Elephants: Who's Leading the Herd?

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Amazing Wildlife, where we explore unique stories of wildlife from around the world and uncover fascinating animal and plant facts. This podcast is a production of I Heart Radio and San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, an international nonprofit conservation organization which operates the San Diego Zoo and San Diego Zoo Safari Park. I'm Ebony Money, your co host for Amazing Wildlife. As part of the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliances Storytelling Team, I'll be bringing you one of a kind stories from wildlife care specialists, veterinarians and researchers, people who dedicated their lives to caring for and conserving plants and animals. And joining me is my co host, Rick Swartz. Thanks Ebony. We'll share stories of thousands of plants and animals in our parks and our conservation programs worldwide. Our collaborative work with over two partners spans six continents, and you'll we meeting the team members and allies that make our international efforts to save threatened wildlife possible. Millions of people visit us from around the globe to learn more about the thousands of plants and animals They call our zoo and Safari Park home, and now we're bringing these stories to you. For our very first episode, we're going to talk about the importance of elephants and the role the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance plays and helping them, and we'll start off by sharing some fun facts about these amazing creatures. Where should we start epany Well, Rick, I'm so excited to be doing this podcast with you and excited to learn all kinds of new facts and to start off by learning about the world's largest land mammal, the elephant. Yeah, they're kind of a big deal pun intended. So I don't even know where to begin. But I hear that women are actually in charge of the herds. Can you tell me? Is that true? How does that happen? Yeah, that's absolutely true. The females, it's the whole her dynamic. Actually is what we referred to as a matriarch. So the matriarch isn't necessarily chosen. From all of our research and studies, the best that we can tell, it is usually the oldest and largest female in the herd. And the dynamics of this are interesting because you might even have a female that's in charge and she might have a younger sister in the herd, that is, for lack of a better term, second in command. There are times whereas the herd grows, the second in command might split off and take some of the herd with her, and these these herd splits are natural and normal in either way, though, the female is in charge each time, so no matter which split happens or doesn't happen, the matriarch or the oldest female of that group is in charge, and she uses her memory and her knowledge of the terrain and the environment to really teach the others in the herd, so as time moves forward, if she should pass away, another older female can take charge of that hurt. It's it's really quite fascinating the dynamics and how it works and how they all work together to survive in such an environment. Is it comparable to any other species? Is this is this unique in the animal world or not? Well, fun fact, it's not as unique as some people think. Our society in the way stories are told, tend to put men in charge where the males as being the dominant ones. But across the animal kingdom we see many species where the is a matriarch or if it's not even a direct social group necessarily like a herd would be, you'd still see sometimes in some areas, in a solitary situation, the female gets to set the rules. Rick in the society where the females are in charge, do the males just fall in line they acquiesced to female power or how does this work? Well? Because the women are in charge and the as they grow, females born into the herd stay within their matriarchal or their their birth herd. Males, however, they tend to once say, mature to kind of help the diversity of genes, I suppose the males get sort of kicked out of the hurt, if you will. And it's a natural process. It's not like they're you know, skulded and bopped on the nose and told to go away. It is a natural process as their hormones come into their body and their own as they mature, they tend to start peeling off from the herd a bit, and the older females are like, yeah, you just kind of go that direction. We're going this way now. It's not that the boys then are completely separate and alone. These young males start to find each other and create these sort of bachelor coalitions, which are actually very important. These older males that sometimes join these coalitions of younger males helped teach those younger males how to be a male elephant, a very important role model, if you will, for these younger males that then have left their their birth heard they heard they were born into. Uh, it helps kind of give them those social behaviors and and the knowledge that the rest of the herd gets to keep through the mother who leads that group. So it's a really interesting dynamic how it's how it plays out. And some people sometimes think you might be a little sad that the boys are quote unquote kicked out of the herd, but when you look at the big picture of how it all works out for everybody, it's a really great sort of set up for these young males to learn from other males and rick, what's the benefit of these bachelor herds? Why not just go off on on your own? Is there benefit in the wild or survival to stick together in these bachelor herds. The importance of the bachelor herds that we see come together as these males leave their the herd they're born into, is really to teach them how to be an elephant. I know that that might sound kind of funny, but elephants are incredibly intelligent animals and the environment they live and requires them to understand the ebb and flow of the seasons and the rainy season because of course that means where the food is going to be available. And so all of this migratory patterns and all the ins and outs and nuances of predators and friends and foes, and how to really behave as an elephant has to be handed down from generation to generation, and that generational knowledge is going to come from these older males. So when a mature teenage, if you will, male elephant peels away or goes away from his herd that he was born into, there's a vast amount of knowledge he still doesn't have, and so that's going to be something to be available to him from those older males when he joins these bachelor herds now switching gears. Let's talk about the elephants trunk, which is a very unique characteristic um, something that stands out about this species. Um. What can you tell us about the uniqueness of this trunk? What is it made out of? That's I love this question because so many people look at that trunk and you know it's it's how does it move? How does that work? Is it is? Are there different like almost vertebrate bones in there to help keep it all together? Believe it or not, the trunk has no bones in it. The connective tissues all muscle. There's over a hundred thousand individual muscle component in that trunk. And some myths about the trunk, now, of course, is one of my favorites. Is they drink through the trunk. The trunk is an extension of the nose, and in fact it is their actual nose if you will, and so they cannot actually drink through it like a struw, But what they will do is bring up several liters of liquid, usually water, into the trunk, and in turn, they push that trunk tip into their mouth and they blow out that water into the mouth and that's how they'll drink. Wow, that's very interesting. I had no idea. I actually thought that it was almost like a straw of sorts. So thanks for clearing that up. Moving on to another very unique characteristic about the elephant. It's tusk. So can you tell us what are the tusks made? Out of so tusks are ivory if you will, it's the same thing as your teeth. It's just an elephant tooth, especially designed now they grow out from the mouth and push out then under the upper lip and then grow on either side of the trunk, and so really tusks are just a modified tooth made of the same material as your teeth are now different than the other teeth where at the grinding teeth in the back of the elephant's mouth, they'll lose those and grow in several sets across their lifetime. Tusks, however, just continuously grow now depending upon genetics, and male or female really kind of tells how big they're going to get. Traditionally, male elephants we sometimes are hear them referred to as tuskers. The older they get, they've got these giants sweeping beautiful tusks. Unfortunately, due to a lot of poaching, we don't see many of them anymore. But with male and female African elephants, they both will have tusks. Now, if you're out in the wild of Africa and you happen to see one with just one tusk, it's not uncommon. They will break them because they do use them as a tool. They'll use that as a tool along with the trunk to help break tree trunks or branches to grind them down further so they can chew on them. They'll also use the tusks all push down in the soil and uproot plants or trees to find things underneath the soil. There's even been times where I have seen elephant using tusks and trunk together to shovel out dirt from a dry riverbed because underneath that dry riverbed they can find water, and so it's really a very useful tool for them. And you just referenced it a bit um, But can you talk about the different species of elephants, because today we're talking about the the African elephant um, but can you tell me about the different species. Yeah. For as long as I've been working in zoology, which spans several decades, we have always considered it to be just two species of living elephants today, and that would be the Asian elephant and the African elephant, and of course named appropriately because that's the regions they can be found. But just as of gosh, this year, thanks to science being able to look at genetics, and doing different scans at a level that we've never had before. We can actually say for sure the forest elephant and the savannah elephant of Africa are two separate species. So we have our African savanna elephant, which is what we've mostly been talking about today. Then there's also the African four elephant, and even looking at them, the forest elephant is smaller. Everything proportionately looks the same as far as the structure of the body and how it looks, but they are smaller overall in size and weight compared to the savannah elephant. And also the look of the the Asian elephant in the African elephant, they're they're different as well. Correct. Oh, yes, the difference between the Asian elephant and the African elephants there there are several, but I think one of the easiest ways to tell, I think, at a quick glance, the difference between an African elephant and an Asian elephant, whether you're visiting the San Diego Zoo or the Safari parker anywhere else you might see elephants, is to look at the ears. Traditionally, we always say the African elephant, their ear shape looks like the continent of Africa, where the Asian elephant the ear shape looks a little more like the country of India, which is a part of Asia and where they can be found as well. So with the discovery of the our identification of the subspecies just this year, does that just speak to the importance of science and research and just the collaborative effort to save and protect these species. Oh? Absolutely, you know, as we move forward in conservation and science allows us new tools to reevaluate and look at these populations and how they're doing. It's so important. You know, when we look at conservation and how it's done, we we consider the entire population of a species. They might be populations spread in different areas of different countries across the continent of Africa as an example, So when our forest elephants are in one location in the savannah elephants are in another, they still were to take in the complete total number of those two populations when thinking how are they doing in the wild. Now that we know there are two separate populations of two different animals, this changes in the dynamics of how many are surviving in their their native environment. So it really forces us to reevaluate a conservation effort strictly for the forest elephant and strictly for the savannah elephant and really being mindful of those independent numbers and how they're doing amazing. Thank you so much. All right, now it's time for the San Diego Zoo Safari Park Minute an opportunity for you to learn what's new at the zoo. It's a special time at the San Diego Zoo with the announcement of the successful birth of a Southern white rhino calf at the Nakia Khan Rescue Center located at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. This is a huge milestone that scientists describe as a critical step in their efforts to save the northern white rhino. It truly is amazing news. Eveny. The San Diego Zoo safire Park has three of the five species of whinos, including the black rhino, the white rhino, and the greater one horned rhino, and we have been dedicated to bringing back the northern white rhino, for which there's only two left on Earth. Welcome back. Now that we've received an overview on elephants characteristics and behavior, let's learn more about the efforts to protect some of the most vulnerable members of their population. Today we're chatting with San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance CEO Paul thereabout Hi, Paul, Hello, have any so you have friends and conservation across the globe. Tell us about our partners in Kenya. Absolutely, our partners in Kenya are just remarkable. They're creating something so special there to help save elephants. So what about the work that the zoos doing with the Rotetdy Elephants Sanctuary. Well, we collaborate with and support the sanctuary. There are a community conservation effort that's come together to help save orphan elephants who lost their moms, either because approaching human wildlife conflict or other factors. We work around the clock with the team on the ground to care for these orphans, providing veterinary care, nutrition, health management, and other skills. And has there been any access stories that you can share. There's been some remark for work done in the development of a specialized milk formula that orphans consume every three hours, and the elephants at the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park helps support this effort as the moms voluntarily offers their milk, which changes as a young elephant grows. This is a special collaboration and reflects how we can show up in the field with our unique skills to support community conservation efforts around the globe. That's amazing, Thanks Paul. What a great way to help our animal friends in Kenya. There are so many ways to get involved, and you can be part of the change by sharing this information with your family and friends. And that's our show for today. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and tune into next week's episode, in which will bring you the story of how polar bears use tools. I'm Eppnie Moone and I'm Rick Schwartz. Thanks for listening. For more information about the San Diego Zoo in San Diego Zoo Safari Park, go to sdz w a dot org. Amazing Wildlife is a production of I Heart Radio. Our producer is Mikia Swinton and our executive producer is Marcy the Peanut. Our sound designer and editor is Cody Scully, with assistance from Matt Stillo. For more shows from My Heart Radio, check out the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.