Elephants and lions

Why I'd rather be a circus elephant than a circus lion.

    Animals have been in the news a lot lately. Mostly big ones. The only small animal I heard anything about was a pet rat that Dr. Jeff, a TV

    The animals I chose for our topic this week are elephants, lions and buffaloes. If you have a problem with that, don’t tell an elephant. Those things have a memory that won’t quit. Twenty years from now, you might run across one and it’ll sling you onto the hood of a Nissan. So, it’s best that you stay with me here.

    The elephant story comes to us from the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus’ decision to get rid of the elephant entertainment portion of its Big Top show. Ringling Brothers, Esmer and Remshaw*, finally gave in to all of the hullabaloo created by elephant lovers, the government of India and it’s very own stable muckers. (*I didn’t have time to research, so I had to guess at the brothers’ names.)

    All performing pachyderms are of the Indian variety. African elephants are larger than the Indian ones, but they don’t train well. You try to get an African elephant to stand on its hind legs, and it’ll give you a spleenectomy. I think they have a bit of “cat” in ‘em. But, unlike cats, you can bathe an elephant with no trouble. That’s because they can’t lick themselves clean. Other than that, they’re just like cats.

    I forgot to mention that Indian elephants are the ones with the smaller ears. I don’t know if you’re familiar with any of the old Tarzan movies with Johnny Weissmueller, but the times they showed Tarzan or Cheetah riding an elephant, they had huge, rubber, flapping ears stapled over their smaller ears. And so did the elephants. They did in case viewers knew about the ear-difference in the two breeds.  (That’s true, too.)

    Ringling ended up sending 32 elephants to their big home in Florida. They kept 13 elephants to tour with the circus. Al they have to do is walk down the street with a scantily clad girl on their shoulders. I know some guys who would pay to do that. I don’t have enough stamina, so I’m not even tempted.

    What I’d like to know is how the 32 elephants in Florida are handling their new lifestyle. How long will it take ‘em to stop forming a line with their front feet resting on the rump of the elephant in front of ‘em? And, any time they see a big overturned bucket they’ll want to stand on it and wave their front feet while making trumpeting sounds. You don’t lose that kind behavior over night.

    I’ve got a bunch more elephant stories, but I think it’s time to move along to the lions. You likely read about the governments of Peru and Colombia outlawing the use of lions in circuses. Authorities raided the facilities of any circus that refused to turn over their big cats. They collected 33 lions. Only nine of ‘em were given up voluntarily.

    The lions were in terrible shape. They had been de-clawed and had their teeth broken. The wanted to make it less likely that the animals would harm the trainers, while still managing to make their growls look awesome. If you remove the teeth, they’d look like old toothless lions. But, by breaking teeth, it made it less likely that a lion would go through the pain of chomping on someone.

    The lions were shipped to a large sanctuary in South Africa. Since they were born in captivity there was no way they could make it for long in the wild. Especially, with bad teeth and no claws. So, here you’ve got some creatures whose meals of soft meat always came through a set of bars in their cage.

Can you imagine how long it will take those animals to settle in their new home? They’ll get their teeth fixed and their scars mended and diseases taken care of. A couple of the animals were blind and many had scars from beatings. At some point I believe we’ll get some pictures of what lions look like when they smile. – By the way, I apologize for the sudden somber mood change, but I could find absolutely nothing to joke about in this story. What’s sad to note is that we’re left hoping that Peru and Colombia were the only countries with people who abused circus animals.

Finally, let’s take a gander at the buffaloes. Kay watched one of those nature shows and shared some interesting info with me. I didn’t mind so much, because it had nothing to do with a rat getting operated on. She told me that the largest native mammal in North America is not a buffalo. It’s a bison. That there are no native buffalo in North America. Buffalo come mostly from Asia and Africa.

So, Buffalo Bill Cody was misnamed. He should’ve been Bison Bill. Unfortunately, someone has got to get this information to Congress, because they are currently studying a bill that would make the American buffalo our National Mammal. The “buffalo” will replace the—Forget that. There is currently no National Mammal. A National Bird we’ve got.

    It would be a hoot if the one thing Congress agreed on this term was to name an an animal that doesn’t even live in America as our National Mammal. – Now, I do find humor in that. – Next time.

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mark@rooftopwriter.com