What Elephants Can Teach People

After my last entry which discussed the rather strange way my brain appears to process and connect divergent information and, after a period of "excogitation," spews forth some semblance of personal truth, I offer this:

In the early 1990's the elephant population In Krueger National Park, South Africa, had what can only be described as a "elephant boom" The elephant population, better protected from the species' only predator - man, was exploding beyond the capacity for the park's resources. I am sure there were the inevitable outcries from naturalists, ecologists and - most assuredly - P.E.T.A., the country's government decided that the elephant population needed to be culled. "Culled" being the politically-correct (PC) way of saying "We need to kill some of the adult elephants." And they did.

Now, over a decade later, Karl Popper's "Law of Unintended Effect" has reared its often ugly head. First, the good news: the elephant population of Krueger National Park is thriving and, in fact, they are moving some of the healthier members of the herds to other African preserves with smaller indigenous elephant populations. The bad news? There were a sudden, unexpected and, initially, unexplainable series of "hate crimes" by elephants against - who would have thought it? - the rhinoceros (f.y.i. according to Wikipedia, the plural can be either rhinoceros or rhinoceroses.) According to the BBC and a susequent Animal Plant special I viewed some years ago on the same topic, over 30 rhinoceros (including a rare black subspecies) have been found slaughtered at the hands...er...tusks of elephants.

Where it gets interesting - beyond the usual "Of my God! Human encroachment has driven the poor animals mad!" reaction - is which elephants are doing it and why. Investigation by diligent zoologists and veterinarians have discovered (I'm not making this stuff up, folks) that the deaths were caused not in a competitive turf war over shrinking resources but due to teenage angst. It was, for want of a human explanation, a gang war in the animal kingdom.

Perhaps, further background will add clarity. When the culling process was undertaken, older adults - primarily female - were sacrificed. This, of course, led to the orphaning of several hundred young elephants. These young animals were raised lovingly and carefully in a tiered system which introduced them to more and more independence as the calves grew older. When they reached an adolescent age - 8 to 12 years old, much like humans - the young females were allowed to be around older females and began to form family units. The social system of the elephant is strongly based on family links and are always headed by a matriarchal female. The family is usually composed of that matriarch's daughters and her sisters, etc. Male calves stay with the family group for the 6-8 years but gradually begin to move to the fringes of the family. When a male reaches "adolescence," he typically strikes out on his own. These adolescent males were subsequently moved out into areas of the African game reserves where there sparse adult males and they could, presumably, thrive and reach normal adulthood.

It is at this point that elephant biology trumped the "interventionist sociology" that the wildlife experts had implemented. The young adolescent bull elephants - all in the early teens - went on their rhino-cidal rage. Rhinocerous carcasses were being found with increasing regularity at water holes throroughly trampled and, often, stabbed repeatedly with tusks. What could be the cause? Why would two giant herbivores species be having a such a deadly conflict?

It seems the reason would have been more easily explainable if wildlife experts simply read more about human behavior. These young males, who had grown up without old male "role models" to emulate and, yes, be kept in line, were simply taking out their rage on the rhinoceros. It turns out that when teenage males reach puberty in the absence of older, dominant bull elephants, they enter puberty (for the animal purists, "musth") too fast and too young. The surge of testosterone makes the young bulls aggressive and they lash out and display hostility - against park rangers, the Range Rovers they drive or, tragically, the unfortunate rhinos.

And what solved the problem of the raging, murderous teenagers? Adult role models. The park personnel introduced 4 or 5 older, dominant bull elephants into the territories inhabited by these juvenile delinquents and almost instantly the problem was solved. The teenage misfits went immediately out of musth and stopped killing rhinoceros. Their stampede into testosterone intoxicated was immediately quashed.

Now, in that cluttered and often chaotic neural network between my ears, this has certain distinct parallels in human society. In most of the sociological literature it has been demonstrated repeatedly that juvenile crime is linked to "broken homes" - i.e. where one parent is missing. Statistically, this is a fatherless home. If I may quote one study "According to the professional literature, the absence of the father is the single most important cause of teenage crime, particularly violent crime. (M. Anne Hill and June O'Neill, "Underclass Behaviors in the United States: Measurements and Analysis of Determinants (New York: CUNY, Baruch College, 1990). Another study adds historic depth to the issue:

"Research into the idea that single-parent homes may produce more delinquents dates back to the early 19th century. Officials at New York State's Auburn Penitentiary, in an attempt to discern causes of crime, studied the biographies of incarcerated men. Reports to the legislature in 1829 and 1820 suggested that family disintegration resulting from the death, desertion, or divorce of parents led to undisciplined children who eventually become criminals." (Wright and Wright, "Family Life and Delinquency and Crime: A Policy-Maker's Guide to the Literature.")

Finally this pearl of wisdom: "The growth of crime is paralleled by the growth of families abandoned by father." (Rolf Loeber, et al. Initiation, escalation and Desistance in Juvenile Offending and their Correlates." Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 82 (1991), pp. 36-82.)

While the elephant is, undoubtedly, quite different from the human, the societal correlates are startling. Elephants are reared from birth in, strictly speaking, a one-parent household. The matriarch is queen and ruler and guides the calves in the early development. The females remains in a hierachical society. The males, at they enter puberty, leave - physically and emotionally. Their control and "restraint" is dictated by the mere proximity of dominate, older males who, just be their presence in the teenagers environment, control their hormonal urges and their interspecies behavior. Whether or not this is a "role model" type relationship - to use human terminology - or simply a scent/suppression neural axis, one cannot determine without more study.

The message to take away from this bit of disjointed thought is that perhaps the cure to urban youth violence is to find the biggest, baddest alpha-males we can find (think Goldberg, Brian Urlacher or Tank Johnson), dress them in full body armour (tusks might add to the effect) and give them the most powerful weapons we can find (maybe a long-range Taser device) and let them stroll the streets where crime flourishes. Perhaps, they can suppress some of the raging testosterone and posturing among the gangs and the thugs - our adolescent males is their musth.

At least, it's a thought.