JOE SCHLESINGER
An open apology to elephants
Story took ivory tower view of elephant events
Jan. 30, 2007
Villagers and hunters examine a male elephant nicknamed Laden, killed by a hunter 240 kilometres north of Gauhati, India, Saturday, Dec. 16, 2006. The rogue elephant was blamed for 14 deaths and was nicknamed Laden, after the al-Qaeda leader, by fearful villagers. (Associated Press)
A picture, it is said, is worth a thousand words. Sometimes, though, the strong message an image can convey becomes a problem. It did for me in a recent report I did for CBC-TV News. I'm now resorting to words — fewer than a thousand of them, I promise — to try to fix it. In fact, to apologize. No, not to the people who watched the program, but to the subjects of the piece: elephants.
Our report was about a dramatic increase in elephant attacks on humans. Hundreds of people are being killed worldwide every year. The elephants are retaliating for being hunted down for their ivory tusks, for the culling of their herds, the kidnapping of their young, the exploitation and abuse they suffer in captivity and for finding themselves increasingly squeezed out of their natural habitat by an invasion of human settlers. All this, the experts say, has led to a breakdown of the close societal ties of elephant herds. In short, the elephants are at war with mankind, a war they are losing.
Related
Video: Retired elephant animal refuge (Runs 12:13)
External link: The Elephant Sanctuary [will open a new window]
What particularly intrigued me was that a group of experts, including psychiatrists, has concluded that the increasing violence of elephants parallels human behaviour, namely that of people afflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. A study done in Uganda, for instance, demonstrated similarities between the violent behaviour of young men taken from their families and forcibly recruited as child soldiers into the rebel Lord's Resistance Army and that of young male elephants torn from herds sideswiped by the human conflict around them.
There were all sorts of problems with the telling of the story. Pictures for one. Overwhelmingly, elephant attacks are happening in obscure places in Asia and Africa where there are no cameras. The few pictures we found both of elephant attacks and of the violence against them were taken by cameras in North American zoos and circuses, places that hardly qualify as the natural habitat of elephants. Besides, where do you find elephants suffering from PTSD? Even if you do, you certainly can't interview them about how they feel. Nor, for that matter, are there any elephant shrinks.
But we did manage to find a place that seemed to be just what we needed: a preserve where elephants that suffer from PTSD, among them animals that have killed people, are being rehabilitated. It's a sanctuary in the hills of Tennessee where the animals are free to roam.
Above all, we found Carol Buckley, the director and founder of the sanctuary. She is not a psychiatrist, but more than 30 years of working and living with elephants have given her a deep understanding of what drives them. The treatment for her 18 charges includes not just kindness and compassion but also a sense of security and community. She and her partner have built a close connection with the elephants. They've also succeeded in fostering strong relationships among the elephants themselves. Our pictures of happy elephants trumpeting their contentment showed it.
That's where I think our trouble started. We set out to tell the story of a war between man and beast, about the suffering of elephants and a way to help them. But the pictures we got were more about the cure than the ailment, more about cuddly cuteness than the rage of hurt. And that is what seems to have stuck with many viewers.
Elephant's best friend? Dog and Pachyderm cuddle up at preserve in Tennessee (CBC Photo)
Several people have told me that the most memorable part of the piece was the image of an elephant delicately using the tip of her trunk to caress her best buddy, a dog. The dog didn't seem to be bothered by the elephant's huge foot poised above, which could have crushed it in an instant. Elephant and dog have learned to love and trust each other. It is indeed a wonderful image, but an image that distorts the reality of elephant life.
For all our good intent, I believe that our images of the few elephants in the blessed Tennessee sanctuary short-changed the tens of thousands of pachyderms in the Asian jungle, the African savanna and in zoos and circuses everywhere that remain trapped in a war with no end in sight.
To all those elephants, I feel I owe an apology for letting them down.
ABOUT THIS AUTHOR
Biography
Joe Schlesinger is veteran CBC TV reporter who has held several key posts both domestically and as a foreign correspondent. In 1994, Joe retired from the CBC news service and moved back to Toronto. He has, however, continued to contribute to CBC Television programs. A book of Schlesinger's memoirs, Time Zones, was published in 1990 and became a bestseller. Joe has been honoured a number of times for his journalism.
