in thoughts...

had Animal Behaviour project meeting on yesterday - Aud was surfing the net for videos of elephants... chanced upon this website that showed how the elephants were abused, in order to train them to perform in the circus. The trainers use something called "angkus" (a sharp, short metal hook thing) to inflict pain on the elephants in order to make them learn tricks and perform for the audience.

was just thinking about how, when I was young, I probably thought that the elephants and other circus animals enjoyed performing in the circus because they were so gaily doing those clever tricks, because they were dressed up so nicely, because people were cheering as they watched them perform. But on this video, you could hear the elephants' cries of pain when the trainers used the angkus on them.

and was thinking about that day, our trip to the zoo, how we commented that the elephants seemed to be smiling - it was more because of the way their mouths are shaped, rather than because they were really smiling... To think that they are smiling seems to lead to the thinking that they are really happy where they are (in this case, they're in the zoo)... but are they really happy? True, they don't have to worry about food and predators, so they probably live longer... but the volunteers at the zoo (who help by educating public about elephants) told us that the main cause of death for elephants in captivity is BOREDOM. And I can see why... they spend the whole day just performing the same rehearsed animal show, and when they're not performing they're just splashing water over themselves or splashing sand and mud over their bodies to trap ticks and fleas...

A poem below by Larkin... about horses... highlighted in bold this line about how we suppose they "gallop for what must be joy"... we assume they're happy when we see them gallop - there's something about that action that makes it seem happy, carefree... but it may just be a normal action to them - they may gallop even when they're not feeling great... and same for all other animals... so were the elephants still smiling?

At Grass
by Philip Larkin

The eye can hardly pick them out
From the cold shade they shelter in,
Till wind distresses tail and mane;
Then one crops grass, and moves about
- The other seeming to look on -
And stands anonymous again

Yet fifteen years ago, perhaps
Two dozen distances sufficed
To fable them : faint afternoons
Of Cups and Stakes and Handicaps,
Whereby their names were artificed
To inlay faded, classic Junes -

Silks at the start : against the sky
Numbers and parasols : outside,
Squadrons of empty cars, and heat,
And littered grass : then the long cry
Hanging unhushed till it subside
To stop-press columns on the street.

Do memories plague their ears like flies?
They shake their heads. Dusk brims the shadows.
Summer by summer all stole away,
The starting-gates, the crowd and cries -
All but the unmolesting meadows.
Almanacked, their names live; they

Have slipped their names, and stand at ease,
Or gallop for what must be joy,
And not a fieldglass sees them home,
Or curious stop-watch prophesies :
Only the grooms, and the groom's boy,
With bridles in the evening come.