Thursday, April 03, 2008

Assorted elephant pictures#3


BMills1, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

2 up and 4 down. Is this good training or not training enough?
Bob Kitto

Anonymous said...

A good example of the number of elephants from across the water with "paralized beaks". Seems like more than we had in this country. Wonder why? I believe if they could have "trunked up" the great trainer, Mr. Gindle, would have had them doing just that. I note that he also trained great "liberty horses" and Zebras, etc.

Wade G. Burck said...

Johnny,
What causes a "paralyzed beak?" And why point out the ones across the water? There are a load of those "beaks" right here in the good old USA.
Regards,
Wade Burck

Jim Zajicek said...

Col. they also seem to be prolapsed.....at least the one on the veiwers left....and by the way they are standing..I will assume they all are...Yet I remember seeing a Photo with you and 3 punks a few weeks ago...not all were trunked up....was that due to the photographers timing...or were they paralized also??...The reason I am pointing this out is so Folks don't assume they are paralized by only seeing them in a photo with there trunks not up...When one looks at a Elephant photo a educated eye will see more....Jim Zajicek P.S. I believe the trunks worked fine on the punks..I assume they were sniffin the jelly-beans in your pocket......

Wade G. Burck said...

Jim Zijcek,
Excellent. I was wondering when the prolapse was going to be pointed out, once the trunks were, and someone with your "limited knowledge" saw it. Or wanted to see it. Well done. Notice the sides on the elephant on the end. Did you ever see another one with ribs that bulged like that?
I watched a trainer I admire very much, retire a stiff legged elephant, with a tear in his eye, and the vow, "I will never teach an elephant to do a teeterboard again. That kind of integrity is awful rare. How important is experience. The training of the behavior, or knowing the end result years later, and not training it.
Wade Burck

Wade G. Burck said...

Johnny or Buckles,
You've both been around awhile, and are probably more qualified then any of us to address this. What causes a "paralyzed beak/trunk?" Hawthorns big five act had two out of the five exhibiting the behavior, and I believe they made one trip across the water.
I have noted it more in elephants from one "particular" country, so it might be "regional."

Buckles said...

I have always been of the opinion that this comes from a vitamin deficiency. Elephants with mud shows that move from town to town seven days a week have the fewest number with this malady since they get ample grazing, including the dirt, at a variety of locations.
Elephants that stand on boards most of their lives are denied this and appear to show a higher number of weak trunks.

Wade G. Burck said...

Buckles,
Excellent. Your observation of "boards" also point to the island nation, not Europe, where the malady is most prevalent, but doesn't address concrete floors of coliseums.
The vitamin deficiency can be reversed, if done soon enough, but as you noted mud show elephants can still have it. Will "trauma" to the weakened muscle turn it into a permanent disfigurement, as has been noted in studies.
Thank you,
Wade Burck

Jim Zajicek said...

Elephants with "limited" Beaks when Vitamin E is added to their diet can sometimes gain more movement....I too believe lack of vitamins is the main cause...Jim Zajicek (Limited Myself)

Wade G. Burck said...

Jim Z,
Does a vitamin deficiency also cause the "prolapse" that you noted or the bulging sides?
Wade Burck

Buckles said...

Being unfamiliar with the word "prolapse" I will conclude by saying, "Behold the elephant! Big ears, Big feet, Tail on both ends".
Which is about the extent of my anatomic knowledge.

Buckles said...

Oops! I now see that the question was directed to a different scholar.

Jim Zajicek said...

Wade....What makes you think the bulging sides tipped me off????......Jim Zajicek

Jim Zajicek said...

Buckles, I would hardly consider myself a Scholar....My anatomy Expertise..is limited to "Does it have "2-Heads or extra Legs?" after that qute frankly...I make it up on the Fly.......Jim Zajicek

Jim Zajicek said...

Obviously..I walked into the wrong room....I will now use the lessons I learned at Professor Ridge's School of Dance...and do a soft shoe back over to the "Truck and Trailer" section....Jim Zajicek

Wade G. Burck said...

Buckles and Jim Z.,
I would have used "rupture", but I stayed with "prolapse" as it was Jim Z's word. Prolapses tend to be used in reference to a uterus, after a birth.
Jim Z. assuming that the elephant had not given birth, again was it a vitamin deficiency that caused the same "malady" as the "beak deal?" Or the ribs?
Wade Burck

Casey McCoy Cainan said...

Vitamin deficiency? Larger herds indoors, small herds on mudshows?
I obviously walked into the wrong class room as well Zych, here wanna check out the latest issue of National Enquirer chock full of the same kinda facts.....

Wade G. Burck said...

Buckles and John Herriott,
Let me try to run this again, as John Herriot raised the issue initially.
Pairs or a herd of elephants stabled on the same substrate for their whole lives, display the malady, and the one they stood beside their whole life does not? It may be a "behavioral affliction", as it has been noted in studies that a large percentage of elephants with "paralyzed beaks" display or have displayed adverse behavior, such as running, unwillingness, slugging, attacking.
Wade Burck

Buckles said...

I'll turn it over to the Colonel. I lost this one at "behavioral affliction".

Anonymous said...

Wade, Amodern study of your question can be made using two Ringling elephants. Rebecca and Zina, both from Billy Smart in England. Zina is totlly paralyzed and at the CEC now. Does anyone know the status of Rebecca?
Our elephant Jean can't curl her trunk but everything else works fine. I had a guy tell me she was being lazy or the muscles weren't worked properly. I told him that both these cows lift logs and various other things around the park for the maintenance and tree dept., what's any better excercise than that buddy!

Anonymous said...

I recall long ago asking Smokey Jones about photos of circus elephants wearing thick leather pads over the front of their head and upper trunk. (I have I have sometimes seen similar photos on this blog.)
He said it was to protect the elephants when pushing very heavy circus wagons that had bolts or other metal knobs protruding from the rear. He said that without the pads the elephants would eventually wind up with paralyzed trunks.
As I have never seen these pads in person, (or even know what they were called), how about some comments from someone who has remove a wagon or two from deep mud?

Don Bloomer

Anonymous said...

Another possibility for trunk lameness MAY be metal intoxication.

Some water pipes, early in the morning, may contain rather a lot of metal, due to the fact that the water can be below zero pH, when water "sucks up" metals. (compare the sexties when a lot of people got metal poisoning from aluminuim jars with sour orange juice).

If, by bad luck, an elephant gets enough of metal, theres a tendency that it moves out to a muscle which is heavily used, and it may permanently damage that muscle.

Nowdays, I often messure the pH of water for every new elephant location. IF the pH is below zero, then I try to messure the level of metals.

In any case, its vise to let the water run some time, before letting the elephants drink, I think, in order to avoid the risk that you feed water which has been in the pipes over the night.

//Dan Koehl

Wade G. Burck said...

Joey,
Is Jean the elephant whose picture was posted a short while back, as an example of what was going to be used in a photo exhibition of elephants? It was just a head shot.
Regards,
Wade Burck

P. S. Billy Smarts means you are narrowing it down, and getting out of Europe

GaryHill said...

Zina, had a foot problem way back then but got over it.

Anonymous said...

Wade, yes that was Jean. As I said she can't curl it but she can keep the end turned up. Zina by comparison, all she could move when I was around her was the very tip. She was watered with a hose in the mouth and she had a good aim at tossing food straight up and catching it in her mouth.

GaryHill said...

I remember quite a few of the Billy Smart elephants that Hugo handed over to Buckles having the trunk problem. Monja, Tagu, Mudo,Joan, Christine but Rebecca and Zina were fine back then?