Wild thoughts

A close friend of mine asked me a few days ago if I could remember the name of that trendy hotel bar in Makati named after an African animal (I am not even sure if it is still around). Very few things bore me more than a bar, especially the ones with the smoke so thick and sounds so loud that they are piped directly to my brain. This gives me no space and pleasure to muse and be the conductor of my own sensory symphony. I would rather spend an evening reading a good book or with family and close friends in my patio than go to a bar, anytime. But I was in a helpful mood and I remembered some of my friends telling me about this bar years ago. All I could remember was it was named after an African mammal and so I blurted out: "Zebra. I think the bar’s name is Zebra." Then, minutes and unrelated conversation lines later, I retracted: "No, sorry. I think the bar’s name is Cheetah or is it Puma? Oh, now I am quite sure. I think it is Giraffe. Wait, I remember it connoting something wilder… maybe Wildebeest?" My friend, agonizing at my intense waivering, looked at me hopelessly and said, "Why don’t you just go make a list of all your African savannah mammals then we go to Makati and tick your species list as we check them out?" We both laughed and confirmed that we should be more careful to dip ourselves in tastes in which we were not at home.

I shared with you this conversation because it may help us make sense of an episode that occurred last year when the elephant from the circus in Araneta Center escaped from its van and helped itself to the greens of the islands of Quezon City’s thoroughfares. I wanted to write about it right after that but I wanted to see how much thought the public would put into the episode right after and over time. We all laughed at the scene. It all seemed surreal, especially in this city teeming with only humans. Then tragedy struck. The elephant fell from its harness and created a boom so loud I shouted too and cringed, imagining the pain it must have felt. Right after the episode, there was panic, fascination, anger between animal handlers and those sympathetic to the elephant, and there was talk – a lot of talk on the Internet, especially on how we, Metro Manilans, behaved when we encountered this elephant (I loved some of those well-written e-mail!). After the initial brouhaha, talk about it died. 

Elephants are the largest land mammals. They are the land equivalent of the ocean’s and the world’s largest – the blue whale. The earliest elephant ancestors existed as early as 57 million years ago (human ancestors, not yet even Homo Sapien, are only five million years old). Elephants are pachyderms which means they are thick-skinned like the hippos and the rhinos. They are known to communicate at frequencies too low for humans to perceive, in vocal calls that are carried by the air and the ground. An elephant’s call carried through the air could reach another elephant five miles away but the call carried by the ground could reach one as far as 20 miles away. This is according to an article entitled "Four Ears to the Ground" by Alan Burdick from Natural History 2002. The elephant’s feet could sense these calls through the ground and biologists think that even the elephant’s toenails are wired, i.e, with nerves that send signals directly to the brain. Elephants also have impeccable memory. I was told by Nepali forest rangers once that elephants remember the faces of the hunters who murder their family members and when they get the chance, avenge the fate of their elephant kin, right on target. What I personally find so poignant about elephants is that when they find a dead elephant, they will not leave it out there in the open. The members of the herd will take turns in ceremoniously carrying the corpse to some other place of their choice, a choice not yet fully understood by humans, and collectively "bury" their kin.

A creature whose ancestors existed 57 million years ago meant the elephant ancestors saw the Earth’s first flowering herbs, the first fruit trees, the first grassy meadows, and yes, the first humans! This is the elephant: a creature that is built like a satellite dish that it is able to hear another elephant call if they are in Baclaran from as far away as the first Bulacan exit, and has an impeccable memory for who matters to them and an innate dignity that recognizes the same dignity in a fellow of the same kind, even in death. This is the creature we humans bid to perform for us in circuses and the fellow we hauled in a van and did not know how to greet with respect when it escaped from the van. We were so surprised that it escaped and we were such idiots to have been so. A book review in the Guardian Unlimited last Saturday by Geoffrey Moorhouse of the book "Love, War and Circuses" by Eric Scigliano (Bloomsbury, London 2004) said that it is human familiarity with the elephant through circuses that has led us to be cruel to these animals. I disagree. I say it is ignorance. How many of us Filipinos have seen an elephant in a circus? Not many, I would think so. But still we behaved as cruelly in our ambiguity as those societies who have invented circuses. It is because we have not encountered the elephant or any wild animal in understanding. Some would argue that circuses help to bring wild animals closer to people. The same defense is used by hunters who display the heads of their hunted animals in their homes. Is it to remind them of individual victory or superiority? If so, why not display body parts of your human competitors over whom you won in a game of scrabble?

This may sound ridiculously obvious already, especially at this point in the column, but the elephant’s home is not in the circus. Dressing up and training it to do tricks we humans find interesting does not change the wild nature of that creature. Their bodies remember its longing for its wild home and will always act this out even in the streets of Quezon City and we are idiots to think otherwise. And it is not only because these are elephants and identify these animals to be really "wild." This may come as a surprise to most but domestic dogs, yes, your Lassie, Bantay or Spot, are NOT considered species different from wolves (Canis lupus). Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) are only subspecies of wolves. Everytime a cute friendly dog opens its mouth up close to my face, and I see its teeth, I remember the feral nature of these creatures. In fact, even with humans, I find such feral traces that to guide me for this Year of the Monkey, I got a book called "How to Tell your Friends from Apes" by Will Cuppy (Barnes and Noble Books, 1931). I tell you, it is tricky, especially so because I myself descend from the same primate line.

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