When considering the emotional lives
of animals, it is a topic so taboo
that it seems disreputable and not a
respectable area of study. An early
account taken from the book - When
Elephants Weep* - recounts the following by
R.G. Cummings, a hunter in South Africa:
"He first shot it in the shoulder, so that it could not run
away. The elephant limped over to a tree and leaned against it.
Deciding to contemplate the elephant before killing it,
Cummings paused to make coffee and then chose
to determine experimentally
which were an elephant's vulnerable spots.
He walked up to it
and fired bullets into various parts of the
head. The elephant
did not move except to touch the bullet wounds
with the tip of
his trunk. 'Surprised and shocked to find
that I was only
tormenting and prolonging the
sufferings of the noble beast,
which bore his trials with such dignified
composure,' Cummings
wrote, he decided to finish him off and shoot
him nine times
behind the shoulder. 'Large tears now trickled
from his eyes,
which he slowly shut and opened; his colossal
frame quivered
convulsively, and , falling on his side, he expired.'"
This animal must have been in great pain
and that alone would have caused him to shed tears.
No animal, other than human beings
runs torture experiments on other animals!!
* Masson, J., & McCarthy, S., (1996), When Elephants Weep,
London, Vintage, pp.133-134.
EndlessSeas
Return to The Sharing
Gallery