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From: padraig@utastro.UUCP (Padraig Houlahan)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: re ignorance
Message-ID: <589@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 22-Aug-85 22:57:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: utastro.589
Posted: Thu Aug 22 22:57:47 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Aug-85 11:00:12 EDT
References: <378@imsvax.UUCP>
Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX
Lines: 27

> Charles Forsyth's latest posting is entitled "IGNORANCE".  I recommend it.
> The article lives up to it's title.  Just one point I would like to comment
> on.  Charles claims to have stampeded SOMETHING once, he doesn't say what
> exactly, probably a herd of mice.   Elephants are intelligent, Charles.  They
> are very large and powerful, they have a bad attitude generally, and nobody
> with any sense who lives around them messes with them if it is avoidable.
> Unlike true herd animals, such as deer and buffaloe, they could not easily
> be stampeded over a cliff;  they are far more likely to attack someone 
> attempting this.   As far as this cliff theory explaining the total 
> extermination of several breeds of elephants in North America, which was the
> original question, the theory, even if it wasn't BS, which it is, still could
> not come close.  Elephants were living in too many places WITH NO CLIFFS.

I saw a nature program the other day where they were trying to capture
some of these intelligent creatures. The hunters made a circular ditch
around some favorite elephant food. The only way to the food was
across a bridge made of logs. Elephants, being intelligent went across
and got the food. In the meantime however the bridge was removed. The ditch
was only about two feet deep but elephants won't walk where they can't 
touch with their trunks, and hence were trapped. The hunters could
then do as they pleased, when they pleased, to these very large, powerful
animals that have a bad attitude generally.

I suppose this is a case of "if the elephants won't go to the cliffs,
bring the cliffs to the elephants"!

Padraig Houlahan.