Personal Thoughts on Elephant Intelligence & The Merits of Studying It

Our species’ relationship with The Other, in our own species and outside it, has always yielded this duplicity that draws & distances simultaneously but at its core casts an almost child-like intrigue about those deemed ‘not like us.’
I feel that now in the twenty-first century the role of The Other will edge away from our own internal differences of race, sexual orientation and religious belief towards those outside of our species – the issues of civil rights & justice are just beginning to manifest themselves in the lives of non-humans and while it may be hundreds of years before they reach a comparable public level, the fact we’re beginning to recognize them marks a significant crossroads for human/non-human relations.

But I want to stress that my hope is not to treat animals as human beings but understand them, treat them, and praise them with the same intensity we would our brothers or countrymen. Without getting too lofty or loopy, I believe the relationships we form & uphold with non-humans on our own planet may down the line prove invaluable should the human species ever encounter one we, ourselves deem superior to our own.

Asian and African elephants possess a remarkable balance of otherness and sentience that is completely unique among the higher mammals: their four-legged, tusked, five-tonned appearance is drastically different from our own and even the other primates, yet they share the capacity for tool use, emotion, art, culture, and possibly language while remaining a categorized prey animal.

They appear so different, and yet attract us as so familiar. Elephants share a myriad of biological and intellectual threads with our own species that it must become our imperative to preserve their uniqueness without marginalizing them for it. Aristotle wrote of the elephant as “the beast which passeth all others in wit and mind,” and as science, technology and our own grasp upon the Earth expands we must realize our duty and connection to our elephantine brethren.

For More Information on Elephant Intelligence Visit Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_intelligence