On Elephants: I just finished reading Jonathan Balcombe’s extraordinary photo essay book entitled The Exultant Ark: A Pictorial Tour of Animal Pleasure. Will Tuttle also interviewed this author on February 23. I hope you were fortunate enough to tune into that great discussion. Regarding elephants, Balcombe describes (p. 108) an incident among free elephants witnessed by expert observers.
“…when Eleanor, the matriarch of a family unit called the First Ladies, became gravely ill and fell to the ground, she was aided by Grace, the matriarch of another family called the Virtues. Seeing her down, Grace ran over to Eleanor with her tail raised and temporal glands streaming secretions, sniffed and touched Eleanor with her trunk and foot, then used her tusks to help lift Eleanor to her feet. But the effort was ultimately unsuccessful, and during the week following Eleanor’s death, elephants from five family units visited her body…there can be no question that elephants show deep emotional concern for others…”
He also notes that spindle cells, which are large
neurons thought to be responsible in the human brain for
empathy, love, and emotional suffering,
have been discovered in the brains of other
primates, whales and now elephants.
May all beings, including all people, be happy and free.
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