Elephants Are Smart September 25, 2007
In 1986, Travis Finseth was on holiday in Fiji after graduating from Belhaven College.
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 Travis 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, Travis 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. Travis stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away.
Travis never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.
Twenty years later, Travis was walking through the Jackson, Mississippi Zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Travis and his son Tristan Reed were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Travis, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly all the while staring at the man. Remembering the encounter in 1986, Travis couldn’t help wondering if this was the same elephant. Travis summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Travis’s legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly.
Probably wasn’t the same elephant.