It’s difficult to overstate the gravitas a video like this brings. It raises so many questions begging in depth studies to better understand animal consciousness, personality, and their perception of the world. The concept of “animal rights” suddenly sounds far less loony or radical and instead becomes glaringly obvious and even necessary. It is difficult to not be moved by this.
UPDATE:
I was as amazed as many out there and I wondered if this was real or a hoax. Here I give you another video from a BBC news story that seems to confirm that the paintings are in fact done by an elephant.
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[...] Read the whole thing here. Mar 31, 2008 | | Uncategorized [...]
[...] Suren wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptIt’s difficult to overstate the gravitas a video like this brings. It raises so many questions begging in depth studies to better understand animal consciousness, personality, and their perception of the world. … [...]
I just downloaded a book on becoming a Vegetarian. I am feeling extremely guilty about the whole factory farming thing because of some people, and now I read this. I give, though the little fishy’s are still in trouble. No Vegan for me.
BTW, Kudo’s on this.
I had to share this one. Below is a comment sent to me by an evangelical acquaintance and my response to her.
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This is just a prime example of man’s ethnocentricism (i know that’s not the right word) and ultimate hubris to assume he is the only being with intelligence and/or creativity.
Supe…the main reason I questioned the authenticity of this video is because of the ooo’s and awes in the background and not the elephant painting the portrait itself…the people caused the skepticism..not the elephant….I have much more confidence in the sincerity of animals than the sincerity of most humans…if it is actually for real..it is great..animals never cease to amaze me…people are pretty predictable…just for the record!
It appears this is a performance and there are other elephants painting off camera, hence the odd cheering outbursts.
I added another video that seems to better show what is going on and to my continued surprise this seems that the elephants are doing the painting…kinda.
I’m suspicious of the handler you can’t always see who is on the other side of the elephant’s head. If you watch you’ll notice that the elephant is getting physical guidance at the tusk from the person. Once an elephant is trained to follow such subtle cues it brings to question whether the content of the painting is composed by the elephant or the handler. I can’t help but admit that it looks more like an exceptional act than real proof of pachyderm artistic creativity. Who knows?
I don’t want to use the above tags…..
but thanks……
I saw elephanst paint in Calgary Zoo but not quite like this…….it was more scribble then painting…..this was a inspiring video….