elephant

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Ringling Bros. Elephants Perform for the Very Last Time

The animals will live out their days at a conservation center in Florida

(Newser) - Elephants will perform for the last time at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus on Sunday, as the show closes its own chapter on a controversial practice that has entertained audiences since circuses began in America two centuries ago. Six Asian elephants will deliver their final performances in...

17 Elephants Board Plane, Escape Death

Animal activists cry foul

(Newser) - A cargo plane packed with 17 African elephants touched down in Texas over the weekend, CNN reports, with the pachyderms headed to zoos in Dallas, Kansas, and Nebraska. The transfer to the US was a "rescue mission," Dallas Zoo President Gregg Hudson says, because the elephants were slated...

Spurned Elephant Takes It Out on Cars

Moody creature wanders out of China nature reserve

(Newser) - After losing out on his love interest, a wild elephant has turned his attention to cars. The elephant wandered out of a nature reserve in southern China on Friday following a failed courtship and started playing with cars parked along a highway, slightly damaging more than a dozen vehicles, authorities...

'Rambo' the Elephant Gores Tourist to Death on Thai Trek

Hot weather may have played role in agitating elephant that killed Scottish man

(Newser) - A Scottish tourist was gored to death by an elephant that he and his 16-year-old stepdaughter were riding on the resort island of Samui, Thai authorities tell the AP . A police lieutenant says the animal threw Gareth Crowe and Eilidh Hughes to the ground during a trek on Monday. The...

Elephants Trained to Fight Forest Fires

'Forest watchdogs' patrol Indonesia

(Newser) - Forest fires difficult to control? Call in the pachyderm patrol. Officials in Indonesia are using trained elephants outfitted with water pumps and hoses to help patrol forests and control fires. For nearly three months, Riau province in East Sumatra has been blanketed by smoke from forest fires and land clearing,...

Biggest Elephant Seen in Decades Killed by Hunter

Another 40 were killed with cyanide in Zimbabwe

(Newser) - A disturbing number of elephants have been killed in Zimbabwe in recent weeks, including the biggest one seen in decades. An enormous bull elephant was killed on Oct. 8 just outside a national park by a German hunter who had paid $60,000 for a permit, the Telegraph reports. (The...

60% of Our Giant Herbivores Are in Trouble

Study finds they face risk of extinction

(Newser) - A new study published in Science Advances is being described as "horribly bleak," at least as far as rhinos, camels, and elephants are concerned: It finds that the majority of the planet's giant herbivores face the risk of extinction. The wildlife ecologists write that while about 4,...

US Zoos to Let Their Elephants Die Out

The animals could vanish from North America within a decade

(Newser) - Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo has kept elephants for almost a century, but the tradition has now come to an end. After a third elephant died in 2014, the zoo decided to move its two animals to a zoo in Oklahoma, where they'll have more room to roam as...

Elephants Rescue Stranded Truck in Louisiana

They pushed to stop big rig toppling over

(Newser) - Two circus elephants being taken from New Orleans to Dallas helped out instead of making a break for freedom when the 18-wheeler carrying them ran into trouble. Police in Natchitoches Parish, La., say they received a call about a stranded truck on Interstate 49 and when they arrived, they were...

Science Just Got Closer to Elephant-Mammoth Hybrid

But so far, it's just cells in a petri dish

(Newser) - For the first time since the woolly mammoth went extinct, its genes are working again, Popular Science reports. Sure, it's only in a lab; woolly mammoths haven't wandered the planet for about 4,000 years. But the effort at Harvard has brought the return of the animal a...

Burma Captures Rare White Elephant

She's the 9th in captivity in the country

(Newser) - Burma's forestry department has captured a rare white elephant in the jungles of the country's western Ayeyarwaddy region, an official said today. The 7-year-old female was captured Friday, six weeks after she was initially spotted in a reserve in Pathein township, forestry official Tun Tun Oo said. It'...

'Horny' Elephant Kills Handler, Kidnaps 2 Females

The elephant went wild in Thailand, south of Bangkok

(Newser) - A bull elephant in a state of "aggressive sexual excitement" trampled its handler and ran away with two female tourists during an otherwise scenic ride past waterfalls in Thailand, the AP reports. Rescuers tracked the elephant for nearly two miles, then shot it with a tranquilizer and rescued the...

Baby Elephant Survives 14-Lion Attack

Fends them off, escapes into water

(Newser) - A 1-year-old elephant wandered off from his mother at the Norman Carr Safaris Chinzombo Camp in Zambia, and 14 lions attacked him—but, somehow, this story avoids an unhappy ending. The lions were unable to take the elephant down, even as they clung to his back, and he was able...

Elephant Sanctuary Founder Crushed by Old Friend

Former juggler Jim Laurita gave circus animals a home

(Newser) - The remarkable life of Jim Laurita, a circus juggler turned veterinarian who founded an elephant sanctuary to care for his old friends, has been brought to a premature end by one of the animals he loved. The 56-year-old was found dead yesterday at the Hope Elephants sanctuary in Hope, Maine,...

Circus Elephants Escape, Go on Mini Rampage

At least 2 vehicles damaged after they slip handlers at Moolah Shrine Circus

(Newser) - Three circus elephants got a little taste of freedom and hooliganism yesterday when they apparently slipped their handlers at Moolah Shrine Circus and went on a mini rampage in a St. Louis parking lot, reports StLToday.com . At least two vehicles were damaged, though one witness makes it sound more...

Giant Ivory Stockpile to Go Up in Flames

Tusks of 11K elephants will be destroyed in Hong Kong

(Newser) - Hong Kong plans to burn the tusks of an estimated 11,000 elephants in the world's biggest burning of an ivory stockpile. The territory's government says the 28-ton stockpile of contraband ivory is a "management burden" and a "security risk," reports CNN . Hong Kong had...

Zookeeper Killed by Charging Elephant

'Patience' had a history of aggression

(Newser) - A longtime zookeeper in southwest Missouri was killed today when he was charged by an elephant, a spokeswoman for the city of Springfield said. John Bradford, 62, died when he was attacked by an elephant inside the area at the Dickinson Park Zoo where the elephants are housed, city spokeswoman...

Elephants Understand Us When We Point
 Elephants 
 Understand Us 
 When We Point 
study says
Oct 11, 2013 5:08 AM CDT

Elephants Understand Us When We Point

And they don't even have to be taught

(Newser) - Researchers have found that when a human points, elephants understand her—without requiring any training. "It seems that understanding pointing is an ability elephants just possess naturally, and they are cognitively much more like us than has been realized," says a researcher. She tested their ability by putting...

Activists Hope to Fight Poaching —With Nukes

New test can pinpoint year of elephant's death

(Newser) - As the slaughter of elephants for their ivory continues at its worst rate in decades , conservationists have enlisted an unlikely new weapon in the fight against poaching: Cold War-era nuclear bombs. Scientists have found that radioactive carbon left over from above-ground nuclear tests carried out between 1952 and 1962 makes...

Circus Elephant Injured ... in Drive-by Shooting

'Carol' is OK after getting hit with bullet in Tupelo, Mississippi

(Newser) - Even animal-rights activists who hate the circus couldn't have dreamed up this potential pitfall: An elephant with Ringling Bros. was wounded overnight in a drive-by shooting in Tupelo, Mississippi, reports the Clarion-Ledger . The good news is that "Carol," who was in an outdoor enclosure at the time,...

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