Oh gosh, there's a handful of ways you can find
us all over the Internet and your social media platform
of choice. Just look for the handles Conspiracy Stuff or
Conspiracy Stuff show and we'll pop right up.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
You can, also, of.
Speaker 4 (47:36):
Course, give us a telephone call by dialing one eight
three three STDWYTK. You got five minutes to leave a
voicemail of the sound of Ben's dulcet tones. Give yourself
a cool nickname and let us know that. We can
use your voicemail on our weekly listener mail episode and
you just might hear yourself and chatting about what you
had to say.
Speaker 3 (47:57):
And if you'd like to send us an email, you
can do so twenty four hours in evening, seven nights
a week. We are the entities that read each piece
of correspondence we received.
Speaker 2 (48:07):
Be well aware, yet unafraid.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
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in the dark conspiracy diheartradio dot com.
Speaker 5 (48:33):
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Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, and welcome back to the show. My name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Our colleague Matt is Audit Ventures, but will be returning soon.
They pulled me, Ben. We're joined Asultwoods with our super
producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. And Noel, you and Tennessee and
I are going to do a little bit something a
(00:51):
little bit different today. We are going to talk about elephants. Now,
my friend, when's the last time you saw an elephant
in person?
Speaker 4 (00:59):
Well, the elephant in the room, Ben, is that I
have not seen an elephant in person in many, many years.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I seem to recall.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Okay, they do have elephants here at the Atlanta Zoo,
and a zoo's can be a little bit ethically fraught.
I do believe the Atlanta Zoo is one of the
better ones, and that most of the animals there would
not make it in the wild because they've either been
injured or some issue has led to them, you know,
existing in captivity and that kind of being the best
thing for them. I do remember when I was a kid, though,
(01:28):
growing up, there was a park of some kind in
Germany where you could get elephant rides, and that seems
problematic now thinking back on it and knowing what we're
going to talk about today.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Yeah, what about you, Tennessee, how familiar are you with
the elephant?
Speaker 5 (01:44):
I've probably seen elephants at like three different zoos, but
only at Zoo's never you know, had the privilege of
traveling to see elephants in Africa and he or somewhere
like that.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Right, Yeah, that makes sense. Those can be difficult places
for a lot of us in the States to get to,
right and you know, quiet, part out loud in your
regular garden variety, huge American town or city, you're going
to see a lot of things, but you're probably not
going to see just a rando elephant, you know, waiting
(02:15):
in line at Goldberg's Deli or sorry.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
Just roam in the streets like here in Atlanta occasionally
see I believe it's like a horse farm not too
far from the city, so you will occasionally see urban
cowboys or riding their steeds around, but not so with elephants.
I do think we've both been fascinated about the history
of like war elephants and some of the misreporting around
what that even looked like, or like war rhinoceroses as
(02:41):
another example.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Right, absolutely, and stay tuned, folks for an upcoming episode
of Ridiculous History, where our returning guest Lorn Vogelbaum, will
help us explore the story of mammoths and mastodons in
these United States once upon a time. And I love
the point we're making here about elephants at the top.
They can be genuine gentle giants in some cases, as
(03:06):
we'll see tonight, they can also be very similar to
wait for it, serial killers. Elephants have increasingly forced humanity
to rethink what it means to be sapients, to be
aware and for a lot of us, for Noel and
Tennessee and yours, truly, elephants are something you only see
in zoos or Once upon a Time and circuses. But
(03:28):
tonight we're looking at an ongoing case of true crime
and something that doesn't often get reported because the victims
are not human. This is the hidden horror of elephant shows.
Here are the facts. Okay, this is going to be
(03:49):
a bit of a dark on folks, as you just
said there, Noel, So let's seize into it by talking
a little bit about these noble, humble creatures, these elephants,
and why we all unanimously agree that they are amazing
for sure.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
I mean, they're just so majestic and regal, you know,
I mean it's like you just need to take a
look at them to realize how incredible they are. And
to your point, Bent, they are just so incredibly gentle.
African bush elephants as their known Luxodonta africana. We've also
got the African forest elephants L. Psyclotis and the Asian
(04:29):
elephant or Alphas maximus.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Three.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Yes, indeed, right, they're the ones that probably should be
fitted up with like mad Max armor and out there,
you know, doing war.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
But no, definitely not. These are the three.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
Extant species of elephants that are recognized today. In previous
evenings throughout history, these fellas had cousins, including, but not
limited to the mastodon the great wooly mammoth, both of
course sadly extinct for now right, right, But we just
had lots of crazy stuff going on labs.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Right, we're actually uh full disclosure, folks. H Dule Tennessee
and I are coming off the heels of a phenomenal
interview with our friend Mangesh had a Quatre who is
exploring the science of cloning and longevity in his show
Skyline Drive. And I can't stop thinking about it, man,
(05:22):
how close humanity is to potentially recreating the mammoth. In particular,
what do we do you know when the mammoths are back?
Speaker 4 (05:32):
Yeah, it does become an interesting question because it does
feel a little Jurassic parkified, right, Like, what is the
function of bringing back the mammoth?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Is there a place in the world for them other.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
Than like, you know, entertainments, right, Like, and I don't
mean that in any dismissive way of these incredible creatures,
but like, where.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Would they Where would we put them? Yeah? Exactly? Yeah? Yeah?
Where could they go?
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Because all species of l elephants are bigger than you think,
kind of like meeting a moose in person. If you've
never seen an elephant up close in person, you will
be astonished by their size. These are chonky chonky guys.
The African bush elephant is the largest they Their height
(06:18):
can go somewhere between ten and eleven feet. At their
upper limit, they can weigh in at seven tons. And remember,
we had these conversations a few years back, weirdly serious
conversations about whether we can successfully go toe to toe
one on one with a kangaroo.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
PvP, right, PvP.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Yeah, But I think you and I have concluded that
if you are a human being, you have no chance
against a full grown elephant unarmed.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
What do they say, Ben, when elephants make war, it's
only the grass that suffers, right, Yes, something along those lines. Yeah, man,
I mean you're gonna get squished. These guys are big boys.
The name, but does pacoderm a catch all for elephants?
There is that more have more specificity than maybe I'm remembering,
because the word itself just has that air of majesty
(07:12):
and power, doesn't it?
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Packaderm Yeah, pacoderm is a sort of a group name
for elephants, rhinos, hippos, and tapers.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
Got I didn't know that, Ben, I did not know
that the hippos were included in that, But it makes sense.
They do all have a similar air of majesty and
just absolute impenetrable strength.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Absolutely, and you know, stay on their good side. If
you're looking at your average elephant to the untrained human eye,
the biggest difference you're gonna see is the size. But
if you know what to look for, just like differentiating
between ravens and crows, you can easily discern little differences
like the nature of the dronk or the arrangement of
(07:55):
the ears.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Wait, pacaderm is to elephant what corvid is to crows
and ravens said the vibe.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Oh that's interesting. Yeah, I guess it would be similar.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Yeah, because packa dermata is in obsolete order of mammals.
But the term packoderm when you hear it thrown around
in English, is describing those other animals. We gain so little,
little loose on the science here, folks. Yeah, but we
can't tell you. One interesting thing is that all three
(08:25):
of the extant elephant species can interbreed. There are proven
cases of all of them creating a viable offspring. And they,
despite their differences, and despite the fact that they're divided
by geography, they have a lot more in common than
they do. In contrast, and one of the biggest commonalities.
(08:46):
The thing that still shocks humanity today it has thousands
of years, is that elephants are so crazy smart.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
They are so smart.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
Yeah, they're smart and empathetic like they mourn right, yes, yeah,
m hm.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
They also have the largest brain of any land animal.
We know that they the average elephant brain. We don't
want to offend any human listeners here, thanks for tuning in.
The average elephant brain has about three times as many
neurons as a human brain.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
That's probably why they say an elephant never forgets ben.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Yeah, and like you said, no, they exhibit a wide
range of behaviors that really challenge what we assume about humanity.
They can have grief, like you said, they can have empathy,
they can learn, they can mimic, they play. Play is
actually a huge indicator of intelligence. They'll just get out
there and horse around. I guess, poor choice of words.
(09:45):
They can use tools, they have self awareness, they cooperate.
It's bizarre how they can also transmit knowledge across generations.
They're superfamily oriented. They have deep personal lives, just like
all of u us listening tonight. I mean, we could
kind of say, again, if we're being loose with the
(10:05):
science that elephants are just like humans who happen to
be way bigger than average, and they use your they
use their nose or you would use your thumb.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Correct.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
Yeah, and the old folk tales about their phenomenal memories
as we were mentioning, are in fact based in reality,
similar to how Homo sapiens or corvid I as we mentioned, Ben,
the corvia is your favorite or Cetacea cetaceai stasia I
believe can transmit knowledge generationally like you were saying, And
elephants can also do that. They are incredibly family oriented
(10:37):
and to your point, Band, they do have deep personal lives.
And elephants are also extremely aware of human beings. Unfortunately,
as you can imagine, this is sort of because human
beings kind of insist upon themselves, don't they. Yeah, sort
of just turn up and make themselves pretty hard to ignore.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Yes, the elephant looks at the world and says, oh wow,
this is nice, And the human looks at the savannah
and says, what about me?
Speaker 4 (11:05):
How can I so? How can I make this work
for me? How can I tame this majesty and make
it turn a profit?
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Yeah, and it should be no surprise that the elephant
and the human have deeply complex, often deeply troubled relationships.
It's similar to, like you're saying, any other case of
intelligent non human animals. We see throughout cultures instances of
communities worshiping the elephant, and we also see real life
(11:35):
examples of elephant altruism for seemingly no other reason than
they think something is the right thing to do. The
elephant will aid humans, it will aid other animals, with
no discernible benefit to itself. One of the most famous
stories about this involves an elephant that was being used
(11:58):
to place dig post or you know, place post in
the ground, and it was going one by one to
these posts, putting them in the ground, and then it
stopped and despite its handler it's Mahout's efforts to hit
it and smack it or whatever, the elephant refused to
put the next post in. They looked into the post
(12:20):
or they looked into the post hole, and they found
that there was a little dog in there, and the
elephant was like, I'm not hurting the pooch.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
No way. Yeah, no, you can't.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
You can't have those kind of feelings without some sort
of like moral compass.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
I guess kind of.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
I mean, I don't know how else to put it,
but it does seem like there is an intense drive
towards goodness and thinking of others.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
They're thoughtful creatures. Thoughtful, Yeah, that's the perfect word. We
also knew that the human has historically not been super
great reciprocating this affection. It's the story between the human
and the elephant is a story of a toxic relationship. Obviously,
there are tons of humans, tons of animal rights activists
(13:04):
to this day who have formed deep kinship with their
larger brethren. But still, overall, most of the relationship's history
is a study in victimization and terror. So we can't
blame the elephant for looking around and all these terrible
things happening and saying more humans means more problems.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
I mean, you need to look no further than the
original animated Disney film Dumbo to see some of the
ways in which humans are pretty awful for elephant kind.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Oh yeah, humans have committed a litany of sins against
elephant populations. First, they hunted the mammoth to extinction, and
the ivory trade continues today. Humans did and do hunt
the elephant for ivory, and then also big game recreational hunting,
which we'll get into in a second. And also, you know,
(13:57):
we continually return to this point. Humans don't seem to
particularly care about the natural environments of most other creatures,
including other humans. And because elephants are again, like you said,
so cartoonishly big, they need a lot of land to roam,
you know what I mean, and they kind of prefer
(14:17):
that humans not be a huge part of that.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
Well in man, I mean, it's even in the best
of circumstances, these types of creatures and their habitats have
always been under threat, despite the best efforts of conservation
groups and maybe more conservation minded lawmakers. But in the
current political climate that we're in, it just seems like
these if there ever was any protection, it's just getting
(14:40):
rolled back on the daily.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Oh yeah, absolutely, I mean, protection for humans is getting
rolled back.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
So yeah, what's gonna happen to the elephants?
Speaker 3 (14:50):
We also know that historically, and we're using this word correctly,
humans have enslaved elephants, and this is the crux of
our exploration tonight. We have to ask you, folks, have
you ever been to an elephant show? Not the one
on Nickelodeon.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Right now, that's the one that just comes to mind.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
That's a very kind and gentle elephant show, not like
the ones we're going to talk about.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
After a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Here's where it gets crazy. All right, Elephants, folks have
been enslaved or what you will call working animals since
at least four thousand years ago. Humans have been messing
with these guys for a long long time.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
It's yet I wonder too, it's like another one of
those historical precedents kind of things where it's like, who's
the first person that realized that these giant, kind of
borderline terrifying creatures, if you don't know better, can be
tamed and basically, you know, tricked into submitting to your will.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah, somebody had to.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
There had to have been some some mishaps before you know,
they figured out how to do that quote unquote right right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
You know.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
The way I'm thinking of it, man, and this is
entirely speculation on our part, is I imagine an innocent elephant
helping an early human who was in a jam.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Oh now, you're right then, and they're like, wait a minute,
what if we could weaponize that.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
For lack of a thing exactly, the elephants, the elephants
saying this is knops what we signed up for.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
You know, we were just trying to help. What have
you helped us all the time? Forever? Yeah? I did
nothing else. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
And if you are a conspiracy realist of a certain age,
not calling anybody out, you may remember the great circuses
of old Barnum and Bailey, for instance, as the most
famous one.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
Well, we're of an age where I'm pretty sure I
can't speak for you, Ben, but certainly they would have
been available or come through our cities.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
But I absolutely went.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
To Barnum and Bailey circuses growing up, where elephants were
a huge part of the show.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Standing on the little, you know, little little footstool.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Things and getting lightly smacked around by these little lips
didn't seem as a child like I didn't. I didn't
clock that there was anything wrong. But thinking back on it,
and it's like they didn't want to be there. That's
not cool, No, exactly. Yeah, And that's a very common
experience I think a lot of us have had because elephants,
(17:22):
like you said, were historically one of the biggest draws
of the most popular circuses. They're up there with tigers
and you know, the unfortunately named Freak Show. So you
also notice, as we get older, despite the great spectacle
in so many people's childhoods, off stage, those elephants often
(17:47):
had horrific lives. They're tortured into performing these tricks, like
you said, they're getting whipped, they have to live in tiny,
unnatural environments. A lot of them get forced to breed,
they're worked to death, and then they are discarded when
they're no longer of use. This was pretty prevalent all
the way up into late twenty sixteen Asterisk in the
(18:09):
United States for sure, and as we already mentioned, the
major US circuses, including the quite mouthful tough to say
Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Circus, they were doing this.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
I mean, it was a major part of their show,
a big draw, like you said, and I definitely went
to a couple of those, not realizing how kind of
gross what I was seeing was until I grew up
a little bit and realized some of the contexts around
what we're talking about today. Thankfully, these operations did stop
using elephants in May of twenty sixteen, largely driven by
public pressure and local laws which made it difficult for
(18:46):
them to being a touring operation, you know, be able
to do this in different locations. However, there are still
elephant shows in smaller US venues like local fairs, and
of course in other countries. We do not want to
cast aspersions on any of the ethics of the handlers
(19:08):
that are maybe doing a fine job and treating these
creatures as equals, and they often, as you can imagine,
farm deep and complex relationships with their animal friends, and
you know, oftentimes, like I was mentioning about the Atlanta Zoo,
there are situations where these creatures might be of the
kind that couldn't flourish in the wild.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Yeah, that's a huge part of it. And that's a
great point with that caveat. We have to realize that
not every elephant handler or mahout is ethical. There are
a lot of countries that are still hotbeds for elephant
abuse Thailand, BMMR, India, Paul. Because you know, you're a tourist,
right You're on a once in a lifetime trip across
(19:53):
the world. You want a picture of you riding an
elephant or washing one, or you know, like patent. It's trunk.
I have a few pictures of stuff like that. But
if you go to a twenty seventeen study by the
World Animal Protection Organization or WOP, what you find is
(20:13):
that this well intentioned, seemingly harmless tourism has fueled a
rise in elephants being abducted from the wild and kept
for entertainment. The BBC had a great ride up of this,
and you can also bread the study online.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
That's right, And they summarized the issue this way, saying
that after inspecting two hundred and twenty venues and three
thousand elephants, it was found that only two hundred of
them were living in acceptable captive conditions. These were where
there was no direct interaction with people, no rides, no
(20:53):
washing of the elephants, and no circus tricks. So that
was definitely the exception to the rule, given the stats there.
And you know, and maybe that several of us are
in the audience may have seen some of these shows
outside of the circus of it all, perhaps while traveling abroad,
perhaps something you just sort of stumbled upon.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
It would not be beyond the realm.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
Of possibility for that to be the case, And you know,
even if you didn't seek this thing out. They are
pretty prevalent in some of the countries that you mentioned earlier.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Ben.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Oh, yeah, yeah, where the elephant population has naturally been
right for thousands for years.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Sure, yeah, we know.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
In twenty twenty, World Animal Production released yet another expos
a about the training process that you were mentioning there earlier.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
Nol.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
This is.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Traumatization, it's torture. It is in doctrination, we could use
that word correctly, because they start the elephants very young.
They want to make them submissive enough to interact with tourists,
right to give people rides to perform those tricks. And
this investigation, it found that young elephants are forcibly separated
(22:05):
from their mothers. They're tied to these different wooden strictures.
They're beaten over and over again. They're forced to walk
in Chaine, They're hobbled to teach them the right cadence
of walking.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
A lot of it is depicted in Dumbo.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
That is a lot of my experience of what you're
talking about, Ben, and it's portrayed horrifically as not cool.
So props to the whole Disney company for kind of
I don't know. I mean, I truly do think it's
a bit of an act of empathy and trying to
shed light on some of the stuff. And it's children's
animated film. That's a particularly heavy one. Ben, Yeah, bumbo, right.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Yeah, that's one of those ones you and I have
talked about this. I think it was off here. That's
one of those Disney movies where you and I are
pretty certain it wouldn't be made today.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
No, I mean, and I did not see the Tim
Burton remake. I can't imagine that they leaned as hard
into some of that really really traumatic imagery.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
But I heard it wasn't very good. I haven't seen it.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
I'm equally uh not super excited to learn that there's
a new reboot of the Ebenezer Scrooge story coming out.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Yeah. Sorry, Johnny Depp, Yeah, get him back in the fold. Yes.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
So this process of torturing elephants is so common that
it has a name. It's called the brush And yeah,
that's terrible. We've got to we've got to think about this,
because you know, we're all amazed by the depths of
elephant intelligence. I think we can say the crush is
pretty similar to abusing a human child.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
It's crushing their soul, their will to live, I mean,
or their will to live as individuals.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
You know.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
It's just like, yeah, it's submission, is what it is.
And yes, absolutely I see what you're saying in terms
of that parallel between, you know, with child abuse, because
of just the degree of sense hands that these animals exhibit.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Yeah, and we we encountered two extremely different examples of
human elephant relationships in.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Thailand earlier this year.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
I think you remember I was very excited, you and
Tennessee and Nat, all of us we're texting about a
very weird place I happened across called nong Nuts.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Do you remember those pictures?
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Man? I do, And I just remember you had two
very distinctly different experiences and one of them, you know,
really did a number on you. I know you weren't
feeling particularly good about it. But now nutche was not
that one, right, Oh yeah, this is.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
The this is the very very well, they're both very disturbing,
but non Nuts is like you remember, well, we've all
been to amusement parks, but do you remember Rock City?
Speaker 2 (24:56):
See it? Sorry?
Speaker 4 (24:59):
I anyone's from the region here, Atlanta, It's a tourist
trap kind of a roadside attraction. I guess you could
call it. On a certain route traveling the interstates here
around Atlanta, you will see signs for Sea Rock City.
I have not had the pleasure, although I did just
stop by BUCkies, which is its own kind of roadside attraction.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Rock City.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
I believe it has like like gnomes and stuff and
like a magical woodland kind of garden experience.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Right, it's so it is so close in the dark, Yes, yes,
close the dark. It is just it's just up in Chattanoogat.
So it's a day trip if you ever want to
do something weird on the weekend. We had a little
group of co workers who went there a while back
in Tennessee. We got to hear your take. How would
(25:49):
you describe Rock City to someone who's not familiar with it.
Speaker 5 (25:53):
It's a muss see, is how I would describe it.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
See for yourself.
Speaker 5 (25:57):
Yeah, there's there's two. There's two very different experiences. You
walk through a rock path where you can see they
say seven states at the end where there's a little waterfall.
But then to get out of the park you have
to go through a black light tunnel filled with kind
of scary dioramas of fairy tales, and they don't really
(26:19):
warn you about that at the beginning. But yeah, I
love it and I have one of them birdhouses. There's
that's another thing that you can buy City bird.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
I feel st left out. I can't wait to check
it out. I gotta, I gotta do it. Is it
something you can get to, like maybe on the way
to Nashville.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Yeah, like if you're driving up to Chattanooga, that's.
Speaker 5 (26:38):
Where seventy five and forty split, so there you go.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Yeah, and then you can also while you're there. We're
not part of the tourism board, but while you're there,
why not check out Ruby Falls and Lookout Mountain.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
We've done our bit, and I have.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
Been to Chattanooga in the last handful of years. And
that's also a lovely town, really, really a beautiful place
worth visiting. There's a really good place called Aretha Frankenstein's.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Really good pancakes. Yeah, very good.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Yeah, don't eat the day before if you go to Aretha's.
But let us know when you're going, Noel, let's make
a road trip. It looked too fun and Ed Dylan,
you were right to warn Noel about that subterranean exit path.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Rock City.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
I've never been, dude, I've never I've been many times,
have never been there without seeing at least one child
freaked out by the.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Global by the chests. Okay, yeah, okay.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
So we're minted in Rock City because we love it
and we can't wait to go as a group, but
we're also mentioning it because everything you've heard about Rock
City times ten times ten thousand, that is nol neuche.
It's it's so wild. It's essentially it's a sprawling complex,
hundreds and hundreds of acres of whatever interested the founder
(27:58):
a tie billionaire at the time, so you'll see all
these recreation sculptures with no rhyme or reason. There's a
sick car museum, and right next to it there are
recreations of the Pyramids in Egypt. There's a weird propaganda
heavy theater show, and then of course there are elephants.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Yeah, no, Ben, I'm sorry, I think I misunderstood, but
this was there was some fascinating and kind of you know.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Kooky facets of this visit, but once.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
You got to the elephant show of it all, it
did kind of turn dark.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Dude.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Yeah, because if you're watching it and you don't know
what you're looking for, you might think, oh, these are
really intelligent creatures who are having fun with their human friends.
But the handlers who got in big trouble in twenty nineteen,
they are wielding these these stick looking things that have
a couple of feathers at the end, and it looks
(28:57):
like they're just tapping the elephant when they want it
to lift the leg or bend down and let somebody
hop on it. But underneath the feathers those things have
hooks like sickles, and so during the crush, during the
trading process, they're attacking the elephants with this at a
very young age to program those movements.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Okay, so they're digging into their flesh with this, but
the flesh is so their highs are so tough that
it's not like you're seeing wounds or anything, but it's
definitely painful and unpleasant at the very least.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Right, Yeah, one hundred percent. Man and the gardens Nong
nutche They have always disputed the idea that they're mistreating
those elephants. Animal rights activists decry this practice, but nothing's
really been done because Nong NUC is a very popular
tourist attraction, and the management is very well connected with
(29:51):
the government and the royal family because Thailand is still
a monarchy where technically you can get arrested for talking
trash about the king. So if you're friends with the king,
it's very easy to get away with doing whatever you.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Want for sure.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
However, you know, we have seen things that tourists have shared.
Right in twenty nineteen, for example, controversy really kind of
hit when a tourist uploaded images that suggested some of
the mistreatment of the elephants that you're talking about. This
is an accusation that the garden, like you said, has disputed,
(30:30):
but we can attest, at least you can attest, Ben firsthand,
that the elephants in question did seem heavily trained.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
These handlers or hounts.
Speaker 4 (30:39):
Wheeled those sticks, like you said, Ben, they can make
them play soccer and carry visitors around and all their
shoulders and all of that stuff. So in sharp contrast
to that, Ben, far to the north of the country,
you can find the antithesis to this, and the form
of elephants sanctuaries that are run by conservationists to protect
(31:03):
these creatures and allow them to live together in harmony
with which you might refer the less as handler has
been as you point out on that one, and more
like tenders, and this would be a much more harmonious situation.
They don't make them do tricks. All the contact is regulated.
In fact, only a very small number of elephants interact
with visitors to the sanctuaries at all. I mean, you
(31:25):
can take a picture of them, but it is all
kind of at the comfort level of the animals themselves.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
That is highly guarded. Yeah, you nailed it.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
It's exactly what you were describing with other conservation efforts.
A lot of these animals, simply to earlier point Noel,
cannot live in the wild anymore, right, because they have
been physically abused or they have been harshly mentally abused.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
To point out too, I mean like the wild is harsh.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
I mean, these animals will be excommunicated for of a
better term, from their groups. And given that you know
that these animals are pack animals, they would be essentially
left to die, right Yeah, it even like bullied to
the point of potentially death, right Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Yeah, And that's such an important point because the wild
is the wild creatures live and die, right. It's a
very brutal environment. So these elephants, at least in some
of the conservation places we visited are they're well taken
care of, but you still see that shadow of exploitation.
(32:37):
A lot of these were orphaned when their parents were
killed or they were rescued from slavery at like timber
camps and meandmar There was one we saw whose front
left fore limb was broken because it was enslaved at
a timber operation in Meanmar. You could see scars around
(32:58):
its neck where it's been chained up for years. Its
leg never healed correctly, so it has to hobble. And
keep in mind, folks, this thing weighs tons and tons.
It has to hobble on its broken leg around the
around its sanctuary because the best veterinarians in the country
can't fix its leg. It's just stuck like that for
(33:19):
the rest of its life. And these things live a
very long time.
Speaker 4 (33:23):
For sure, Ben, and you should speak to this. I mean,
you witnessed this firsthand, and this this scene that you observe,
I believe you know, really really got under your skin.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Yeah, yes, sir, we saw there a middle aged female
elephant that looked like you know you and I have
seen clips of humans who have been indoctrinated in a
cult or like deprogramming stuff where you try to bring
somebody back from brainwashing.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
It's chilling. Yes, Yeah, when.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
We saw what I suspect to be that with an elephant.
This elephant is still stuck in a training loop from
their experience during the crush, that torture and training program.
So this elephant would wander around aimlessly, and like you
were describing, it has trouble interacting with peers, other elephants
(34:18):
in the herd. And every few minutes this thing would
stop seemingly no reason, and it would act out a
training pattern. It would bow, I remember it specifically would
bow a number of times. It would stamp one of
its feet, counting out something. It would bow again and
then would turn around. It would wander somewhere else, and
(34:38):
then it would do the same process.
Speaker 4 (34:40):
And that speaks to how aggressively beaten into this creature
those routines must have been yeah, for it to manifest
itself like that, like unprompted. I mean, you're basically seeing
a creature that has for lack of a better way
of putting it lost its mind.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Absolutely yeah, and I I hate how correct that is,
but you're absolutely right. We know that they are vast
differences between these two encounters, but if you're going to
be on the safe side, it's best to assume that
in less a place is like you were saying, Noel, specifically,
an elephant sanctuary. You have to realize the elephants in
(35:20):
the show are probably not being treated in an ethical way.
That's the elephant show part. But there's more for us
to get to. So what say we take a break
and then we get to another thing that's going to
be very familiar to a lot of us in the audience,
the idea of hunting.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
And we're back and we're talking, of course about the
other elephant in the room. Man, you gotta do it.
I mean, that's what it is, which is big game hunting.
You know, we've seen images of folks like what is it,
Jimmy John Magnates, right, you know, posing with these you know,
(36:07):
corpses of these you know, large game animals. That's the
I don't like using that term because game animals implies
that that's what they're there for. You know, that's I don't.
I don't like that one bit. And of course that
you know, the Trump sons have been, you know, known
to do that kind of thing, and images exist of
(36:29):
them as well posing with their prey. Elephants in particular,
uh is even I don't know. Elephants in particular have
a just very incredibly heartbreaking story when it comes to
their role in this industry.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Let's speak call it what it is.
Speaker 4 (36:46):
The issue of elephant abuse does take on a different form,
especially in the African continent, where elephant hunting is permitted
and selects subsoherent African countries such as Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia.
It is regularly wildlife management and conservation funding tool, sort
of like having a hunting license here in the States.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
There are seasons.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
It is, of course justified by maintaining population and not
having certain species populations explode to the point of it
causing encroachment upon habitat for other animals. And I imagine
that in parts of Africa the elephants can also cause
some real problems. Right, We've heard stories about elephants trampling
(37:32):
crops and things like that. So I do understand the
rationale of this as a wildlife management tool, but there
are still some aspects of it that make it tough
to stomach.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
We also have to ask how much of that, how
much of that positive messaging it's just pr spin, like, hey,
we know we're letting you play hitman on these innocent creatures,
but it goes to a good cause.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Remember that.
Speaker 4 (38:00):
We've definitely heard stories of, like you know, villages that
are being having their food supply threatened by rogue elephants.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
That kind of it is a thing, and I'm just
I'm very much a thing. Yes, yes, sir.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
And that's that's a great point. We know that regardless
of where you fall on the hunting aspect of that
elephants in general, you can go to websites like book
your hunt dot com and you'll see their starting price
to kill an elephant is a little bit less than
eleven thousand US dollars. That is chump change to a
(38:36):
lot of wealthy people, to the Jimmy Johns guy, you know.
Speaker 4 (38:39):
For sure, Ben, And it's like, you know, I understand
the tourist draw of things like safaris, right, yeah, that
makes sense, And that doesn't feel like that's as you know,
not of course, not nearly as invasive as allowing the
animals to be killed. But I would say, you know,
go for one of those, maybe just take a look.
(39:00):
You don't have to murder them to experience them. However,
you know, it reminds me too. There are examples here
in the States of kind of dirty pool when it
comes to game hunting, where they'll have these pens where
the animals are like bread to be killed and released
in these like literal kind of pens, or you can
(39:22):
just like fish in a barrel, right.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
And it's like, I think that's the case with some
of these.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
And I'm not even saying like I'm a sporting chance
and that makes it better. I mean, hunting is a
fraud issue. And of course we know that hunting is
a far as a way of life for many indigenous
you know, communities, and has been historically. There is, of course,
the idea of really truly using every part of the
animal and relying on it for sustenance.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
It just seems like in this day.
Speaker 4 (39:49):
And age, it feels a little bit more like a
weird flex Yeah, yeah, because especially the right, these people
are not defending themselves from an elephant attack.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
They're paying a premium for a very strange vacation that
features a massacre, and then you know that again.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
That is legal.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
That's a legal thing you can do in several of
these countries. Another issue, as we know, is the ivory trade,
which is very much illegal. It's one of the greatest
threats to the survival of elephants. And if you go
to different activist sources, they're going to say they're going
to tell you that thousands of elephants, especially in the
African continent die every year of the entirety of the
(40:34):
body to your earlier point is not used. They're killing
them for ivory. This is a poaching epidemic. It continues today.
I read one guy named Q Ferenly Wittenstall, which just
is an amazing name.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Install by the way, is a hyphen it Yes, yes, sir.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
This researcher and others who agree with say that if
the ivory trade continues unabated, elephants could be gone from
the wild within as little as twenty five years, so
within your lifetime. As you're watching this show.
Speaker 4 (41:11):
And to step it back again, I do it is illegal, right,
These are poachers that are doing this, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah,
So I mean think about how you know the mastodon
became extinct, it was because there wasn't any measure in place. Right,
So even with measures in place, the illegal sort of
black market trade still enough to potentially wipe out these
(41:35):
creatures in as little as twenty five years.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
Yeah, there's huge economic inequality involved because a lot of
the buyer markets are from more wealthy countries and the suppliers,
a lot of those folks are if we exercise empathy,
just like the elephants want us to a lot of
those folks who are approaching are doing it because they
have to survive. They don't feel they have any other option.
(41:58):
So you have to cut it off at the wealthy countries,
at the destination countries. In twenty sixteen, the US almost
entirely banned the ivory trade. Singapore and Hong Kong followed
because a big demand for ivory came from came from Asia.
(42:18):
People wanted it for status, for decoration. There were talks
of folk medicine. But there's something else. There's a bit
of a twist here.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
Folks are wild. Yeah, this is wild right.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
You may not have heard this, but Noel can tell
us a little bit about whether or not elephants hunt back.
Speaker 4 (42:38):
Well, that's the thing, Ben, I mean, think about the
whole memory aspect that we keep talking about, Like the
way crows will hold a grudge, you know, and come
at you, you know, weeks later and remember that you
wronged them in some way. Well, such is the case
for elephants as well. And I think maybe when I
was mentioning the idea of these elephants sort of trampling
(43:00):
crops in these smaller communities, I just don't I don't
know that that necessarily would even happen as much. They'd
probably stick to their own areas if it weren't for
this human intervention that is causing them to lash out
and kind of go rogue or almost exhibit the dark
side of that intelligence. They certainly don't hunt humans for food,
(43:22):
but they are elephants responsible for around one hundreds to
five hundred human deaths every year. And just like humans,
elephants do seem, as we said, they mourn they're dead,
they would also seem to understand revenge.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Yeah, we've got two quick examples for you. There's the
case of infamous killer elephant. Remember we mentioned serial killers
located in Nepal. This elephant is named derbate d h
u rb.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Eas like what wales are doing.
Speaker 4 (43:54):
Now, there's this whole epidemic of whales attacking ships. I
mean you push and you push ben and eventually these
animals are going.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
To push back.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
Yeah, you hang out at a barber shop long enough,
you get a haircut, and Derby has a human death
toll that was just reported earlier this month to be
up to twenty five. This elephant has killed twenty five people.
And then if you go to the nearby country of India,
you see a story of a herd of elephants that
(44:24):
trampled a sixty eight year old woman and then returned
during her funeral and attacked her dead body.
Speaker 4 (44:32):
Again, that is dark and just like their eyes. Like
I mentioned of or attacks on boats. These elephant attacks
are increasing as human encroachment further invades the elephants already
dwindling natural habitats, and so you doesn't seem like it's
going anywhere. You're probably going to see more of these
types of conflicts before you see less. Dude.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
That's the question.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
Right now that we know all this, we're asking what
can we do to help? Not everybody is a billionaire
from Thailand not everybody is a well connected son of
the president or something. I mean, honestly, we've been talking
about this quite a while now. These days, most normal
people are doing their best just to keep their own
(45:16):
households going. So it can be offensive, not the right word,
but something like offensive.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
It can be to.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
Go to people or struggling to survive and say, hey,
give more money to these animals that you're never going
to meet in person for sure.
Speaker 4 (45:34):
Yet the elephant does remain one of I think we're
all on the same page about this.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Most amazing life forms on Earth.
Speaker 4 (45:43):
They have this deep ability to feel emotion, to remember
the past, to take care of their loved ones, to
mourn their passing. Studies even show that their brains actually
light up when they see humans that they like, hand
form interspecies bonds, you know, just like how a human
(46:04):
brain might recognize like a real cute puppy. So it
does appear that, under the best of circumstances, elephants dig
us and they think we're kind of cute.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
Yeah, that's the That's something that still needs to be
studied more because even though we know elephants are super intelligent,
we got to be careful not to anthropomorphize them too much.
So we will hear people who say elephants thinking humans
are cute is just a myth.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
But I think it's nice, man. I think it's a
nice way to think. It's a nice way to wrap
up the episode. Two.
Speaker 4 (46:38):
There's hope, guys. Just you know, they don't start nothing,
ain't gonna be nothing, right, it'd be cool, be nice
to help exist. That'll be nice to you.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
Exactly. Yes, well said there, mister Brown.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
We know this episode again is a little bit of
a weird win for us, maybe not our usual remit,
but it's worth the exploration. So thank you for tuning in.
Fellow conspiracy realists. Want to know what you think of
the future of the elephant, and also let us know
if you want to hear more explorations of other wild animals,
their relationships with humans, and the fascinating continuing investigation into
(47:13):
non human intelligence. We have, folks, we have so many
random animal facts. We have like too many random animal facts.
They're just waiting for you to reach out. What's the
best way to find this?
Speaker 4 (47:25):
Oh gosh, there's a handful of ways you can find
us all over the Internet and your social media platform
of choice. Just look for the handles Conspiracy Stuff or
Conspiracy Stuff show and we'll pop right up.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
You can, also, of.
Speaker 4 (47:36):
Course, give us a telephone call by dialing one eight
three three STDWYTK. You got five minutes to leave a
voicemail of the sound of Ben's dulcet tones. Give yourself
a cool nickname and let us know that. We can
use your voicemail on our weekly listener mail episode and
you just might hear yourself and chatting about what you
had to say.
Speaker 3 (47:57):
And if you'd like to send us an email, you
can do so twenty four hours in evening, seven nights
a week. We are the entities that read each piece
of correspondence we received.
Speaker 2 (48:07):
Be well aware, yet unafraid.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
Sometimes the void writes back, We'll see you out here
in the dark conspiracy diheartradio dot com.
Speaker 5 (48:33):
Stuff they Don't want you to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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