The Pachyderm Prescription?

 

The title of this post was suggested by this news report from Kenya.  It might make a good title for a novel, who knows?

A new study suggests that adult elephants prepare concoctions of plants to administer to their young as medicine.

The finding is based on observations of Mount Elgon's cave elephants in western Kenya by local indigenous people who spent more than 20 years monitoring their routines.

According to their accounts, the elephant herds clustered around Elgon use at least 25 different plant species.

They reported that elephant mothers processed roots and leaves, combined it with their breast milk and administered it to calves, for apparent health benefit.

In one testimony, a wildlife scout described seeing elephants using a plant known as Angurweet, which is used locally as a remedy for ailments such as stomach ache, "as medicine to give to babies".

The scout described elephant mothers "removing the leaves and chewing it until smooth, along with the roots of some other trees".

He also recounted that he had seen mothers mix this plant material with their own milk. "They give it to the babies, who chew on it themselves and spit out the solids," the scout said.

The statements of the Sabaot tribal experts appear to demonstrate a level of sophisticated self-medication among the elephants, which are already renowned for going into caves to mine for salt to supplement their diet.

There's more at the link.

I'm fascinated, but not surprised, to learn of the pachyderm pharmacists.  Elephants are very intelligent indeed, probably at least as much as a pre-teen child, and (judging by some of the teens I've met) possibly even higher on the scale.  I've never heard of them actively medicating their offspring as described in the report, but that they'd develop such knowledge and abilities doesn't surprise me.

Baby and junior elephants are just about the cutest things you can imagine.  Back in the day, Skukuza (the administrative center of the Kruger National Park in South Africa) housed a center for the care and rearing of animals orphaned after the death of their mothers.  This included several baby elephants at the time I visited it.  I was invited by a ranger I knew to join them at feeding time.  That involved filling a two-liter soda bottle with their concentrated milk ration, then applying an outsize rubber teat to it.  The elephants would be waiting impatiently for their food, dancing from foot to foot and being very noisy about it.  I got to hold the bottle for a six-week-old mtoto, who slurped it down with great enthusiasm.  I turned around to put the bottle back on the table, only to be rammed in the small of my back by what felt like a freight train.  I picked myself painfully off the ground and turned around, to be greeted by a juvenile elephant dancing from foot to foot and tootling at me in a way that freely translated as, "Gee, that was fun!  Let's do it again!"  When young elephants want to play, they want to play, and they won't take "No!" for an answer . . .

Of course, once they're grown, they're much less frolic-y and a darn sight more dangerous, particularly because they're intelligent enough to learn about threats and deal with them.  In Africa, they've grown accustomed to poachers using Soviet-made AK-47 rifles, with their distinctive "banana" magazines;  and when they see anyone carrying that shape, they'll often charge them at once and do their best to trample them into the mud before they can take aim and shoot.  (That's why South African game rangers on the Mozambique border carry - or used to carry, when I was still there - FN FAL rifles with a shorter, straight magazine, which didn't resemble the AK.  They lived longer that way!)

I love elephants.  They're majestic creatures, and dominate any location where they're found.  Forget that business about lions being the "king of the beasts".  When a herd of elephants arrive, the lions get out of the way.

Peter