One day in late June 2000, a young African forest elephant, weak from malnutrition, collapsed off to one side of a narrow, sandy trail in a central African forest. She lost consciousness and within a few hours, died, and her collapse and death were witnessed by her mother and older sister.
Since this trail was an important route from the forest out to a swampy clearing with minerally nutritious muck, reliable drinking pools, and attractive mud wallows, it was well traveled by elephants. The trail was also close enough to a high observation platform erected at the edge of a swampy clearing that scientists sitting on a platform could watch the dying elephant through their binoculars. Using a video camera and a telescopic lens, they also documented the reactions of a large number of elephants as they ambled along the trail from the swampy clearing.
During the 2.5 hours when the elephant was dying on the first day, and the 6.5 hours after she had died on the second day, the video camera recorded a large number of elephants passing by, and using that record, the scientists analysed the reactions of elephants, to a fellow elephant in trouble. Since all these elephants had been studied for years by Andrea Turkalo, an expert on forest elephants, the scientists also had access to identification records, which enabled them to consider the sorts of social and kindship relationships, if any, that the passing elephants had with the dead elephant’s mother, Morna, and sister.
During the first day, 38 elephants walking along the trail made a total of 56 visits to elephant who lay dying. Six of those visits were made by Morna and the older sister. By the end of the first day, after the young elephant had died, the mother and sister left the area, but another 54 individuals made 73 visits the second day. During those 2 days, then, elephants walking along the sandy trail made 129 visits, a total of 128 showed some kind of distinctive response to the dying and then dead animal.
Most of the responsive visitors began by exploring the body and the area around it, curiously sniffing the air, gently touching the body with their trunks, probing the body with their feet, and so on. But after that initial exploration, how did they react? About 50% of them reacted as you might expect: they showed signs of fear and avoidance. An elephant might back up or sidle away from the body, or move off the path or run hastily after a brief exploration. Although this particular spot (Dzana-Sangha bai of the Central African Republic) is within a legally protected forest, poachers had been regularly hunting for elephants for meat and ivory throughout the larger region, so far any elephants walking along the trail, a dying or dead elephant alongside the trial could mean serious danger.
One exceptional individual, known as Miss Lonleyheart, visited several times on the second day and acted aggressively towards the body, stabbing it with her tusks & attempting to tear pieces away from it. Miss Lonleyheart was already known as a misfit, and her bizarre behaviour was not out of character. But about 50% of the visitors reacted with fear and avoidance: who could blame them? For an elephant even take the time and investigate another dead elephant amounts to spending extra energy and taking an unnecessary risk. How remarkable then, was the behavior of the elephants identified in the other half of the sample, which included many instances of social positive reactions to the drama of another elephant in trouble. Some 15% of the total visits during those two days involved protective behaviour: the visitor seeming to protect or guard the body from others. And in about 18% of the cases, the visiting elephants looked as if they were trying to assist or revive the dying elephant, mostly by attempting to push or lift her upright, using their feet, tusks and trunks.
The researchers found no correlation between protective or assisting behaviour and genetic or social relationship. The visitors were not at all limited to friends or associates or relatives of Morna and her daughter. Even when the scientists ranked the visitors according to the intensity (measured in time, number of visits, and number of helping acts), of their responses, they still found no pattern that suggest either kinship or previous social relationship was important. These apparent acts of kindness, then, might be examples of true altruism.
Since this trail was an important route from the forest out to a swampy clearing with minerally nutritious muck, reliable drinking pools, and attractive mud wallows, it was well traveled by elephants. The trail was also close enough to a high observation platform erected at the edge of a swampy clearing that scientists sitting on a platform could watch the dying elephant through their binoculars. Using a video camera and a telescopic lens, they also documented the reactions of a large number of elephants as they ambled along the trail from the swampy clearing.
During the 2.5 hours when the elephant was dying on the first day, and the 6.5 hours after she had died on the second day, the video camera recorded a large number of elephants passing by, and using that record, the scientists analysed the reactions of elephants, to a fellow elephant in trouble. Since all these elephants had been studied for years by Andrea Turkalo, an expert on forest elephants, the scientists also had access to identification records, which enabled them to consider the sorts of social and kindship relationships, if any, that the passing elephants had with the dead elephant’s mother, Morna, and sister.
During the first day, 38 elephants walking along the trail made a total of 56 visits to elephant who lay dying. Six of those visits were made by Morna and the older sister. By the end of the first day, after the young elephant had died, the mother and sister left the area, but another 54 individuals made 73 visits the second day. During those 2 days, then, elephants walking along the sandy trail made 129 visits, a total of 128 showed some kind of distinctive response to the dying and then dead animal.
Most of the responsive visitors began by exploring the body and the area around it, curiously sniffing the air, gently touching the body with their trunks, probing the body with their feet, and so on. But after that initial exploration, how did they react? About 50% of them reacted as you might expect: they showed signs of fear and avoidance. An elephant might back up or sidle away from the body, or move off the path or run hastily after a brief exploration. Although this particular spot (Dzana-Sangha bai of the Central African Republic) is within a legally protected forest, poachers had been regularly hunting for elephants for meat and ivory throughout the larger region, so far any elephants walking along the trail, a dying or dead elephant alongside the trial could mean serious danger.
One exceptional individual, known as Miss Lonleyheart, visited several times on the second day and acted aggressively towards the body, stabbing it with her tusks & attempting to tear pieces away from it. Miss Lonleyheart was already known as a misfit, and her bizarre behaviour was not out of character. But about 50% of the visitors reacted with fear and avoidance: who could blame them? For an elephant even take the time and investigate another dead elephant amounts to spending extra energy and taking an unnecessary risk. How remarkable then, was the behavior of the elephants identified in the other half of the sample, which included many instances of social positive reactions to the drama of another elephant in trouble. Some 15% of the total visits during those two days involved protective behaviour: the visitor seeming to protect or guard the body from others. And in about 18% of the cases, the visiting elephants looked as if they were trying to assist or revive the dying elephant, mostly by attempting to push or lift her upright, using their feet, tusks and trunks.
The researchers found no correlation between protective or assisting behaviour and genetic or social relationship. The visitors were not at all limited to friends or associates or relatives of Morna and her daughter. Even when the scientists ranked the visitors according to the intensity (measured in time, number of visits, and number of helping acts), of their responses, they still found no pattern that suggest either kinship or previous social relationship was important. These apparent acts of kindness, then, might be examples of true altruism.