Tribute: In Memoriam, Jeheskel Hezy Shoshani

The elephant community has lost one of its great ambassadors, Dr. Jeheskel Hezy Shoshani, at the age of 65. A wave of condolences and testimonials from colleagues and friends around the world followed his death on May 21, 2008

History: The Birth of America in 1882

This article concerns a New York Times story about the birth of the female Asian elephant calf, named America, at the winter headquarters of the Greatest Show on Earth in Bridgeport, Connecticut on February 2, 1882. Phineas T. Barnum, one of the owners of the show, and one prone to self-aggrandizing bluster, claimed that America was the second elephant ever born in captivity. America was born only to months before the arrival in New York of the most famous circus elephant of all time, Jumbo, on Easter Sunday, 1882, and only two years before the origin of a small wagon circus run by the five Ringling (originally, Rüngeling) brothers from Baraboo Wisconsin

Birth Statistics for African (\u3cem\u3eLoxodonta africana\u3c/em\u3e) and Asian (\u3cem\u3eElephas maximus\u3c/em\u3e) Elephants in Human Care: History and Implications for Elephant Welfare

African (Loxodonta africana) and Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) have lived in the care of humans for many years, yet there is no consensus concerning some basic parameters describing their newborn calves. This study provides a broad empirical basis for generalizations about the birth heights, birth weights, birth times and gestation periods of elephant calves born in captivity. I obtained data concerning at least one of these four characteristics for 218 newborn calves from 74 institutions. Over the past 30 years, newborn Asian elephants have been taller and heavier than newborn African elephants. Neonatal African elephants exhibited sex differences in both weight and height, whereas neonatal Asian elephants have exhibited sex differences only in height. Primiparous dams ex situ are at least as old as their in situ counterparts, whereas ex situ sires appear to be younger than sires in range countries. Confirming earlier anecdotal evidence, both African [N= 47] and Asian [N = 91] dams gave birth most often at night

Some Children\u27s Books About Elephants (1987-1997)

Literature review of children\u27s books about elephants from the Indianapolis Public Library

The Spatial Memory of African Elephants (\u3cem\u3eLoxodonta africana\u3c/em\u3e): Durability, Interference, and Response Biases

Women and elephants never forget an injury. -Saki (H. H. Munro), Reginald on besetting sins, in Reginald (1904) I am not sure whether the satirist H. H. Munro believed Saki\u27s claim, although it may well be true (at least with regard to elephants). This chapter will examine some characteristics of elephant memory more systematically than did Saki. In general, it is to an animal\u27s advantage to remember some aspects (usually the stable features) of a situation for long periods and to remember other aspects (usually the unstable features) only temporarily. Consistent with recent arguments questioning the value of cognitive constructs for studying animal behavior (Grau 2002; Staddon 2001a,b; Wright and Watkins 1987), I will use reference memory and working memory (Baddeley and Hitch 1974; Honig 1978) only as descriptive terms indicating formal task requirements. (See Olton, Becker, and Handelmann 1979.) The stable characteristics of the test situation (such as the shape of the spatial array of food sources) are said to involve reference memory; those features that vary across trials (such as the sequence of food sites visited on a trial) are said to involve working memory. My main goal is to demonstrate that elephants can remember which locations they have visited during a spatial memory test similar to the radial maze (Olton and Samuelson 1976). The data will show that elephants rely on memory to solve several spatial problems, rather than relying on their response biases (Dale and Innis 1986) or their excellent olfactory abilities (Rasmussen and Krishnamurthy 2000). In addition, I will describe research showing that performance on the memory task is susceptible to proactive interference and that the retention of reference memory components of the test procedures is durable

State Psychological Associations, Licensing Criteria, and the “Master’s Issue”

The psychological associations in the 50 states and the District of Columbia were surveyed with regard to their membership structure and the status of master\u27s-level members. Most (31) of these associations closely follow the membership criteria established by the American Psychological Association, allowing associate membership for master\u27s-level personnel, whereas 15 associations provide full membership for such personnel. A minority (17) of the state psychology boards provide some form or licensing or certification for master\u27s-level personnel, and 5 more states provide for registration of such personnel. It is argued that the structures of state psychological associations reflect a tension between two views of psychology: as a scientific discipline or as a profession. The scientific emphasis encourages associations to include all individuals interested in a field or scientific endeavor; the professional perspective motivates associations to exclude those ineligible to join a profession of sell-regulated, highly qualified, health service providers

The Asian Elephant: Ecology and Management

Book review for the following title: The Asian Elephant: Ecology and Management. By Raman Sukumar, Cambridge University Press, 1993, 282 pages. $34.95 hardcove

Elephants

Book review for the following title: Elephants. By Clive Spinage, Kent, UK: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1994, 319 pages. £27.45

Calf Development: Most Births at Night

For many years, field researchers studying both African (Loxodonta africana) and Asian (Elephas maximas) elephants have indicated that they have observed relatively few births in situ, suggesting that most elephant dams give birth at night. For example, according to Cynthia Moss, Possibly the majority of births occur at night and perhaps those that do take place in the daytime happen in secluded places (1988, p. 151). Others, for example, Clive Spinage, have referred to the old beliefs that the cows retreated to \u27calving grounds\u27 or that birth took place at night. (Spinage, 1994, p. 90). Although observers in several areas of Africa and Asia are keeping systematic birth records (Sukumar, 2003, p. 256), nobody seems to have summarized the distributions of birth times at these sites

Spatial and Temporal Response Patterns on the Eight-Arm Radial Maze

Six maze-experienced hooded rats were timed during five trials on which they collected water from all arms of an eight-arm radial maze, then made five more choices. All subjects frequently exhibited a “task-completion pause:” The subjects rarely spent more than 1 sec in the center of the maze between choices until they had entered all eight arms, then stopped in the center of the maze. In contrast, the time spent in each arm gradually increased until all of the water had been obtained, then decreased slightly. Four subjects began every trial by choosing eight consecutive adjacent arms. The task-completion pause indicates that these subjects recognized when all of the arms had been entered, without having to repeat one. Therefore, even extreme degrees of response stereotypy do not imply a fundamental dependence on response strategies