Elephant Sense and Sensibility

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by Michael Garstang


  herds of elephants. It is within reason to speculate that the character or na-

  ture of the activity reflected the emotional state of the people and that this

  was translated by the elephants into evidence of grief and sorrow. Whether

  elephants could make such an interpretation is dealt with elsewhere in this

  book. Whether they made such an interpretation in this case may only add a

  contributing factor to the accumulating evidence that they could detect that

  something was wrong. This alone may have triggered their pilgrimage to

  the farmhouse. Equally, we could argue that through these mechanisms both

  herds had in fact made what can only be seen as a sophisticated interpretation

  of the observed activity and did in fact go to the farmhouse to express grief

  and compassion.

  Chapter 8

  Empathy and Altruism

  Empathy is the capacity to

  ●

  be affected by and share the emotional state of another,

  ●

  have some concept of the reasons for the other’s state, and

  ●

  be able to sense what the other is feeling.

  Empathy is a mammalian trait and almost certainly originates with parental

  care. It is essential in highly social animals such as elephants (Byrne and Bates,

  2010). In elephants, as for mammals as a whole, maternal care is the costliest,

  longest-lasting act of all. Elephant young nurse for at least 22 months, remain

  close to their mothers for more than 10 years, and, if female, may remain with

  the mother’s herd for the rest of their lives. The capacity to relate to the feel-

  ings of others is not only consolidated in the individual’s maternal relation-

  ship but the process itself has been repeated in countless generations during

  evolutionary time. Empathy is for an elephant no conscious cognitive skill but

  manifested largely as an unconscious automatic response. It becomes part of

  its emotional response system and, if anything, displays empathy as an inborn

  emotional state.

  Lee and Moss (2012) carried out a carefully controlled experiment to de-

  termine whether stable characteristics of elephant personalities could be traced

  from generation to generation. Four components of behavior—leadership, play-

  fulness, gentleness, and constancy—were tested and the results subjected to sta-

  tistical verification. The results showed that elephants are highly affiliative and

  cooperative and display infrequent overt aggression between family members.

  Care provided to calves made up most such interactions, followed by female–

  female friendly contact. Leadership is shown in exerting influence rather than

  dominance. Lee and Moss concluded that leadership was manifest in terms of

  respect, which recognized problem solving and permissiveness.

  Elephants are very sensitive to the emotional state of others and have

  multiple and subtle means (sound, smell, sight, taste, and touch) of detect-

  ing this state. The capacity of the elephants to detect and read the state of

  others is critical to their survival. It is essential in social interactions, in co-

  ordinated activity, and in cooperation toward shared goals (de Waal, 2008).

  As Bates et al. (2008b) point out, not to do so would be maladaptive and

  potentially fatal.

  Elephant Sense and Sensibility. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-802217-7.00008-9

  Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  47

  48 Elephant Sense and Sensibility

  Altruism is behavior that costs the participant something while benefiting

  another. Altruism grows out of empathy for those in need, blurring the lines

  between self and others and between selfish and unselfish (de Waal, 2013,

  pp. 27–28, 33).

  Paolo Torchio photographed a family of some nine elephants surrounding and

  protecting one of their group giving birth on the open plains below Kilimanjaro

  in the Amboseli National Park (Steyn du Toit, http://www.2oceansvibe.

  com/2012/03/01/elephants-protect-female-giving-birth-from-prowling-

  predators). Hyenas were circling the group, aware of what was taking place and posing a distinct threat to the mother and calf. The tight circle around the mother

  was maintained until the calf was born.

  Under other circumstances in the absence of predators and with cover avail-

  able, the expectant mother more frequently leaves her group and goes into the

  bush to give birth. In the open plains of Amboseli, this was not possible and the

  herd rallied to give shelter.

  At and following the moment of birth, Torchio recorded that “the elephants

  started trumpeting as though they were welcoming the new arrival.” Moments

  later they tusked up dirt and grass, throwing clumps into the air. There is little

  doubt that the members of this group were aware of the physical state of the

  mother, knew that she was about to give birth, knew that predators were present,

  and represented a threat. Part of their perception was the clear recognition of

  her condition, but a significant part anticipated what had not yet happened. The

  elephants in the group may have sensed how the mother was feeling. Their display

  of tossing soil and grass into the air once the calf was born could have repre-

  sented an expression of relief and joy or perhaps a physical response to mask the

  smell of blood and placenta from the nearby predators. Each of these possibilities

  represents the further capacity to perceive and respond to the state of others.

  de Waal (2008) describes a blind elephant being cared for by an unrelated

  female. The blind female depended entirely upon the other, staying close to her

  and vocalizing as soon as they lost such contact. Both elephants appeared to be

  conscious of the fact that they depended on each other (p. 53).

  Bates and colleagues (2008b) have carried out the first carefully controlled

  experiment on empathy on 58 family units in the Amboseli population of some

  1434 elephants. They found 249 empathic responses, which were observed on

  at least two occasions. These they divided into six categories and attempted to

  determine the minimum level of cognitive activity (thinking) associated with

  each category.

  They were able to show coalitions between two or more elephants who

  act against one or more other elephants who might threaten them or another

  elephant (calf) whom they may be protecting.

  Acting collaboratively against another was observed and was taken as evi-

  dence of empathy and the recognition of the emotional state of others.

  Protection was clearly observed, especially in mothers and allomothers

  who recognized the condition of others (potential threat) and acted to avoid the

  Empathy and Altruism Chapter | 8 49

  situation before it could occur such as protection against predators, intervening

  in play fights that were getting out of hand, pushing away a harasser, and avoid-

  ing others that were potentially dangerous or avoiding dangerous areas. Such

  pre-emptive behavior suggests both empathy and cognition.

  Mothers and allomothers were found to give comfort, responding to the

  emotional state of the calf or anticipating that a stressful state was developing.

  Although the Bates study apparently did not include sound
as part of their ob-

  servations, it is likely that near continuous low-level, low-frequency calls play

  a pervasive role in comforting the young and reducing stress. Such comforting

  included care provided by others in the calf’s natal family, behavior observed

  in only a few other species. As described above, calves often stray from their

  mothers and become separated. On occasions other females, not in the family

  group, will actively attempt to kidnap the calf. Calves will sometimes but not al-

  ways give lost calls, which will be responded to by their mothers or allomothers.

  In many cases, retrievals will be initiated by a retriever who is not the mother of

  the lost calf, once more suggesting empathy and reasoning.

  Help given to a calf in difficulty, as illustrated in the calf trapped in a waterhole

  described in chapter 6, is often carried out by elephants other than the mother,

  reaffirming the cognitive as opposed to parental instinctual aspect of the behav-

  ior. Both mothers and close kin have been seen breaking the wire of an electric

  fence with a tusk to allow the calf to get through the fence, leading the calf to

  easier terrain, or tusking a bank to give the calf a foothold and helping a calf

  stand.

  The recognition and removal of foreign objects was also recorded in the

  Amboseli study and reported in a separate earlier study (Bates et al., 2007). An

  adult male removed a tranquilizing dart from another elephant. The dart was

  then dropped and ignored, suggesting that the motivation came from awareness

  that the dart was a foreign object and did not belong in the body of an ele-

  phant. Similarly, Maasai spears were examined. The elephant touched the spear,

  splashed water and mud onto the wound, then dusted the wound but did not re-

  move the spear. While no evidence could be found, it is likely that the spear was

  not only visibly foreign but could have been clearly recognized through smell

  as alien and belonging to a species known to be dangerous (see Chapter 11).

  The Amboseli study supports the contention that elephants recognize emo-

  tions in others of their species, are aware of the characteristic behavior and

  therefore react to unusual conditions, and understand that other elephants are

  animate agents who perform directed behavior and experience recognizable

  emotions. This cognitive empathy, however, must rest upon the ability to dis-

  tinguish between self and others and to comprehend that others have selves like

  themselves.

  Elephants’ awareness of others or, at the very least, an acute awareness of

  their surroundings is illustrated by an incident observed by Jennifer Dieudonne

  in the Etosha National Park in Namibia in 2010. Dew drops tracing the intricate

  geometry of a giant spider web stretched across a game path were glinting in

  50 Elephant Sense and Sensibility

  the rays of the rising sun. A herd of elephants was coming down the trail head-

  ing straight toward the jeweled web. Just before reaching it, each giant animal,

  including the younger calves, stepped off the trail and carefully went around

  the web.

  The so-called “mirror test” provides a narrow test of self-awareness (Bates

  et al., 2008b). Perhaps only three animals—humans, apes, and dolphins—

  understand that they see themselves in mirrors. In human children, cognitive

  empathy and mirror recognition occur at the same time. Elephants have only

  recently been shown to recognize themselves in a mirror. Here the study was

  conducted by first allowing an elephant to become familiar with a mirror, then

  placing a mark (a prominent white X) on the head of the elephant, visible only

  to the elephant when it looked in the mirror. The elephant being tested touched

  the white mark with the tip of its trunk, clearly recognizing that this symbol was

  not part of its body. This evidence of self-awareness is considered essential for

  animals to exhibit empathy. Empathy, with the awareness of how others feel,

  can hardly be recognized without being aware of one’s own feelings.

  Other mirror tests with elephants have failed. Does this inconsistent result

  demonstrate that elephants are not aware of themselves and therefore not aware

  of the emotional state of others, and thus not capable of empathy? It is more

  likely that the deficiency lies in the design of the mirror test and the conclusions

  drawn from these tests rather than the absence of empathy in elephants. Sight

  in an elephant, as emphasized throughout this book, is not at the top of the list

  of sensory inputs to an elephant’s brain. Smell and sound are more important to

  an elephant than sight. Touch and taste may well play a much larger role than

  sight. Thus, a test based on vision and the interpretation of images may not be

  the most appropriate test for elephants. The fact that an elephant, as opposed to

  a primate or a human child, accepts an image in a mirror as being of itself is re-

  markable. The elephant when recognizing others does so most directly in terms

  of smell, touch, feel, and sound rather than sight. For a mirror test to work for

  an elephant on the basis of sight alone is far more remarkable than for the same

  test to work for animals such as ourselves or other primates. de Waal (2008, pp.

  116–117) adds percipient insight into this problem by saying, “We may be giv-

  ing the wrong tools or holding up the wrong mirror.” This insight is reflected in

  the famous dictum of experimental psychology that “absence of evidence is not

  evidence of absence.”

  The reaction of elephants to distressed and dying individuals and to the death

  of another elephant, especially one closely related to a given individual, may be

  the ultimate test of whether elephants exhibit empathy or not. The recognition

  of death or even the response to distress and dying is rare in most animals.

  Without the recognition of self, death of others has little or no significance.

  Lack of the impact of death and dying may therefore reflect profoundly upon

  the capacity for empathy.

  There are many examples of elephants trying to assist those in distress or

  dying. Agitation is seen in the herd and herd members try desperately to lift the

  Empathy and Altruism Chapter | 8 51

  victim with their trunks and tusks. This has been observed both with natural

  mortality as well as when elephants have been immobilized by darting. A case

  in point is Echo’s calf in Amboseli, who, at birth, was unable to straighten his

  front feet, struggled to get up, and then hobbled on his knees. He was repeatedly

  helped by other elephants and catered to by his mother, who remained with him

  even when the herd moved on (Moss, NGS film).

  Douglas-Hamilton and colleagues (2006) were able to document the col-

  lapse and death of Eleanor, the matriarch of an elephant family (First Ladies)

  and the behavior of members of other families known to Eleanor. These

  elephants in the Samburu region of Kenya had been monitored by GPS track-

  ing technology over a period of almost 10 years. Family units and their rela-

  tionships were well known, as were the relationships between the 12 family

  units in the region.

  Eleanor was observed by a member of Douglas-Hamilton’s team to collapse
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  from serious injuries sustained in a recent fall. Within 2 min, Grace, the matri-

  arch of the Virtues family, arrived and bodily lifted Eleanor back onto her feet,

  trying to get her to walk. Weak and wobbly, Eleanor’s back legs gave way and

  she again fell to the ground. Grace, trumpeting and very stressed, tried without

  success to get Eleanor onto her feet. At this point with night falling, Grace’s

  family left, leaving Grace with Eleanor for at least the next hour.

  Eleanor died the next day at 11:00 a.m., leaving her 6-month-old female calf

  confused and hungry. A total of 12 female members of Eleanor’s family, in par-

  ticular Maya, who was thought to be Eleanor’s daughter, and members of five

  other family units could be tracked and their location relative to Eleanor’s body

  determined. Over the next 6 days Douglas-Hamilton’s team was able to moni-

  tor the movements of these other elephants relative to Eleanor’s body. Family

  members approached the body more closely and spent more time with the body

  than nonfamily members, exhibiting altruistic behavior to kin. However, the

  interest displayed in the injured and subsequently dead elephant irrespective of

  genetic relationship showed a generalized response to distress not restricted to

  close kin. They concluded that this case could be seen as an example of “how

  elephants and humans may share emotions, such as compassion, and have an

  awareness and interest about death” (Douglas-Hamilton et al., 2006, p. 15).

  In Etosha National Park, anthrax is endemic and can be fatal to elephants.

  Ginger and Conrad Brain, in the National Geographic film Giants of Etosha,

  recount how the matriarch of the herd they were following, Knobnose, lost two

  successive calves to anthrax. Knobnose, who had led this herd for many years,

  disappeared for months. Finally, she was located and could only be described

  by Ginger as extremely despondent and depressed. She would not lead the herd

  and was found visiting the remains of her calf. While gently touching and prob-

  ing the skull of her calf with her trunk, Ginger recorded, inaudible to the human

  ear, the sounds Knobnose was making. When the recordings of these sounds

  were sped up and made audible to human ears, one heard the heart rendering

  moans of a mother grieving for her lost child. By any measure, Knobnose was

 

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