The Elephant Who Tweets
In March 2010, an Asian elephant calf was born at Taronga Zoo near Sydney, Australia, under highly unusual conditions. A pregnant female had, about a week prior, gone into on-again, off-again labor. Medical scanning of this elephant indicated that her baby was lodged in a fetal position so poor that birth would probably be impossible. Indeed, the baby no longer stirred, and zoo workers concluded with sorrow that a stillbirth would result.
Two days later, zoo staff arrived at work to find a newborn, laying on the ground and on his side, in the elephant enclosure. Very weak, he needed human help (including vigorous massage) to stand and further help at first to eat, but he pulled through. In honor of this joyful surprise birth, the baby was named Pathi Harn, words that in the Thai language mean “miracle.”
Pathi Harn now enjoys life by his mother’s side—and a bit of worldwide celebrity as well. In fact, I’m one of Pathi Harn’s 1400-plus followers on Twitter.com (he tweets under the name he was given initially at birth, @MisterShuffles).
And as it turns out, I’m not a fan of this elephant’s tweeting-- or more accurately, of the human caretakers’ decision to beam out tweets in Pathi Harn’s name.
Make no mistake, I’m a fan of Pathi Harn himself (even though I do have concerns about housing elephants in zoos). He’s downright adorable, and following along with elephant developmental milestones can be fascinating and fun. Last month came this tweet:
* I tried to suck up water in my trunk & then blow it out in a big spray like my mum does, but I forgot to close my mouth & it all fell out
At that, I laughed. This tweet closely hugs elephant biology, and conveys a sense of the learning that intelligent long-lived mammals may undergo as they live their daily lives.
Other tweets, apparently reaching for whimsy, stray into a mysticism that I believe has no place in animal behavior and conservation:
*Storytime. Mum is telling me about a long time ago when elephants & humans explored the world together. Humans were very hairy then
Pathi Harn, other elephants, and a variety of other sentient creatures surely do have an interior life: of this I have no doubt. Yet it robs animals of their dignity when we humans fashion thoughts and feelings for them (at least outside of literature). Although I often defend the practice of careful anthropomorphism, this brand of tweeting isn’t it: rather than emerging from careful observation of the animal itself, it takes us far away from the animal.
Happily, the Taronga Zoo publishes an elephant blog that reports the elephants’ behaviors, including Pathi Harn’s, in concise and accurate terms:
elephant blog
This sort of public outreach (complete with other informative links at the same site, relating to elephant behavior and conservation) is welcome. But a tweeting Pathi Harn is an idea that even an elephant should forget.
Agree? Disagree? Please leave a comment.
Comments
We take life too seriously, and compared to the phony political pages on twitter, I don't have an issue with it and would much more time for a tweet than a lengthy blog.
I think that too often people take things far too seriously, and saying that the light-hearted touch of the tweets are mystical and have no place in conservation is completely overly-cynical and is actually completely against what I believe MisterShuffles promotes.
Yes, the account is a form of advertising, but if that advertising leads people to be more thoughtful about the plight of animals, makes them think about them more then it's a good thing.
I think that @MisterShuffles is a win-win situation - it helps the people following by reminding them of the little things in life and it helps the animals because it makes people think about them.