Danger: Elephants

archangelbeth had a link to a New York Times Magazine story on elephants have become more violent. How violent? Killing hundreds of humans. Which doesn't shock me, I knew elephants were big and smart enough to be very dangerous. This part was a shock: "young male elephants . . . have been raping and killing rhinoceroses."

Rhinos? Damn.

The article concentrates on the psychological damage to elephants from having their family networks destroyed, especially when children see their parents killed. The effects parallel what's been seen happening to human kids in the same region. Makes sense--social animals don't function well when violently isolated. Made me think of some of the things that've happened in this country. There's people working on repairing the damage, but there's no easy fixes. And the central problem for the elephants is the need for lots of land to roam in, which humans want too.