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elephants
Discovering Intelligence in Unexpected Places
If our human intelligence has discerned over thousands of years which plants are edible and nutritious and healing, wouldn’t the evolutional ingenuity of plants which feed and sustain us and all life also constitute intelligence?
Aug 27, 2024
From the largest to the smallest and the oldest to the youngest creatures on Earth—Antarctic blue whales and coastal redwood trees, minute bacteria and human beings—we are all enmeshed in layers of relationships. We need each other, though some more than others.
Plants evolved hundreds of millions of years before the first humans and transformed the Earth—through their creativity in surviving predators—into a livable environment for all animals, including humans. We needed plants for our evolution and need them now for our survival from climate disaster. They, however, did not need us for their existence and would survive without us.
Putting humans at the top of the evolution chain as the crown of intelligent life, a Western worldview, is—as some keenly grasp—mistaken. The baleful consequences of this simplistic hierarchy are everywhere: out-of-control climate change; accelerating rates of animal and plant extinction; dead zones in the oceans and mass mortality of coral reefs; the vast pollution of land, air, and water; and the mounting likelihood of human extinction with nuclear war. All caused by humans, humans with financial and political power much more egregiously than others.
Perhaps you have you noticed that late summer asters and goldenrod tend to grow as companions. Why? Together—their combined beauty—attracts more pollinators.
Certain scientists who study plants—from the simplest to the exotic—are stirring controversy with their “ Are plants intelligent?” Consider that we humans owe our lives to plants for their food, medicines, and critical balance of 21% oxygen in the air we breathe. If our human intelligence has discerned over thousands of years which plants are edible and nutritious and healing, wouldn’t the evolutional ingenuity of plants which feed and sustain us and all life also constitute intelligence?
Studies have found that elephants recognize themselves in a mirror, crows create tools, dolphins demonstrate empathy and playfulness, and cats exhibit similar styles of attachment as human toddlers. The given explanation is that they have brains with neurological capacity for consciousness and intelligence.
But plants do not have a central brain. Could their mode of learning to evade insect predators and maximize their growth come from a diverse form of intelligence, possibly be distributed across their roots, stems, and leaves? Could the whole plant, then, function as a brain? Recent studies of plants have stirred the possibility that they are conscious and intelligent. Take communication, something we humans claim as our domain through language and more recently acknowledge that animals also possess.
Botanists have found that not only do alder and willow trees alter their leaf chemistry to defend themselves against an invasion of tent caterpillars, but that leaves of faraway trees also change their chemical composition similarly. Warned, as they are, by airborne plant chemicals released from the original trees under attack. Goldenrods signal an attack by a predator through strong chemical communication sent to all other goldenrod neighbors, just as humans warn their neighbors about a nearby fire or flood or crime.
Without any recognizable ears, plants sense sounds. The vibration of a predator insect chewing on its leaves causes a plant to make its own defensive pesticide. Beach evening primrose responds to the sound of honeybees in flight by increasing the sweetness of its nectar to attract them for pollination. Tree roots grow toward the sound of running water, including in pipes, where the roots often burst through causing great difficulties for municipalities. How do the various plants hear these stimulating sounds?
Plants have memory, some anticipating from past experience when a pollinator will show up for the plants’ pollen. Plants express social intelligence: Members of the pea family form relationships with bacteria living in their roots to have the bacteria supply beneficial nitrogen for the plants’ growth. Several kinds of plants provide a home and food for compatible ants who then attack the plants’ ant pests. Perhaps you have you noticed that late summer asters and goldenrod tend to grow as companions. Why? Together—their combined beauty—attracts more pollinators.
In finishing, I express my immense respect for the Indigenous worldview where wind, rocks, air, and rain are our kin, together with plants and nonhuman animals. We, humans, the most recent beings, depend on all of these elder kin; and this awareness, this worldview of connectivity among all beings, is our path back to Earth well-being.
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Advocates 'Crushed' That Biden Import Rules Don't Ban Elephant Trophies
The new restrictions will do nothing to solve "a devastating biodiversity crisis that requires an elephant-sized response," said one campaigner.
Mar 29, 2024
Biodiversity advocates said Friday that the Biden administration had taken "a major step back from true conservation accountability" as it announced new restrictions on imports of elephant hunting trophies—restrictions that did not go as far as banning them outright.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) said it was strengthening the African elephant rule under Section 4(d) of the Endangered Species Act, requiring countries to annually certify that their elephant populations are "biologically sustainable" and that habitats for the animals are stable. The U.S. will continue importing trophies and live elephants from countries that prove sustainability.
The restrictions also require countries to have domestic wildlife laws that meet the requirements of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), but that provision doesn't go into effect until 2026.
The restrictions could eliminate trophy imports from Botswana, Mozambique, and Zambia, which currently have national legislation that may not meet CITES requirements.
A previous proposal from the administration in 2022 required that elephant populations were "stable or increasing" in countries in order for imports to continue.
Tanya Sanerib, international legal director for the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), said the new rules will do nothing to solve "a devastating biodiversity crisis that requires an elephant-sized response."
"These are mouse-sized rule changes that continue to treat elephants like commodities," said Sanerib. "We need global change that prioritizes biodiversity over profits."
CBD pledged to "do everything we can to fight threats to imperiled elephants from trophy hunting."
The new restrictions were announced almost exactly three years after the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reassessed protections for elephants, and found that poaching for ivory and habitat loss over several decades had pushed two elephant species closer to extinction.
The African forest elephant is now "critically endangered" and the African savanna elephant is now listed as "endangered." Before 2021, the two kinds of African elephants were treated as a single species and were listed only as "vulnerable."
The Obama administration in 2016 imposed a near-ban on the elephant ivory trade.
The following year, then-President Donald Trump infuriated conservation groups by reversing the ban on imported elephant trophies from Zimbabwe and Zambia, a decision he quickly reverse due to the uproar it caused. In 2018, the Republican president said the FWS would begin issuing permits "to import a sport-hunted trophy on a case-by-case basis."
Sanerib on Friday said she and her organization were "crushed this rule doesn't ban trade in elephant hunting trophies to the United States, and it doesn't even require stable elephant populations to allow trophy imports."
"These magnificent animals are globally cherished but under threat," said Sanerib, "and it's high time we stop letting wealthy trophy hunters turn them into décor."
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Ojai, California Passes First-of-Its-Kind Law Protecting Rights of Nonhuman Animal
"We commend the Ojai City Council for standing up for what is necessary and just," said an advocate.
Sep 28, 2023
Animal rights advocates are applauding this week following a historic vote in the city of Ojai, California, where local lawmakers on Tuesday night adopted an ordinance to recognize the bodily rights of elephants, making it the first U.S. city to recognize the legal rights of nonhuman animal.
The Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) helped develop and lobbied for the new ordinance, which was introduced by Councilmember Leslie Rule and passed in a 4-1 vote.
Under the ordinance, it is now illegal in Ojai to subject an elephant to the lack of freedom endured by an elephant named Tarra, who was held in captivity in Ojai Valley and exploited for entertainment—including a rollerskating act—in the early 1980s before becoming the first resident of the nation's largest elephant sanctuary in 1995.
"This legislation is historic," said Courtney Fern, director of government relations and campaigns for NhRP. "It's indisputable that elephants suffer when deprived of their freedom and that animal welfare laws can't end their suffering. For elephants and the nonhuman animal rights movement, we are proud to support this first-of-its-kind ordinance, and we commend the Ojai City Council for standing up for what is necessary and just."
"We have known for some time that elephants have strong empathetic responses to one another's condition."
The new law stems from researchers' findings that "elephants are similarly situated to humans, as they have long-term memories, learning abilities, empathy, and self-awareness," according to the city council.
"We have known for some time that elephants have strong empathetic responses to one another's condition," Mark Scott, interim Ojai city manager, told KTLA. "I am glad that we are able to make this statement supporting the place of these noble creatures in our world."
NhRP expressed hope that the ordinance "will be the first of many such laws: introduced by elected officials who understand that a sustainable and just future for all life on Earth means extending compassion to and establishing legal rights for nonhuman animals."
"In legislatures, in courtrooms, and beyond, that's what this movement is about," said the group.
Josh Jowitt, senior lecturer on natural and animal rights at Newcastle Law School in the United Kingdom, said the ordinance should not be dismissed as pertaining to "just one city."
"It may not seem much," said Jowitt, "but this decision means that U.S. courts can no longer claim there is no precedent in the country for explicitly recognizing an elephant's right to bodily liberty."
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