Elephants rescue captured antelopes - what the fuck!??
 

Elephant rescue operation
April 9 2003


An elephant has launched an extraordinary rescue operation, opening a gate with her trunk to free antelopes being held at a camp near Empangeni in the east of South Africa.

Lawrence Anthony told the SAPA news agency that a private game capture company had rounded up the antelope to relocate them for a breeding program.

The team were settling in for the night when a herd of 11 elephant approached, he said.

"The herd circled the enclosure while the capture team watched warily, thinking the herd were after lucerne (alfalfa) being used to feed the antelope," he said.

The herd's matriarch, named Nana, approached the enclosure gates and began tampering with the metal latches holding the gates closed.

She carefully undid all the latches with her trunk, swung the gate open and stood back with her herd.

"At this stage the onlookers realised this was not a mission for free food, but actually a rescue," Mr Anthony said.

The herd watched the antelope leave the camp before they walked off into the night.

Ecologist Brendon Whittington-Jones said: "Elephant are naturally inquisitive - but this behaviour is certainly most unusual and cannot be explained in scientific terms"




fucking kick-ass.

awesome. elephants are my favorite animal.

Elephants are my favorite animals, hands down.

evolution.

wow. we have something in common. :)

well they do have prehensile trunks, which probably wouldn't be too far removed from opposable thumbs in the scheme of things - allowing the use of very primitive tools and creating the need for problem solving... thats why i reckon we have to keep an eye on squid and octopi :)

Man, with all this shit going on (crows making tools, elephants helping antelope escape), we're going to have to take some seriously hard looks at the world around us. I've always maintained that some animals, at least, really do think. That sure sounds like thinking to me.

SpaceAce

for sure, there 100% definately is a lot of complex thought happening in certain more highly developed creatures, and not just chimps, bonobo's, dolphins, parrots. Some of those creatures must come close to a 2 year old human... and a vast swathe of others must surely have base emotions and very primitive logic like dogs.. btw my dog has epilepsy - she fits and foams at the mouth.. all we are is thinking animals..our brain chemistry is so similar.

Really?

The next time we meet up you should ask me to show you my baby elephant trunk.

Yes, it isn't just the "famous" smart animals. Pigs, for instance, show quite a bit of intelligence. I also think that a scale like "As smart as an 'x' year old human" is not really fair because how can you measure the intelligence of a non-human being by human standards?

SpaceAce