elephants

Water For Elephants is a depression era tale of a young college drop out whom, following the death of his parents, finds himself running away and joining a circus as their vet (having nearly completely vet school at Cornell). I actually really enjoyed this book. It's my first Sara Gruen book, and I'd be interested to see what else she has written.I'm always a little weary of female authors writing male lead characters...and vice versa. Whether you think you can help it or not, your gender preferences seep into your work. Call it sexist, but that's how I view it. The book jumps from Jacob Jankowski's adventures in the circus to his life in an old age home at the ripe young age of ninety...or ninety three. He can't seem to recall. Jacob is a young fire pistol (with the red hair to match) an

We share something very unique with elephants. Elephants, though they’re one of the strongest animals on the planets, can be constrained with the smallest sticks and ropes. In Southeast Asia, elephants are still used as a mode of transportation. Tourist are often amazed at the fact that the elephant handlers use small ropes tied [...]

Echo is the gentle matriarch of a family of elephants in Kenya’s Amboseli National Park. Watched over by distinguished research scientist and founder of the Amboseli Elephant Research Project, Cynthia Moss, Echo leads her charge through the rough and the smooth, good times and bad, all captured faithfully on film by award-winning photographer Martyn Colbeck.In January 1990, Cynthia and Martyn embarked on the first of what would ultimately be four exceptional films produced over thirteen years in the shadow of the Great White Mountain, Kilimanjaro, documenting the lives of one elephant family for the BBC’s Natural History Unit. These uniquely moving and unforgettable films have wider implications for our understanding of elephants everywhere.Episode Listing* Echo of the Elephants (1992

“Well, he came without warning like 10,000 men swarming. Right out of the sky, like a torch in the night. The rocks were screaming, and the sand it was breathing. I’ve been here before, When I was killed in a war.” -The Black Angels - “The Return (a warning to prepare)” Austin’s The Black Angels sophomore LP stomped its’ way on to the interwebs [...]

Water for Elephants: A Novel (Paperback)By Sara Gruen Buy new: $13.95$8.37177 used and new from $5.99 Customer Rating: First tagged “eldercare” by E. Taylor “canvas by canvas” Customer tags: circus(186), historical fiction(165), [...]

In Thailand, approximately 3,800 of the country's estimated 5,000 endangered Asian elephants are in private hands. Most are used as tourist attractions in elephant camps where they are forced to perform circus tricks and give rides. PETA U.S. has uncovered the horrific torture that is routine in Thailand's secret "training" camps. Still-nursing baby elephants are literally dragged from their mothers, kicking and screaming. They are immobilized, beaten mercilessly, and gouged with nails for days at a time. These ritualized "training" sessions leave the elephants badly injured, traumatized, or even dead.In a village, deep in the jungles of Thailand, a baby elephant is offered a piece of fruit. Born into captivity, she has lived in the village with elephant trainers, called mahouts, since she

These elephants made me gasp in awe. Just watch the video. I'm not talking about random elephant-created squiggles and splodges of paint on a canvas; I'm talking about serious elephant-created illustrations better than your kid can paint! Frikkin amazing! Watch it!!![VIA]

Great kids tune. This one goes out to Chet, Lela, Haley, Draven, Owen, and all our other grandkids, real, virtual, extended, adopted, etc. Found at Neatorama. Go here for more of Eric's music. Go here for more elephants at Rockhoppers Daily Grind. Elephants on Whidbey Island.

This year the Famour Thrissur Pooram will see no elephants as the Kerala High Court has upheld an earlier ban on parading elephants between 1100 hrs (IST) and 1400 hrs (IST) at all festivals. Thrissur Pooram is all about Elephants and Fireworks. Now if the Highcourt decides to step in and spoil the game what can the Pooram [...]

Watch Video Now, we show for the first time other creatures of the jungle caught in this extraordinary - and pioneering - way. Cheeky langur monkeys, a rare sloth bear, spotted deer and a leopard with her cub are just some of the other animals that film-maker John Downer came across in [...]

Elephants rolling snowballs. Elephant rescued from well. Elephants Attack! On top of all this, we've got Horton Hears a Who opening this weekend, and 10,000 BC already out. Let's hear it for the elephants! Elephants on Whidbey Island.

The 1980s mega resort limps on. This is what I discovered when, inspired by an internet bargain, I spent a couple of days at a cut-price high-rise folly in Bali. In the lagoon-style pool, crisscrossed by bridges and fed by spewing stone turtles, guests delighted in scheduled aqua-aerobic fun. When they tired of the pleasures of the pool or the thin beach, eroding despite being shored up with sandbags, they could watch the coconut tree-climbing displays and fruit-carving demonstrations that were offered at regular intervals.When my husband and I ventured to the Jungle Pub before dinner to use our complimentary drink voucher, pot plants were our only company. Later in the Japanese restaurant upstairs, where prices were considerably higher than you would pay in Sydney and staff outnumbered th

Posted by ciaran Due to an unavoidable client meeting, I had to miss the first session on the final day of SES London 2008. From speaking to a few people, it sounds like I missed some good ones, so here's hoping the rest of the day keeps up the quality.  Session 2: Dynamic Websites: Beyond the Basics read more

While poachers are slaughtering some of the last surviving central African elephants for their tusks, a refuge in Chad gives this endangered species armed protection—and a fighting chance. During the dry season, a menagerie of animals congregates in Zakouma National Park. Since there was no way... { This is a content summary only. Visit Uptime Studio for full content! }

It is a political year for sure and your vote counts. Just don't screw it up over something neither candidate can truly fix. The housing crisis is all over the news, Internet, even on your toilet paper. The political candidates...

This Sri Lankan elephant definitely appears to be ticked, as you can plainly see as he takes out his anger on this mini-bus. Sadly, elephants on the rampage like this are becoming a rather common phenomenon in Asia. The situation plays something like this: Man encroaches on traditional pachyderm territory, so the elephants move further into the jungle to avoid contact with man. Well, you can

An African elephant can recognise dozens of kin by the signature smell of urine, and uses its powerful nose to keep track of their whereabouts, according to a new study.Researchers led by Professor Richard Byrne of the University of St Andrews in Scotland, publish their research in the journal Biology Letters.A keen trunk coupled with a good memory is essential for the foraging pachyderms, which travel in ever-shifting groups ranging from a handful to several hundred individuals, the study says.Drawing from developmental research on pre-verbal children, scientists from the UK and Kenya tested the ability of elephants in Kenya's Amboseli National Park to distinguish kin from stranger.They also devised experiments, called 'expectancy-violation' paradigms, to see whether the animals knew where family members were at any given moment.They placed individual samples of urine mixed with earth from females along the paths of 36 elephant family groups, and then measured the reactions.Only fe

Greetings everyone,Some of you may know, some of you may not but Project: Zoo Quest is more than a blog. It is also a nonprofit charity. I am in the process of setting up my first big fundraiser and I want to do something for Asiatic elephants.There are only around 30,000 left in the wild scattered over more than a dozen countries and their numbers are falling fast. In comparison there are more than 600,000 elephants left in Africa and the media acts like they are about to disappear. Asia's elephants need help.I have a goal of raising $5,000 over a 90-day period beginning Jan. 15 through a project I am calling "E-Bay for Elephants". I will do a three month auction of all kinds of items to raise those funds which will go to a couple of different projects directly for Asiatic elephants.

Sometimes you run across the craziest things. I had to read the following twice to be sure that there was no gotcha line...Conservationists today hailed the socialite Paris Hilton, who was convicted of drink driving earlier this year, for apparently trying to highlight the problem of binge-drinking elephants in north-eastern India.Activists said the celebrity endorsement would raise awareness of the plight of pachyderms that got drunk on farmers' homemade rice beer and went on the rampage.Last month, six wild elephants that broke into a farm in the state of Meghalaya were electrocuted after discovering and drinking the potent brew before uprooting an electricity pylon."There would have been more casualties if the villagers hadn't chased them away," Hilton was quoted as saying in Tokyo last week according to a report posted on the World Entertainment News Network website. "And four elephants died in a similar way three years ago. It is just so sad."The elephants get drunk all the time

Will Nine Eleven Fade Down The Memory Hole Will We Get Answers The Elephants In The Room Are F*cking Huge, How Can People Ignore See Nathan's Resource Page, It's Very Clear, Consice 9 1 1 Questions How Can Anyone Read The Many Questions, Then Just Shrug Their Shoulders Do Americans Like Being Lied To? They Have Become Conditioned To Believe Only What The T V Says, Trust The Bush Admin Blindly It's A Scary Thought That Our Own Government Would Attack It's People But That Is What They Do, Throughout History, This Is How They Control Public Opinion Rally Thier People For War To Steal Resources I'll Spell It Out For You In The Next Haiku Phrase, Pay Attention: Attack The People [ 911 ] Blame The Desired Enemy [ Iraq ] Start Your War Machine [ endless war profiteering ] 9 1 1 Is How We Got To The Quagmire That Is The Iraq War Whether Or Not You Believe That 9 1 1 Was Inside Job, One Thing Is Clear, Neocons The Bush Admin, Used It To Rape Iraq For Oil Impeachment Is The

This post is not about celebrity weight or diets, but I found it too funny, so I had to share it. When she got out of jail, Paris Hilton promised she would become a good girl and get involved in charities and awareness campaigns. Now she has finally found one cause close to her heart: saving drunk Indian elephants! The twenty-six year old heiress is hoping to raise awareness of the problem, after hearing about an incident in Meghalaya last week in which six intoxicated elephants were killed after hitting a high-tension electric pole outside the Indian village of Chandan Nukat. “There would have been more casualties if the villagers hadn’t chased them away.” “And four elephants died in a similar way three years ago. It is just so sad. The biggest problems are in Assam and Meghalaya. The elephants get drunk all the time.” “It is becoming really dangerous. We need to stop making alcohol available to them.” [Source] I don’t know if this is true or not (it certainly sou

In 1986, Dan Harrison was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University .On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Dan approached it very carefully.He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant's foot and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it.As carefully and as gently as he could, Dan worked the wood out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot.The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments.Dan stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away. Dan never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.Twenty years later, Dan was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son.As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to

At least as of last night there are no elephants in Alaska. Maggie, a 2-ton, 25-year-old African elephant, has spent most of her life at the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage, but last night was flown in a C-17 military cargo plane to the Performing Animal Welfare Society facility in California (that’s the same type of aircraft used to move Willy the orca in 1998). Watching the Maggie story in the Anchorage Daily News and on their Web site over the past 15 years or so has been upsetting, and is one of the reasons I’ve never been to the Anchorage zoo in my 100+ visits to the city. The zoo has been under ever-increasing pressure to move her to a warmer climate, particularly since her companion elephant died 10 years ago.  My last visit to a zoo was about 15 years ago, when my kids were small. We went to the Vancouver Game Farm which was bearable, and then perhaps a year later to one in Kamloops, BC, which finished me off with zoos forever. They had a grizzly bear in a tiny metal cage

The day started early, a quick shave and frantic last minute rummage for my smart shoes before heading off to the medical school for a communication skills briefing. Normally I wouldn’t have been so eager to get to college, but today marked a medical milestone for me – it was the “meet your first patient” day.On the tube I glossed over the protocol we had been given regarding the ward visit. I wasn’t particularly anxious at the thought of meeting a patient. It was to be an informal chat, nothing too challenging, and I’ve dealt with patients before at my home GPs. The hours lecture before hand worked me up a bit, and in all honesty overcomplicated the occasion as worrying about whether to shake hands, the posture to sit in, and things you should and should not say to me seemed like common sense.The FY1 met us at reception, and after working our way through the labyrinth of drab hospital corridors we were told to wash our hands, don gloves and plastic aprons as there were MRS

Apparently nobody told these elephants that “if you booze, you lose” and as a result they juiced themselves with 1.21 gigawatts. Six Asiatic wild elephants were electrocuted as they went berserk after drinking rice beer in India’s remote northeast, a wildlife official said today. Nearly 40 elephants came to a village on Friday looking for food. Some found beer, which farmers ferment and keep in plastic and tin drums in their huts, said Sunil Kumar, a state wildlife official. They got drunk, uprooted a utility pole carrying power lines and were electrocuted in Chandan Nukat, a village nearly 150 miles west of Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya state, Kumar said. “There would have been more casualties had the villagers not chased them away,” said Dipu Mark, a local conservationist. Original Story: Seattle Times Share This

What happended to the weekend? Did I blink?Week 1.Well I now consider myself to be well and truly inducted, I've been inducted into university, well actually not one but two... I don't do things by half my dears. I've also been inducted into my new team, my sub group, my super group (no not as in Bee Gees or ABBA type super group), my district. In fact I am so well inducted I feel like I have been turned inside out and back again and I'm not sure if at some point someone didn't tattoo the company logo on my rump, well ok if they didn't do, then it certainly felt like it was going to be done at some point.My fellow 'cohortees' are an amiable bunch. The usual mixture of the shrinking violets who at some point will come out of their shells and let their hair down, probably after a babycham or two... bless them. The peirced, tattooed wild child, only with a few years under her belt looking slightly jaded and a little the worse for wear. Sadly at two of the offices we've attended s

Animated movie starring the molded plywood elephants of Charles and Ray Eames. Part of the Eames Office (www.eamesoffice.com) celebration of the Charles Eames centennial--also it is just alot of fun. Director Eames Demetrios' contribution to the family festivities, featuring the elephants being manufactured by the Vitra Design Museum

By: Sadayoshi For those who don’t know, the term white elephant refers to anything that has only imaginary or perhaps aesthetic value for the owner, but has no practical or functional value. When applied to any Japanese used car for sale, it seems to merit quite some thought.To answer the question, one possible answer a collector of used Japanese cars might give is: no, my used Japanese cars still have practical and/or functional value. How so? Well, perhaps this car collector is still able to get some mileage out of his Japanese used cars. Perhaps on weekends, he brings one of his Japanese used cars out of his garage and takes his family out for a trip to church, or on a picnic to a nearby park, or even a bit further away to a beach for an afternoon of water-based activities. For such a person, his used Japanese cars would not be white elephants in the strictest sense of the use of the term because the vehicles can still be used though perhaps not as regularly as newer cars.Another

"There is a very real danger that Sumatran elephants (and tigers) could become extinct in our lifetime if we don't come to agreement at this workshop," said Christy Williams of the World Wildlife Fund. Satellite images show that 8 million hectares of Sumatra island's remaining lowland tropical forest - the animals' primary habitat - were lost to development from 1990 to 2000, conservationists say. They estimate that there are only 2,400 to 2,800 Sumatran elephants left in the world, and no more than 400 tigers.

Bet you never thought you’d be hanging poo on your walls. The Great Elephant PooPoo Paper Company sells works of art made out of real elephant waste from conservation parks. It won’t stink up your living room and at very reasonable prices, these unique paper items could become quite popular!

i'm back! this is going to be a quick post as i'm knackered from traveling overnight and i'm still not thinking straight. so as a preview of things to come:August 5th i arrived in Bangkok and met R at the airport. we toured around the sights on the 6th - the grand palace, the reclining buddha, and other places in the city.on the 7th - we took a tour to the floating market and the tiger temple, and made a quick stop at the bridge over the river kwai.the 8th brought us back to the airport to fly (domestic) to surat thani about halfway down the country - a long bus ride and then a ferry brought us to our "home" on the islands - Koh Samui. we experienced local thai culture, a touristy elephant ride, swimming under waterfalls, and lots of beach time.the 13th (my "birthday" in thailand) we boarded a high speed catamaran for the island of Koh Tao - otherwise known as paradise.on the 16th it was back to samui for the night and a flight to bangkok on the 17th (didn't want to leave...)out la

Tip from reader Lisa, she creates handmade toys from a series of recycled materials including clothes, scraps, and remnants. Her toys reflect a growing trend and interest in functional, safe, and homemade items. She has a shop at my favorite site, Etsy (for those that don’t know Etsy) it is a site that only displays wares that are handmade. Her items and her shop are dedicated to wonderfully handmade toys such as this cute (no buttons) elephant made out of recycled scarf and skirt. Site Description: “An original design, pieced by machine, hand finished and stuffed with non-allergenic fiber-fill. He has grey inner-ears, a grey plaited wool tail and and blue wool eyes”. Read more on Lisa and her shop at Etsy. All Natural, Arts and Entertainment, elephant, etsy, handmade toys, original design, Re use, recycle, recycled materials, Reduce, Socially Responsible

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASESafari Club June 14, 2007 The Hague, Netherlands – The commercial sales of elephant ivory stocks will be allowed after a compromise was reached following nearly two weeks of behind-the-scenes negotiations at the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES).The 170 nation CITES treaty will also allow sportsmen to ship their elephant ivory hunting trophies from range states. Commercial trade in elephant hair, hide and certain carved ivory items was also approved.Safari Club International’s chief of delegation, John Monson, said that “the result was recognition of the good management of elephants in southern Africa and the dramatic increase in those populations.” Rick Parsons, SCI’s Director of Governmental Affairs, added that “the CITES parties have moved a long way in recognizing that the sustainab

Elephants Dream is the world’s first open movie, made entirely with open source graphics software such as Blender, and with all production files freely available to use. “Elephants Dream” is the result of almost a year of work, a project initiated and coordinated by the Blender Foundation. Six people from the Blender user/development community were selected to come over to Amsterdam to work together on an animated short movie, utilizing Open Source tools only. The HD DVD is for sale for € 14.90 which covers their production costs. Download: Elephants Dream Link & Image: orange.blender Share This

Flying Elephants FoundationLike the MacArthur Fellows program, the Flying Elephants Foundation rewards a select group of artists and scientists a chunk of change to spend as each wishes. Also like the MacArthur's "genius grants," it refuses funding proposals and candidate nominations. But unlike the legendary and long-lived MacArthur, the Flying Elephant Foundation is young, its aim is specifically to help individuals "working to benefit the environment," and its roster of fellows has only just begun to bloom. But what a list it is: A scientist who has studied whales at sea for decades; a photographer who seeks vistas of industrially ravaged land; a musician who explores the "musical vibrations" of Earth and space. So far, the foundation has blessed 10 people with its largesse. Let's make it more. Though this group won't be lobbied, they will accept donations. Most of their financing comes from the now-legendary "Ashes and Snow" exhibit. But some comes from individuals like youhttp:

Researchers led by Caitlin O'Connell-Rodwell of Stanford University Medical Centre in California also suspected that these rumblings generate seismic waves that travel through the ground, enabling elephants to pick up the signals through their surprisingly sensitive feet.

Have you seen Elephants Dream - the first Open source / Creative Commons movie Press Release May 18, 2006 For Immediate Release Elephants Dream, internet release of the first 3D ‘Open Movie’ (Blender Foundation, Amsterdam, the Netherlands) - The 3D animated short ‘Elephants Dream’ will today be released as a free and public download. This is the final stage of a successfully completed Open Movie project which has been community-financed, using only Open Source tools, and opening up the movie itself as well as the entire studio database for everyone to re-use and learn from. The movie and production files are licensed as “Creative Commons Attribution 2.5″, which only requires a proper crediting for public screening, re-using and distribution. In the past weeks, the donating sponsors have received the dual DVD set of this project in their mailbox. This DVD set remains for sale via the blender.org e-shop as support product for future Open Movie project

It’s storming like crazy. Hailing elephants. My tulips are destroyed . There are tornado warnings in effect. Guess I’ll hop in the bed and enjoy. I love rain, but today I didn’t want to be in sleepy mode. Guess I’ll put off site stuff for a day.

Great civilisations to flourished here, in Sri Lanka, over a thousand years ago. But it might never have happened - without the help of elephants. Their feet pounded the foundations of the cities. Their strength hauled millions of tons of stone for the dams and temples. They harvested timber from the forests.In Sri Lanka only a very few male elephants carry tusks - and they're usually larger than other males. The bright red patches near his eyes show he's in musth, the male breeding condition, when his testosterone level soars to sixty times normal.Some of these youngsters may be his offspring from earlier visits. Now, the large groups of elephants which come here (Uda Walawe National Park) to feed include females who are ready to breed. He's probably mated already, and now he's keeping other males at bay by guarding the herd. But soon he'll leave them, perhaps for many months.Males take no part in rearing their offspring - their youngsters are raised in the stable matriarchal

Last night, on my way home from work, I walked by the Verizon Center, forgetting that the circus was in town.Sweet actually went, but I just walked right on by, eager to catch my train home. But on my way, I was offered brochures from about 10 different people, innocently saying, "Here's some free information about the circus."Information? Yeah, right. It was PETA propaganda. Now, whether this is even true is up for debate. But what I do know for sure is that there are better ways for PETA to get their message across than to hand out these leaflets to people who have already spent their hard earned money to take their kids to an evening of entertainment. It's simply too late to be effective at that point.Mostly, though, I feel bad for the kids, who are so excited about the circus, and wind up having their spirits crushed by stories of tortured elephants.When I was a kid -- around nine or ten -- I went to see the circus at Madison Square Garden. We had box seats, so I was

The movie was made mostly as an experiment, rather than to tell a certain story and therefore has a strong random and surrealistic atmosphere. It features two men, Proog and Emo living in a miraculous construction referred to only as ‘the Machine’; Proog tries to introduce Emo to its nature but the latter is reluctant and argues about its purpose. Check It Out

The two main characters are on a journey in the folds of a giant Machine, exploring the twisted and dark complex of wires, gears and cogs. Until one moment a conflict arises that throws out all their assumptions. This movie short couples lively fun with passionate characters in an epic story line.-imdb.com Genre: Animation Actors: Tygo Gernandt, Cas Jansen Reviews: IMDb:5.8/10 (239 votes) Homepage Torrent: Download File Size: 814 mb Release Name:Elephants Dream HD avi Note: 20206 seeds, 6866 leechers

י' באדר תשס"זUsually the fast of Esther is on Adar 13. However, this year Adar 13 falls on shabbat, so the fast day is observed on Thursday, Adar 11 (this year). With the fast of Esther moved to Thursday, Nicanor Day, a feast day, can be observed Adar 13 if one so chooses.Nicanor Day celebrates the beheading of Nicanor, the master of elephants, who fought against Judah and the Maccabees.And Judah hung the head of Nicanor from the citadel as clear and evident proof of the help of the Lord. (Second Book of the Maccabees) Think so? Wasn't the Temple destroyed 231 years later? 231 has a digit sum of 6. Six is the value of the truth of the matter.David Holzel writes:Nicanor was a Syrian general of the Hellenistic persuasion who battled Judah and the Maccabees at Beit Horon in 161 BCE. That was three years after the Jewish victory over King Antiochus that brought us Chanukah. The battle against Nicanor took place of the 13th day of Adar — the day before Purim.From wiki:In 66 CE,

I hate immunizations, M B and T always get sick. M had the poos and the vomits today, T had the poos, and B actually got lucky and didn't get sick but was really cranky. Within a couple days though they will be fine. I might be getting a tattoo this weekend, the marks I chose before, only if the artist can come up with something more then the three symbols, and try to unify them in some way. Either that or I have found another design I like which is actually medusa with her eyes closed. I found it on dev art and absolutely fell in love with it. [link] I have always liked Medusa, not for her evilness of course, that is only a plus in her history, but it's just something about her. of course the artist who did the link above, done her in a very pretty way, and not really medusa like at all except the snakes, but it was awesome nonetheless. Medusa to me, would represent who I can be but don't like to be. I can be a very bitter hateful person, believe it or not. I am not proud of it, bu

Carnivores are some of the widest ranging terrestrial mammals for their size, and this affects their energy intake and needs. This difference is also played out in the different hunting strategies of small and large carnivores. Smaller species less than 15-20 kg in weight specialize on very small vertebrates and invertebrates, which weigh a small fraction of their own weight, whereas larger species (greater than 15-20 kg) specialize on large vertebrate prey near their own mass. While carnivores around the size of a lynx or larger can obtain higher net energy intake by switching to relatively large prey, the difficulty of catching and subduing these animals means that a large-prey specialist would expend twice as much energy as a small-prey specialist of equivalent body size. In a new article published by PLoS Biology, Dr. Chris Carbone and colleagues from the Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London reveal how this relationship might have led to the extinction of large carniv

Flores is not your typical island paradise. Giant rats and lizards with bacteria laced saliva have lived here. Miniature elephants have called it home. But amazingly, scientists have now discovered that a race of miniature humans have also roamed there.

According to an article in the New York Times recently, elephants in Africa and India are on the attack. There is speculation that it is the result of the shrinking of their natural lands - they have almost no space left and they're not happy about it. I've always heard that elephants are similar to us in that they mourn their dead, protect their groups, and maintain close relationships with each other.In Jharkhand, India, elephants killed 300 people between 2000 and 2004. In Africa, they are attacking villagers on the road and destroying fields and entire villages; last year, 300 villagers abandoned their homes because of elephant attacks.What's even more strange is that in several animal and wildlife reserves in that region, young male elephants are raping and killing rhinoceroses. Just last year, officials in Pilanesberg, South Africa killed three young male elephants who were responsible for 63 rhino deaths.Sad to say, but this sounds more like human behavior than animal. Makes

NAIROBI (AFP) - Virgin Atlantic chairman Sir Richard Branson on Saturday announced a programme aimed at saving elephants in Kenya, as he boarded his airline's first flight to the east African nation. ADVERTISEMENT He pledged 250,000 dollars (186,000 euros) to help create Virgin Mount Kenya Elephant Corridor that would benefit about 2,000 elephants threatened by human encroachment. "Historically, the African elephant has roamed across the continent from South Africa to the Mediterranean coast but its population is under serious threat," Branson told reporters in Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. "We need to build safe elephant corridors to protect the species, as well as the villages, people and crops around them, and our wider environment. "We can create a vital lifeline for the entire animal and human population in the region." The project, which would cost a million dollars (744,000 euros) over 10 years, would link two ecosystems and enable the elephants to use their hist

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsidDezFKAQ[/youtube] . . . . Okay, so that's not really the issue here, but he was making us all look bad :) I think I'll start hiring monkeys to do my accounting... no offense to accountants... just more cost effective.

[youtube] . . . . Okay, so that's not really the issue here, but he was making us all look bad :) I think I'll start hiring monkeys to do my accounting... no offense to accountants... just more cost effective.

[youtube] . . . . Okay, so that's not really the issue here, but he was making us all look bad :) I think I'll start hiring monkeys to do my accounting... no offense to accountants... just more cost effective.