Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome back to the show. My name is Noah.
Speaker 3: Our colleague Matt is Audit Ventures, but will be returning soon.
Speaker 3: They pulled me, Ben. We're joined Asultwoods with our super
Speaker 3: producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 3: You are here that makes this the stuff they don't
Speaker 3: want you to know. And Noel, you and Tennessee and
Speaker 3: I are going to do a little bit something a
Speaker 3: little bit different today. We are going to talk about elephants. Now,
Speaker 3: my friend, when's the last time you saw an elephant
Speaker 3: in person?
Speaker 4: Well, the elephant in the room, Ben, is that I
Speaker 4: have not seen an elephant in person in many, many years.
Speaker 2: I seem to recall.
Speaker 4: Okay, they do have elephants here at the Atlanta Zoo,
Speaker 4: and a zoo's can be a little bit ethically fraught.
Speaker 4: I do believe the Atlanta Zoo is one of the
Speaker 4: better ones, and that most of the animals there would
Speaker 4: not make it in the wild because they've either been
Speaker 4: injured or some issue has led to them, you know,
Speaker 4: existing in captivity and that kind of being the best
Speaker 4: thing for them. I do remember when I was a kid, though,
Speaker 4: growing up, there was a park of some kind in
Speaker 4: Germany where you could get elephant rides, and that seems
Speaker 4: problematic now thinking back on it and knowing what we're
Speaker 4: going to talk about today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what about you, Tennessee, how familiar are you with
Speaker 3: the elephant?
Speaker 5: I've probably seen elephants at like three different zoos, but
Speaker 5: only at Zoo's never you know, had the privilege of
Speaker 5: traveling to see elephants in Africa and he or somewhere
Speaker 5: like that.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, that makes sense. Those can be difficult places
Speaker 3: for a lot of us in the States to get to,
Speaker 3: right and you know, quiet, part out loud in your
Speaker 3: regular garden variety, huge American town or city, you're going
Speaker 3: to see a lot of things, but you're probably not
Speaker 3: going to see just a rando elephant, you know, waiting
Speaker 3: in line at Goldberg's Deli or sorry.
Speaker 4: Just roam in the streets like here in Atlanta occasionally
Speaker 4: see I believe it's like a horse farm not too
Speaker 4: far from the city, so you will occasionally see urban
Speaker 4: cowboys or riding their steeds around, but not so with elephants.
Speaker 4: I do think we've both been fascinated about the history
Speaker 4: of like war elephants and some of the misreporting around
Speaker 4: what that even looked like, or like war rhinoceroses as
Speaker 4: another example.
Speaker 3: Right, absolutely, and stay tuned, folks for an upcoming episode
Speaker 3: of Ridiculous History, where our returning guest Lorn Vogelbaum, will
Speaker 3: help us explore the story of mammoths and mastodons in
Speaker 3: these United States once upon a time. And I love
Speaker 3: the point we're making here about elephants at the top.
Speaker 3: They can be genuine gentle giants in some cases, as
Speaker 3: we'll see tonight, they can also be very similar to
Speaker 3: wait for it, serial killers. Elephants have increasingly forced humanity
Speaker 3: to rethink what it means to be sapients, to be
Speaker 3: aware and for a lot of us, for Noel and
Speaker 3: Tennessee and yours, truly, elephants are something you only see
Speaker 3: in zoos or Once upon a Time and circuses. But
Speaker 3: tonight we're looking at an ongoing case of true crime
Speaker 3: and something that doesn't often get reported because the victims
Speaker 3: are not human. This is the hidden horror of elephant shows.
Speaker 3: Here are the facts. Okay, this is going to be
Speaker 3: a bit of a dark on folks, as you just
Speaker 3: said there, Noel, So let's seize into it by talking
Speaker 3: a little bit about these noble, humble creatures, these elephants,
Speaker 3: and why we all unanimously agree that they are amazing
Speaker 3: for sure.
Speaker 4: I mean, they're just so majestic and regal, you know,
Speaker 4: I mean it's like you just need to take a
Speaker 4: look at them to realize how incredible they are. And
Speaker 4: to your point, Bent, they are just so incredibly gentle.
Speaker 4: African bush elephants as their known Luxodonta africana. We've also
Speaker 4: got the African forest elephants L. Psyclotis and the Asian
Speaker 4: elephant or Alphas maximus.
Speaker 2: Three.
Speaker 4: Yes, indeed, right, they're the ones that probably should be
Speaker 4: fitted up with like mad Max armor and out there,
Speaker 4: you know, doing war.
Speaker 2: But no, definitely not. These are the three.
Speaker 4: Extant species of elephants that are recognized today. In previous
Speaker 4: evenings throughout history, these fellas had cousins, including, but not
Speaker 4: limited to the mastodon the great wooly mammoth, both of
Speaker 4: course sadly extinct for now right, right, But we just
Speaker 4: had lots of crazy stuff going on labs.
Speaker 3: Right, we're actually uh full disclosure, folks. H Dule Tennessee
Speaker 3: and I are coming off the heels of a phenomenal
Speaker 3: interview with our friend Mangesh had a Quatre who is
Speaker 3: exploring the science of cloning and longevity in his show
Speaker 3: Skyline Drive. And I can't stop thinking about it, man,
Speaker 3: how close humanity is to potentially recreating the mammoth. In particular,
Speaker 3: what do we do you know when the mammoths are back?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it does become an interesting question because it does
Speaker 4: feel a little Jurassic parkified, right, Like, what is the
Speaker 4: function of bringing back the mammoth?
Speaker 2: Is there a place in the world for them other.
Speaker 4: Than like, you know, entertainments, right, Like, and I don't
Speaker 4: mean that in any dismissive way of these incredible creatures,
Speaker 4: but like, where.
Speaker 2: Would they Where would we put them? Yeah? Exactly? Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Where could they go?
Speaker 3: Because all species of l elephants are bigger than you think,
Speaker 3: kind of like meeting a moose in person. If you've
Speaker 3: never seen an elephant up close in person, you will
Speaker 3: be astonished by their size. These are chonky chonky guys.
Speaker 3: The African bush elephant is the largest they Their height
Speaker 3: can go somewhere between ten and eleven feet. At their
Speaker 3: upper limit, they can weigh in at seven tons. And remember,
Speaker 3: we had these conversations a few years back, weirdly serious
Speaker 3: conversations about whether we can successfully go toe to toe
Speaker 3: one on one with a kangaroo.
Speaker 2: PvP, right, PvP.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But I think you and I have concluded that
Speaker 3: if you are a human being, you have no chance
Speaker 3: against a full grown elephant unarmed.
Speaker 4: What do they say, Ben, when elephants make war, it's
Speaker 4: only the grass that suffers, right, Yes, something along those lines. Yeah, man,
Speaker 4: I mean you're gonna get squished. These guys are big boys.
Speaker 4: The name, but does pacoderm a catch all for elephants?
Speaker 4: There is that more have more specificity than maybe I'm remembering,
Speaker 4: because the word itself just has that air of majesty
Speaker 4: and power, doesn't it?
Speaker 3: Packaderm Yeah, pacoderm is a sort of a group name
Speaker 3: for elephants, rhinos, hippos, and tapers.
Speaker 4: Got I didn't know that, Ben, I did not know
Speaker 4: that the hippos were included in that, But it makes sense.
Speaker 4: They do all have a similar air of majesty and
Speaker 4: just absolute impenetrable strength.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and you know, stay on their good side. If
Speaker 3: you're looking at your average elephant to the untrained human eye,
Speaker 3: the biggest difference you're gonna see is the size. But
Speaker 3: if you know what to look for, just like differentiating
Speaker 3: between ravens and crows, you can easily discern little differences
Speaker 3: like the nature of the dronk or the arrangement of
Speaker 3: the ears.
Speaker 4: Wait, pacaderm is to elephant what corvid is to crows
Speaker 4: and ravens said the vibe.
Speaker 2: Oh that's interesting. Yeah, I guess it would be similar.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because packa dermata is in obsolete order of mammals.
Speaker 3: But the term packoderm when you hear it thrown around
Speaker 3: in English, is describing those other animals. We gain so little,
Speaker 3: little loose on the science here, folks. Yeah, but we
Speaker 3: can't tell you. One interesting thing is that all three
Speaker 3: of the extant elephant species can interbreed. There are proven
Speaker 3: cases of all of them creating a viable offspring. And they,
Speaker 3: despite their differences, and despite the fact that they're divided
Speaker 3: by geography, they have a lot more in common than
Speaker 3: they do. In contrast, and one of the biggest commonalities.
Speaker 3: The thing that still shocks humanity today it has thousands
Speaker 3: of years, is that elephants are so crazy smart.
Speaker 2: They are so smart.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're smart and empathetic like they mourn right, yes, yeah,
Speaker 4: m hm.
Speaker 3: They also have the largest brain of any land animal.
Speaker 3: We know that they the average elephant brain. We don't
Speaker 3: want to offend any human listeners here, thanks for tuning in.
Speaker 3: The average elephant brain has about three times as many
Speaker 3: neurons as a human brain.
Speaker 4: That's probably why they say an elephant never forgets ben.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like you said, no, they exhibit a wide
Speaker 3: range of behaviors that really challenge what we assume about humanity.
Speaker 3: They can have grief, like you said, they can have empathy,
Speaker 3: they can learn, they can mimic, they play. Play is
Speaker 3: actually a huge indicator of intelligence. They'll just get out
Speaker 3: there and horse around. I guess, poor choice of words.
Speaker 3: They can use tools, they have self awareness, they cooperate.
Speaker 3: It's bizarre how they can also transmit knowledge across generations.
Speaker 3: They're superfamily oriented. They have deep personal lives, just like
Speaker 3: all of u us listening tonight. I mean, we could
Speaker 3: kind of say, again, if we're being loose with the
Speaker 3: science that elephants are just like humans who happen to
Speaker 3: be way bigger than average, and they use your they
Speaker 3: use their nose or you would use your thumb.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the old folk tales about their phenomenal memories
Speaker 4: as we were mentioning, are in fact based in reality,
Speaker 4: similar to how Homo sapiens or corvid I as we mentioned, Ben,
Speaker 4: the corvia is your favorite or Cetacea cetaceai stasia I
Speaker 4: believe can transmit knowledge generationally like you were saying, And
Speaker 4: elephants can also do that. They are incredibly family oriented
Speaker 4: and to your point, Band, they do have deep personal lives.
Speaker 4: And elephants are also extremely aware of human beings. Unfortunately,
Speaker 4: as you can imagine, this is sort of because human
Speaker 4: beings kind of insist upon themselves, don't they. Yeah, sort
Speaker 4: of just turn up and make themselves pretty hard to ignore.
Speaker 3: Yes, the elephant looks at the world and says, oh wow,
Speaker 3: this is nice, And the human looks at the savannah
Speaker 3: and says, what about me?
Speaker 4: How can I so? How can I make this work
Speaker 4: for me? How can I tame this majesty and make
Speaker 4: it turn a profit?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it should be no surprise that the elephant
Speaker 3: and the human have deeply complex, often deeply troubled relationships.
Speaker 3: It's similar to, like you're saying, any other case of
Speaker 3: intelligent non human animals. We see throughout cultures instances of
Speaker 3: communities worshiping the elephant, and we also see real life
Speaker 3: examples of elephant altruism for seemingly no other reason than
Speaker 3: they think something is the right thing to do. The
Speaker 3: elephant will aid humans, it will aid other animals, with
Speaker 3: no discernible benefit to itself. One of the most famous
Speaker 3: stories about this involves an elephant that was being used
Speaker 3: to place dig post or you know, place post in
Speaker 3: the ground, and it was going one by one to
Speaker 3: these posts, putting them in the ground, and then it
Speaker 3: stopped and despite its handler it's Mahout's efforts to hit
Speaker 3: it and smack it or whatever, the elephant refused to
Speaker 3: put the next post in. They looked into the post
Speaker 3: or they looked into the post hole, and they found
Speaker 3: that there was a little dog in there, and the
Speaker 3: elephant was like, I'm not hurting the pooch.
Speaker 2: No way. Yeah, no, you can't.
Speaker 4: You can't have those kind of feelings without some sort
Speaker 4: of like moral compass.
Speaker 2: I guess kind of.
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know how else to put it,
Speaker 4: but it does seem like there is an intense drive
Speaker 4: towards goodness and thinking of others.
Speaker 3: They're thoughtful creatures. Thoughtful, Yeah, that's the perfect word. We
Speaker 3: also knew that the human has historically not been super
Speaker 3: great reciprocating this affection. It's the story between the human
Speaker 3: and the elephant is a story of a toxic relationship. Obviously,
Speaker 3: there are tons of humans, tons of animal rights activists
Speaker 3: to this day who have formed deep kinship with their
Speaker 3: larger brethren. But still, overall, most of the relationship's history
Speaker 3: is a study in victimization and terror. So we can't
Speaker 3: blame the elephant for looking around and all these terrible
Speaker 3: things happening and saying more humans means more problems.
Speaker 4: I mean, you need to look no further than the
Speaker 4: original animated Disney film Dumbo to see some of the
Speaker 4: ways in which humans are pretty awful for elephant kind.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, humans have committed a litany of sins against
Speaker 3: elephant populations. First, they hunted the mammoth to extinction, and
Speaker 3: the ivory trade continues today. Humans did and do hunt
Speaker 3: the elephant for ivory, and then also big game recreational hunting,
Speaker 3: which we'll get into in a second. And also, you know,
Speaker 3: we continually return to this point. Humans don't seem to
Speaker 3: particularly care about the natural environments of most other creatures,
Speaker 3: including other humans. And because elephants are again, like you said,
Speaker 3: so cartoonishly big, they need a lot of land to roam,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, and they kind of prefer
Speaker 3: that humans not be a huge part of that.
Speaker 4: Well in man, I mean, it's even in the best
Speaker 4: of circumstances, these types of creatures and their habitats have
Speaker 4: always been under threat, despite the best efforts of conservation
Speaker 4: groups and maybe more conservation minded lawmakers. But in the
Speaker 4: current political climate that we're in, it just seems like
Speaker 4: these if there ever was any protection, it's just getting
Speaker 4: rolled back on the daily.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, absolutely, I mean, protection for humans is getting
Speaker 3: rolled back.
Speaker 2: So yeah, what's gonna happen to the elephants?
Speaker 3: We also know that historically, and we're using this word correctly,
Speaker 3: humans have enslaved elephants, and this is the crux of
Speaker 3: our exploration tonight. We have to ask you, folks, have
Speaker 3: you ever been to an elephant show? Not the one
Speaker 3: on Nickelodeon.
Speaker 2: Right now, that's the one that just comes to mind.
Speaker 4: That's a very kind and gentle elephant show, not like
Speaker 4: the ones we're going to talk about.
Speaker 2: After a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3: Here's where it gets crazy. All right, Elephants, folks have
Speaker 3: been enslaved or what you will call working animals since
Speaker 3: at least four thousand years ago. Humans have been messing
Speaker 3: with these guys for a long long time.
Speaker 4: It's yet I wonder too, it's like another one of
Speaker 4: those historical precedents kind of things where it's like, who's
Speaker 4: the first person that realized that these giant, kind of
Speaker 4: borderline terrifying creatures, if you don't know better, can be
Speaker 4: tamed and basically, you know, tricked into submitting to your will.
Speaker 2: Yeah, somebody had to.
Speaker 4: There had to have been some some mishaps before you know,
Speaker 4: they figured out how to do that quote unquote right right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: The way I'm thinking of it, man, and this is
Speaker 3: entirely speculation on our part, is I imagine an innocent elephant
Speaker 3: helping an early human who was in a jam.
Speaker 4: Oh now, you're right then, and they're like, wait a minute,
Speaker 4: what if we could weaponize that.
Speaker 3: For lack of a thing exactly, the elephants, the elephants
Speaker 3: saying this is knops what we signed up for.
Speaker 2: You know, we were just trying to help. What have
Speaker 2: you helped us all the time? Forever? Yeah? I did
Speaker 2: nothing else. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And if you are a conspiracy realist of a certain age,
Speaker 3: not calling anybody out, you may remember the great circuses
Speaker 3: of old Barnum and Bailey, for instance, as the most
Speaker 3: famous one.
Speaker 4: Well, we're of an age where I'm pretty sure I
Speaker 4: can't speak for you, Ben, but certainly they would have
Speaker 4: been available or come through our cities.
Speaker 2: But I absolutely went.
Speaker 4: To Barnum and Bailey circuses growing up, where elephants were
Speaker 4: a huge part of the show.
Speaker 2: Standing on the little, you know, little little footstool.
Speaker 4: Things and getting lightly smacked around by these little lips
Speaker 4: didn't seem as a child like I didn't. I didn't
Speaker 4: clock that there was anything wrong. But thinking back on it,
Speaker 4: and it's like they didn't want to be there. That's
Speaker 4: not cool, No, exactly. Yeah, And that's a very common
Speaker 4: experience I think a lot of us have had because elephants,
Speaker 4: like you said, were historically one of the biggest draws
Speaker 4: of the most popular circuses. They're up there with tigers
Speaker 4: and you know, the unfortunately named Freak Show. So you
Speaker 4: also notice, as we get older, despite the great spectacle
Speaker 4: in so many people's childhoods, off stage, those elephants often
Speaker 4: had horrific lives. They're tortured into performing these tricks, like
Speaker 4: you said, they're getting whipped, they have to live in tiny,
Speaker 4: unnatural environments. A lot of them get forced to breed,
Speaker 4: they're worked to death, and then they are discarded when
Speaker 4: they're no longer of use. This was pretty prevalent all
Speaker 4: the way up into late twenty sixteen Asterisk in the
Speaker 4: United States for sure, and as we already mentioned, the
Speaker 4: major US circuses, including the quite mouthful tough to say
Speaker 4: Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey.
Speaker 2: Circus, they were doing this.
Speaker 4: I mean, it was a major part of their show,
Speaker 4: a big draw, like you said, and I definitely went
Speaker 4: to a couple of those, not realizing how kind of
Speaker 4: gross what I was seeing was until I grew up
Speaker 4: a little bit and realized some of the contexts around
Speaker 4: what we're talking about today. Thankfully, these operations did stop
Speaker 4: using elephants in May of twenty sixteen, largely driven by
Speaker 4: public pressure and local laws which made it difficult for
Speaker 4: them to being a touring operation, you know, be able
Speaker 4: to do this in different locations. However, there are still
Speaker 4: elephant shows in smaller US venues like local fairs, and
Speaker 4: of course in other countries. We do not want to
Speaker 4: cast aspersions on any of the ethics of the handlers
Speaker 4: that are maybe doing a fine job and treating these
Speaker 4: creatures as equals, and they often, as you can imagine,
Speaker 4: farm deep and complex relationships with their animal friends, and
Speaker 4: you know, oftentimes, like I was mentioning about the Atlanta Zoo,
Speaker 4: there are situations where these creatures might be of the
Speaker 4: kind that couldn't flourish in the wild.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a huge part of it. And that's a
Speaker 3: great point with that caveat. We have to realize that
Speaker 3: not every elephant handler or mahout is ethical. There are
Speaker 3: a lot of countries that are still hotbeds for elephant
Speaker 3: abuse Thailand, BMMR, India, Paul. Because you know, you're a tourist,
Speaker 3: right You're on a once in a lifetime trip across
Speaker 3: the world. You want a picture of you riding an
Speaker 3: elephant or washing one, or you know, like patent. It's trunk.
Speaker 3: I have a few pictures of stuff like that. But
Speaker 3: if you go to a twenty seventeen study by the
Speaker 3: World Animal Protection Organization or WOP, what you find is
Speaker 3: that this well intentioned, seemingly harmless tourism has fueled a
Speaker 3: rise in elephants being abducted from the wild and kept
Speaker 3: for entertainment. The BBC had a great ride up of this,
Speaker 3: and you can also bread the study online.
Speaker 4: That's right, And they summarized the issue this way, saying
Speaker 4: that after inspecting two hundred and twenty venues and three
Speaker 4: thousand elephants, it was found that only two hundred of
Speaker 4: them were living in acceptable captive conditions. These were where
Speaker 4: there was no direct interaction with people, no rides, no
Speaker 4: washing of the elephants, and no circus tricks. So that
Speaker 4: was definitely the exception to the rule, given the stats there.
Speaker 4: And you know, and maybe that several of us are
Speaker 4: in the audience may have seen some of these shows
Speaker 4: outside of the circus of it all, perhaps while traveling abroad,
Speaker 4: perhaps something you just sort of stumbled upon.
Speaker 2: It would not be beyond the realm.
Speaker 4: Of possibility for that to be the case, And you know,
Speaker 4: even if you didn't seek this thing out. They are
Speaker 4: pretty prevalent in some of the countries that you mentioned earlier.
Speaker 2: Ben.
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, yeah, where the elephant population has naturally been
Speaker 3: right for thousands for years.
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, we know.
Speaker 3: In twenty twenty, World Animal Production released yet another expos
Speaker 3: a about the training process that you were mentioning there earlier.
Speaker 4: Nol.
Speaker 2: This is.
Speaker 3: Traumatization, it's torture. It is in doctrination, we could use
Speaker 3: that word correctly, because they start the elephants very young.
Speaker 3: They want to make them submissive enough to interact with tourists,
Speaker 3: right to give people rides to perform those tricks. And
Speaker 3: this investigation, it found that young elephants are forcibly separated
Speaker 3: from their mothers. They're tied to these different wooden strictures.
Speaker 3: They're beaten over and over again. They're forced to walk
Speaker 3: in Chaine, They're hobbled to teach them the right cadence
Speaker 3: of walking.
Speaker 2: A lot of it is depicted in Dumbo.
Speaker 4: That is a lot of my experience of what you're
Speaker 4: talking about, Ben, and it's portrayed horrifically as not cool.
Speaker 4: So props to the whole Disney company for kind of
Speaker 4: I don't know. I mean, I truly do think it's
Speaker 4: a bit of an act of empathy and trying to
Speaker 4: shed light on some of the stuff. And it's children's
Speaker 4: animated film. That's a particularly heavy one. Ben, Yeah, bumbo, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's one of those ones you and I have
Speaker 3: talked about this. I think it was off here. That's
Speaker 3: one of those Disney movies where you and I are
Speaker 3: pretty certain it wouldn't be made today.
Speaker 4: No, I mean, and I did not see the Tim
Speaker 4: Burton remake. I can't imagine that they leaned as hard
Speaker 4: into some of that really really traumatic imagery.
Speaker 2: But I heard it wasn't very good. I haven't seen it.
Speaker 3: I'm equally uh not super excited to learn that there's
Speaker 3: a new reboot of the Ebenezer Scrooge story coming out.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Sorry, Johnny Depp, Yeah, get him back in the fold. Yes.
Speaker 3: So this process of torturing elephants is so common that
Speaker 3: it has a name. It's called the brush And yeah,
Speaker 3: that's terrible. We've got to we've got to think about this,
Speaker 3: because you know, we're all amazed by the depths of
Speaker 3: elephant intelligence. I think we can say the crush is
Speaker 3: pretty similar to abusing a human child.
Speaker 4: It's crushing their soul, their will to live, I mean,
Speaker 4: or their will to live as individuals.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: It's just like, yeah, it's submission, is what it is.
Speaker 4: And yes, absolutely I see what you're saying in terms
Speaker 4: of that parallel between, you know, with child abuse, because
Speaker 4: of just the degree of sense hands that these animals exhibit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we we encountered two extremely different examples of
Speaker 3: human elephant relationships in.
Speaker 2: Thailand earlier this year.
Speaker 3: I think you remember I was very excited, you and
Speaker 3: Tennessee and Nat, all of us we're texting about a
Speaker 3: very weird place I happened across called nong Nuts.
Speaker 2: Do you remember those pictures?
Speaker 4: Man? I do, And I just remember you had two
Speaker 4: very distinctly different experiences and one of them, you know,
Speaker 4: really did a number on you. I know you weren't
Speaker 4: feeling particularly good about it. But now nutche was not
Speaker 4: that one, right, Oh yeah, this is.
Speaker 3: The this is the very very well, they're both very disturbing,
Speaker 3: but non Nuts is like you remember, well, we've all
Speaker 3: been to amusement parks, but do you remember Rock City?
Speaker 2: See it? Sorry?
Speaker 4: I anyone's from the region here, Atlanta, It's a tourist
Speaker 4: trap kind of a roadside attraction. I guess you could
Speaker 4: call it. On a certain route traveling the interstates here
Speaker 4: around Atlanta, you will see signs for Sea Rock City.
Speaker 4: I have not had the pleasure, although I did just
Speaker 4: stop by BUCkies, which is its own kind of roadside attraction.
Speaker 2: Rock City.
Speaker 4: I believe it has like like gnomes and stuff and
Speaker 4: like a magical woodland kind of garden experience.
Speaker 3: Right, it's so it is so close in the dark, Yes, yes,
Speaker 3: close the dark. It is just it's just up in Chattanoogat.
Speaker 3: So it's a day trip if you ever want to
Speaker 3: do something weird on the weekend. We had a little
Speaker 3: group of co workers who went there a while back
Speaker 3: in Tennessee. We got to hear your take. How would
Speaker 3: you describe Rock City to someone who's not familiar with it.
Speaker 5: It's a muss see, is how I would describe it.
Speaker 2: See for yourself.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's there's two. There's two very different experiences. You
Speaker 5: walk through a rock path where you can see they
Speaker 5: say seven states at the end where there's a little waterfall.
Speaker 5: But then to get out of the park you have
Speaker 5: to go through a black light tunnel filled with kind
Speaker 5: of scary dioramas of fairy tales, and they don't really
Speaker 5: warn you about that at the beginning. But yeah, I
Speaker 5: love it and I have one of them birdhouses. There's
Speaker 5: that's another thing that you can buy City bird.
Speaker 4: I feel st left out. I can't wait to check
Speaker 4: it out. I gotta, I gotta do it. Is it
Speaker 4: something you can get to, like maybe on the way
Speaker 4: to Nashville.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like if you're driving up to Chattanooga, that's.
Speaker 5: Where seventy five and forty split, so there you go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then you can also while you're there. We're
Speaker 3: not part of the tourism board, but while you're there,
Speaker 3: why not check out Ruby Falls and Lookout Mountain.
Speaker 2: We've done our bit, and I have.
Speaker 4: Been to Chattanooga in the last handful of years. And
Speaker 4: that's also a lovely town, really, really a beautiful place
Speaker 4: worth visiting. There's a really good place called Aretha Frankenstein's.
Speaker 2: Really good pancakes. Yeah, very good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, don't eat the day before if you go to Aretha's.
Speaker 3: But let us know when you're going, Noel, let's make
Speaker 3: a road trip. It looked too fun and Ed Dylan,
Speaker 3: you were right to warn Noel about that subterranean exit path.
Speaker 2: Rock City.
Speaker 3: I've never been, dude, I've never I've been many times,
Speaker 3: have never been there without seeing at least one child
Speaker 3: freaked out by the.
Speaker 2: Global by the chests. Okay, yeah, okay.
Speaker 3: So we're minted in Rock City because we love it
Speaker 3: and we can't wait to go as a group, but
Speaker 3: we're also mentioning it because everything you've heard about Rock
Speaker 3: City times ten times ten thousand, that is nol neuche.
Speaker 3: It's it's so wild. It's essentially it's a sprawling complex,
Speaker 3: hundreds and hundreds of acres of whatever interested the founder
Speaker 3: a tie billionaire at the time, so you'll see all
Speaker 3: these recreation sculptures with no rhyme or reason. There's a
Speaker 3: sick car museum, and right next to it there are
Speaker 3: recreations of the Pyramids in Egypt. There's a weird propaganda
Speaker 3: heavy theater show, and then of course there are elephants.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, Ben, I'm sorry, I think I misunderstood, but
Speaker 4: this was there was some fascinating and kind of you know.
Speaker 2: Kooky facets of this visit, but once.
Speaker 4: You got to the elephant show of it all, it
Speaker 4: did kind of turn dark.
Speaker 2: Dude.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because if you're watching it and you don't know
Speaker 3: what you're looking for, you might think, oh, these are
Speaker 3: really intelligent creatures who are having fun with their human friends.
Speaker 3: But the handlers who got in big trouble in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 3: they are wielding these these stick looking things that have
Speaker 3: a couple of feathers at the end, and it looks
Speaker 3: like they're just tapping the elephant when they want it
Speaker 3: to lift the leg or bend down and let somebody
Speaker 3: hop on it. But underneath the feathers those things have
Speaker 3: hooks like sickles, and so during the crush, during the
Speaker 3: trading process, they're attacking the elephants with this at a
Speaker 3: very young age to program those movements.
Speaker 4: Okay, so they're digging into their flesh with this, but
Speaker 4: the flesh is so their highs are so tough that
Speaker 4: it's not like you're seeing wounds or anything, but it's
Speaker 4: definitely painful and unpleasant at the very least.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, one hundred percent. Man and the gardens Nong
Speaker 3: nutche They have always disputed the idea that they're mistreating
Speaker 3: those elephants. Animal rights activists decry this practice, but nothing's
Speaker 3: really been done because Nong NUC is a very popular
Speaker 3: tourist attraction, and the management is very well connected with
Speaker 3: the government and the royal family because Thailand is still
Speaker 3: a monarchy where technically you can get arrested for talking
Speaker 3: trash about the king. So if you're friends with the king,
Speaker 3: it's very easy to get away with doing whatever you.
Speaker 2: Want for sure.
Speaker 4: However, you know, we have seen things that tourists have shared.
Speaker 4: Right in twenty nineteen, for example, controversy really kind of
Speaker 4: hit when a tourist uploaded images that suggested some of
Speaker 4: the mistreatment of the elephants that you're talking about. This
Speaker 4: is an accusation that the garden, like you said, has disputed,
Speaker 4: but we can attest, at least you can attest, Ben firsthand,
Speaker 4: that the elephants in question did seem heavily trained.
Speaker 2: These handlers or hounts.
Speaker 4: Wheeled those sticks, like you said, Ben, they can make
Speaker 4: them play soccer and carry visitors around and all their
Speaker 4: shoulders and all of that stuff. So in sharp contrast
Speaker 4: to that, Ben, far to the north of the country,
Speaker 4: you can find the antithesis to this, and the form
Speaker 4: of elephants sanctuaries that are run by conservationists to protect
Speaker 4: these creatures and allow them to live together in harmony
Speaker 4: with which you might refer the less as handler has
Speaker 4: been as you point out on that one, and more
Speaker 4: like tenders, and this would be a much more harmonious situation.
Speaker 4: They don't make them do tricks. All the contact is regulated.
Speaker 4: In fact, only a very small number of elephants interact
Speaker 4: with visitors to the sanctuaries at all. I mean, you
Speaker 4: can take a picture of them, but it is all
Speaker 4: kind of at the comfort level of the animals themselves.
Speaker 2: That is highly guarded. Yeah, you nailed it.
Speaker 3: It's exactly what you were describing with other conservation efforts.
Speaker 3: A lot of these animals, simply to earlier point Noel,
Speaker 3: cannot live in the wild anymore, right, because they have
Speaker 3: been physically abused or they have been harshly mentally abused.
Speaker 2: To point out too, I mean like the wild is harsh.
Speaker 4: I mean, these animals will be excommunicated for of a
Speaker 4: better term, from their groups. And given that you know
Speaker 4: that these animals are pack animals, they would be essentially
Speaker 4: left to die, right Yeah, it even like bullied to
Speaker 4: the point of potentially death, right Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's such an important point because the wild
Speaker 3: is the wild creatures live and die, right. It's a
Speaker 3: very brutal environment. So these elephants, at least in some
Speaker 3: of the conservation places we visited are they're well taken
Speaker 3: care of, but you still see that shadow of exploitation.
Speaker 3: A lot of these were orphaned when their parents were
Speaker 3: killed or they were rescued from slavery at like timber
Speaker 3: camps and meandmar There was one we saw whose front
Speaker 3: left fore limb was broken because it was enslaved at
Speaker 3: a timber operation in Meanmar. You could see scars around
Speaker 3: its neck where it's been chained up for years. Its
Speaker 3: leg never healed correctly, so it has to hobble. And
Speaker 3: keep in mind, folks, this thing weighs tons and tons.
Speaker 3: It has to hobble on its broken leg around the
Speaker 3: around its sanctuary because the best veterinarians in the country
Speaker 3: can't fix its leg. It's just stuck like that for
Speaker 3: the rest of its life. And these things live a
Speaker 3: very long time.
Speaker 4: For sure, Ben, and you should speak to this. I mean,
Speaker 4: you witnessed this firsthand, and this this scene that you observe,
Speaker 4: I believe you know, really really got under your skin.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, sir, we saw there a middle aged female
Speaker 3: elephant that looked like you know you and I have
Speaker 3: seen clips of humans who have been indoctrinated in a
Speaker 3: cult or like deprogramming stuff where you try to bring
Speaker 3: somebody back from brainwashing.
Speaker 2: It's chilling. Yes, Yeah, when.
Speaker 3: We saw what I suspect to be that with an elephant.
Speaker 3: This elephant is still stuck in a training loop from
Speaker 3: their experience during the crush, that torture and training program.
Speaker 3: So this elephant would wander around aimlessly, and like you
Speaker 3: were describing, it has trouble interacting with peers, other elephants
Speaker 3: in the herd. And every few minutes this thing would
Speaker 3: stop seemingly no reason, and it would act out a
Speaker 3: training pattern. It would bow, I remember it specifically would
Speaker 3: bow a number of times. It would stamp one of
Speaker 3: its feet, counting out something. It would bow again and
Speaker 3: then would turn around. It would wander somewhere else, and
Speaker 3: then it would do the same process.
Speaker 4: And that speaks to how aggressively beaten into this creature
Speaker 4: those routines must have been yeah, for it to manifest
Speaker 4: itself like that, like unprompted. I mean, you're basically seeing
Speaker 4: a creature that has for lack of a better way
Speaker 4: of putting it lost its mind.
Speaker 3: Absolutely yeah, and I I hate how correct that is,
Speaker 3: but you're absolutely right. We know that they are vast
Speaker 3: differences between these two encounters, but if you're going to
Speaker 3: be on the safe side, it's best to assume that
Speaker 3: in less a place is like you were saying, Noel, specifically,
Speaker 3: an elephant sanctuary. You have to realize the elephants in
Speaker 3: the show are probably not being treated in an ethical way.
Speaker 3: That's the elephant show part. But there's more for us
Speaker 3: to get to. So what say we take a break
Speaker 3: and then we get to another thing that's going to
Speaker 3: be very familiar to a lot of us in the audience,
Speaker 3: the idea of hunting.
Speaker 4: And we're back and we're talking, of course about the
Speaker 4: other elephant in the room. Man, you gotta do it.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's what it is, which is big game hunting.
Speaker 4: You know, we've seen images of folks like what is it,
Speaker 4: Jimmy John Magnates, right, you know, posing with these you know,
Speaker 4: corpses of these you know, large game animals. That's the
Speaker 4: I don't like using that term because game animals implies
Speaker 4: that that's what they're there for. You know, that's I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't like that one bit. And of course that
Speaker 4: you know, the Trump sons have been, you know, known
Speaker 4: to do that kind of thing, and images exist of
Speaker 4: them as well posing with their prey. Elephants in particular,
Speaker 4: uh is even I don't know. Elephants in particular have
Speaker 4: a just very incredibly heartbreaking story when it comes to
Speaker 4: their role in this industry.
Speaker 2: Let's speak call it what it is.
Speaker 4: The issue of elephant abuse does take on a different form,
Speaker 4: especially in the African continent, where elephant hunting is permitted
Speaker 4: and selects subsoherent African countries such as Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia.
Speaker 4: It is regularly wildlife management and conservation funding tool, sort
Speaker 4: of like having a hunting license here in the States.
Speaker 2: There are seasons.
Speaker 4: It is, of course justified by maintaining population and not
Speaker 4: having certain species populations explode to the point of it
Speaker 4: causing encroachment upon habitat for other animals. And I imagine
Speaker 4: that in parts of Africa the elephants can also cause
Speaker 4: some real problems. Right, We've heard stories about elephants trampling
Speaker 4: crops and things like that. So I do understand the
Speaker 4: rationale of this as a wildlife management tool, but there
Speaker 4: are still some aspects of it that make it tough
Speaker 4: to stomach.
Speaker 3: We also have to ask how much of that, how
Speaker 3: much of that positive messaging it's just pr spin, like, hey,
Speaker 3: we know we're letting you play hitman on these innocent creatures,
Speaker 3: but it goes to a good cause.
Speaker 2: Remember that.
Speaker 4: We've definitely heard stories of, like you know, villages that
Speaker 4: are being having their food supply threatened by rogue elephants.
Speaker 2: That kind of it is a thing, and I'm just
Speaker 2: I'm very much a thing. Yes, yes, sir.
Speaker 3: And that's that's a great point. We know that regardless
Speaker 3: of where you fall on the hunting aspect of that
Speaker 3: elephants in general, you can go to websites like book
Speaker 3: your hunt dot com and you'll see their starting price
Speaker 3: to kill an elephant is a little bit less than
Speaker 3: eleven thousand US dollars. That is chump change to a
Speaker 3: lot of wealthy people, to the Jimmy Johns guy, you know.
Speaker 4: For sure, Ben, And it's like, you know, I understand
Speaker 4: the tourist draw of things like safaris, right, yeah, that
Speaker 4: makes sense, And that doesn't feel like that's as you know,
Speaker 4: not of course, not nearly as invasive as allowing the
Speaker 4: animals to be killed. But I would say, you know,
Speaker 4: go for one of those, maybe just take a look.
Speaker 4: You don't have to murder them to experience them. However,
Speaker 4: you know, it reminds me too. There are examples here
Speaker 4: in the States of kind of dirty pool when it
Speaker 4: comes to game hunting, where they'll have these pens where
Speaker 4: the animals are like bread to be killed and released
Speaker 4: in these like literal kind of pens, or you can
Speaker 4: just like fish in a barrel, right.
Speaker 2: And it's like, I think that's the case with some
Speaker 2: of these.
Speaker 4: And I'm not even saying like I'm a sporting chance
Speaker 4: and that makes it better. I mean, hunting is a
Speaker 4: fraud issue. And of course we know that hunting is
Speaker 4: a far as a way of life for many indigenous
Speaker 4: you know, communities, and has been historically. There is, of course,
Speaker 4: the idea of really truly using every part of the
Speaker 4: animal and relying on it for sustenance.
Speaker 2: It just seems like in this day.
Speaker 4: And age, it feels a little bit more like a
Speaker 4: weird flex Yeah, yeah, because especially the right, these people
Speaker 4: are not defending themselves from an elephant attack.
Speaker 3: They're paying a premium for a very strange vacation that
Speaker 3: features a massacre, and then you know that again.
Speaker 2: That is legal.
Speaker 3: That's a legal thing you can do in several of
Speaker 3: these countries. Another issue, as we know, is the ivory trade,
Speaker 3: which is very much illegal. It's one of the greatest
Speaker 3: threats to the survival of elephants. And if you go
Speaker 3: to different activist sources, they're going to say they're going
Speaker 3: to tell you that thousands of elephants, especially in the
Speaker 3: African continent die every year of the entirety of the
Speaker 3: body to your earlier point is not used. They're killing
Speaker 3: them for ivory. This is a poaching epidemic. It continues today.
Speaker 3: I read one guy named Q Ferenly Wittenstall, which just
Speaker 3: is an amazing name.
Speaker 2: Install by the way, is a hyphen it Yes, yes, sir.
Speaker 3: This researcher and others who agree with say that if
Speaker 3: the ivory trade continues unabated, elephants could be gone from
Speaker 3: the wild within as little as twenty five years, so
Speaker 3: within your lifetime. As you're watching this show.
Speaker 4: And to step it back again, I do it is illegal, right,
Speaker 4: These are poachers that are doing this, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: So I mean think about how you know the mastodon
Speaker 4: became extinct, it was because there wasn't any measure in place. Right,
Speaker 4: So even with measures in place, the illegal sort of
Speaker 4: black market trade still enough to potentially wipe out these
Speaker 4: creatures in as little as twenty five years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's huge economic inequality involved because a lot of
Speaker 3: the buyer markets are from more wealthy countries and the suppliers,
Speaker 3: a lot of those folks are if we exercise empathy,
Speaker 3: just like the elephants want us to a lot of
Speaker 3: those folks who are approaching are doing it because they
Speaker 3: have to survive. They don't feel they have any other option.
Speaker 3: So you have to cut it off at the wealthy countries,
Speaker 3: at the destination countries. In twenty sixteen, the US almost
Speaker 3: entirely banned the ivory trade. Singapore and Hong Kong followed
Speaker 3: because a big demand for ivory came from came from Asia.
Speaker 3: People wanted it for status, for decoration. There were talks
Speaker 3: of folk medicine. But there's something else. There's a bit
Speaker 3: of a twist here.
Speaker 2: Folks are wild. Yeah, this is wild right.
Speaker 3: You may not have heard this, but Noel can tell
Speaker 3: us a little bit about whether or not elephants hunt back.
Speaker 4: Well, that's the thing, Ben, I mean, think about the
Speaker 4: whole memory aspect that we keep talking about, Like the
Speaker 4: way crows will hold a grudge, you know, and come
Speaker 4: at you, you know, weeks later and remember that you
Speaker 4: wronged them in some way. Well, such is the case
Speaker 4: for elephants as well. And I think maybe when I
Speaker 4: was mentioning the idea of these elephants sort of trampling
Speaker 4: crops in these smaller communities, I just don't I don't
Speaker 4: know that that necessarily would even happen as much. They'd
Speaker 4: probably stick to their own areas if it weren't for
Speaker 4: this human intervention that is causing them to lash out
Speaker 4: and kind of go rogue or almost exhibit the dark
Speaker 4: side of that intelligence. They certainly don't hunt humans for food,
Speaker 4: but they are elephants responsible for around one hundreds to
Speaker 4: five hundred human deaths every year. And just like humans,
Speaker 4: elephants do seem, as we said, they mourn they're dead,
Speaker 4: they would also seem to understand revenge.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've got two quick examples for you. There's the
Speaker 3: case of infamous killer elephant. Remember we mentioned serial killers
Speaker 3: located in Nepal. This elephant is named derbate d h
Speaker 3: u rb.
Speaker 2: Eas like what wales are doing.
Speaker 4: Now, there's this whole epidemic of whales attacking ships. I
Speaker 4: mean you push and you push ben and eventually these
Speaker 4: animals are going.
Speaker 2: To push back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you hang out at a barber shop long enough,
Speaker 3: you get a haircut, and Derby has a human death
Speaker 3: toll that was just reported earlier this month to be
Speaker 3: up to twenty five. This elephant has killed twenty five people.
Speaker 3: And then if you go to the nearby country of India,
Speaker 3: you see a story of a herd of elephants that
Speaker 3: trampled a sixty eight year old woman and then returned
Speaker 3: during her funeral and attacked her dead body.
Speaker 4: Again, that is dark and just like their eyes. Like
Speaker 4: I mentioned of or attacks on boats. These elephant attacks
Speaker 4: are increasing as human encroachment further invades the elephants already
Speaker 4: dwindling natural habitats, and so you doesn't seem like it's
Speaker 4: going anywhere. You're probably going to see more of these
Speaker 4: types of conflicts before you see less. Dude.
Speaker 2: That's the question.
Speaker 3: Right now that we know all this, we're asking what
Speaker 3: can we do to help? Not everybody is a billionaire
Speaker 3: from Thailand not everybody is a well connected son of
Speaker 3: the president or something. I mean, honestly, we've been talking
Speaker 3: about this quite a while now. These days, most normal
Speaker 3: people are doing their best just to keep their own
Speaker 3: households going. So it can be offensive, not the right word,
Speaker 3: but something like offensive.
Speaker 2: It can be to.
Speaker 3: Go to people or struggling to survive and say, hey,
Speaker 3: give more money to these animals that you're never going
Speaker 3: to meet in person for sure.
Speaker 4: Yet the elephant does remain one of I think we're
Speaker 4: all on the same page about this.
Speaker 2: Most amazing life forms on Earth.
Speaker 4: They have this deep ability to feel emotion, to remember
Speaker 4: the past, to take care of their loved ones, to
Speaker 4: mourn their passing. Studies even show that their brains actually
Speaker 4: light up when they see humans that they like, hand
Speaker 4: form interspecies bonds, you know, just like how a human
Speaker 4: brain might recognize like a real cute puppy. So it
Speaker 4: does appear that, under the best of circumstances, elephants dig
Speaker 4: us and they think we're kind of cute.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the That's something that still needs to be
Speaker 3: studied more because even though we know elephants are super intelligent,
Speaker 3: we got to be careful not to anthropomorphize them too much.
Speaker 3: So we will hear people who say elephants thinking humans
Speaker 3: are cute is just a myth.
Speaker 2: But I think it's nice, man. I think it's a
Speaker 2: nice way to think. It's a nice way to wrap
Speaker 2: up the episode. Two.
Speaker 4: There's hope, guys. Just you know, they don't start nothing,
Speaker 4: ain't gonna be nothing, right, it'd be cool, be nice
Speaker 4: to help exist. That'll be nice to you.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Yes, well said there, mister Brown.
Speaker 3: We know this episode again is a little bit of
Speaker 3: a weird win for us, maybe not our usual remit,
Speaker 3: but it's worth the exploration. So thank you for tuning in.
Speaker 3: Fellow conspiracy realists. Want to know what you think of
Speaker 3: the future of the elephant, and also let us know
Speaker 3: if you want to hear more explorations of other wild animals,
Speaker 3: their relationships with humans, and the fascinating continuing investigation into
Speaker 3: non human intelligence. We have, folks, we have so many
Speaker 3: random animal facts. We have like too many random animal facts.
Speaker 3: They're just waiting for you to reach out. What's the
Speaker 3: best way to find this?
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, there's a handful of ways you can find
Speaker 4: us all over the Internet and your social media platform
Speaker 4: of choice. Just look for the handles Conspiracy Stuff or
Speaker 4: Conspiracy Stuff show and we'll pop right up.
Speaker 2: You can, also, of.
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