Elephants intuiting a human friend's death !

[Ajay0]

I recently came across an interesting story of a South African conservationist named Lawrence Anthony. He was known for his conservatory work amongst elephants.

 

It is said that just after Lawrence's death in his house, a group of elephants marched their way to his house for 12 hours, and hung around for two days before making their way to the bush.

 

https://protectallwildlifeblog.com/2021/08/01/when-the-elephants-came-to-mourn-the-elephant-whisperer/

 

Quote

 

” For two days the herds loitered at Anthony’s rural compound on the vast Thula Thula game reserve in the South African KwaZulu — to say good-bye to the man they loved. But how did they know he had died?

 

 

Imho, I think , considering this case study, animals are somehow capable of intuiting the state of close friends and responding accordingly. 

[Nungali]

Indeed . Down the south coast from here  Orcas used to help whalers heard the whales in. The head orca 'Old Tom'  developed a good relation ship with the head whaler , when this Captain died , he was rowed over to an island for the funeral and buried . Old Tom turned up and stayed off shore until the grave was filled, and then swum off . One wonders how Old Tom could tell from watching at water level .

 

Unfortunately the new Captain had no taste for such relationships  so Tom pulled the plug on helping them and the whaler orca relationship began to decline .

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_whales_of_Eden,_New_South_Wales

 

Edited June 1, 2024 by Nungali

[Ajay0]

On 6/2/2024 at 4:39 AM, Nungali said:

Indeed . Down the south coast from here  Orcas used to help whalers heard the whales in. The head orca 'Old Tom'  developed a good relation ship with the head whaler , when this Captain died , he was rowed over to an island for the funeral and buried . Old Tom turned up and stayed off shore until the grave was filled, and then swum off . One wonders how Old Tom could tell from watching at water level .

 

Unfortunately the new Captain had no taste for such relationships  so Tom pulled the plug on helping them and the whaler orca relationship began to decline .

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_whales_of_Eden,_New_South_Wales

 

 

Thank you for the interesting input. 

[Ajay0]

Elephant visits hospital to bid emotional farewell to its ailing caretaker: 

 

https://thedailyguardian.com/viral-news/elephant-visits-hospital-for-heartfelt-goodbye-to-its-ailing-caretaker-watch/

 

https://www.msn.com/en-in/entertainment/bollywood/watch-elephant-visits-terminally-ill-caretaker-at-hospital-for-final-goodbye-viral-video-leaves-netizens-in-tears/ar-AA1yGhUx

 

Quote

The moving video begins with the gentle giant standing at the entrance of a hospital room. As soon as it enters, the elephant carefully approaches the patient lying on the bed. Displaying remarkable intelligence and sensitivity, the animal lowers itself onto the floor—perhaps due to the low ceiling height—before extending its trunk towards the elderly man. The moment is filled with emotion as the elephant lovingly tries to wake him up. 

 

[Nungali]

More about whales . 

 

 As time  goes on and we have more 'modern interaction' ( tours , research, etc )  with them, some interesting observations have come to light . I saw one doco about a specific tour and interact with whales  and the tour guide, who had years of experience noted that often when a whale  comes up to a boat and there is a group of people  at the side of the boat watching  it will pick out a specific person to interact with  and if that person comes back on the tour and the same whale comes up to the boat it will look for that person and choose  to interact with them  again .... it seems they have 'favourite people' . In some cases a mother has bought her baby whale to meet that person as well .