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Brutality and the Dwindling Population of Elephants

Patricia Beach
4 min readJul 6, 2023

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Photo by Neil and Zulma Scott on Unsplash

Elephants are the largest land animals in the world. Most of us at one time have taken our children to the circus to see the elephants perform. Have you ever wondered how these large elephants perform tricks? How kneeling on one knee so a person can ride on their backs? How do they balance on each other’s backs and how do they dance?

Some elephants are forced to stay in water all day so people can have their picture taken swimming with them. Parents also put their children on an elephant’s back to use for a brag session. There is usually a photo included with this practice.

This week I listened to a podcast on “Stuff You Should Know.” Josh and Chuck, the show’s podcasters, shared information about the status of elephants. I had no idea how these magnificent elephants are trained to obey every demand that man makes on them. This was such an enlightenment for me that I decided to write this post.

Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash

An elephant’s gestation period is around 22 months. The babies can weigh 250 pounds at birth. The mothers are loving and nurturing to their babies. The babies suck their trunks like a human baby sucks its thumb. The mother takes care and teaches…

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Patricia Beach
Patricia Beach

Written by Patricia Beach

Former owner of Lady Piccadilly, a teahouse in Conn., who moved to the hills of VT to create Aunt Patsy’s VT Country Dog Biscuits. Now Adventures of my cat.

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