Sunday, May 10, 2009

Mothers and the Great Escape

Perhaps the most famous elephant of the nineteenth century was Jumbo. He was captured in a similar fashion. A hunter, Hermann Schomburgk, shot his mother. He describes it himself: “She collapsed in the rear and gave me the opportunity to jump quickly sideways and bring to bear a deadly shot, after which she immediately died. Obeying the laws of nature, the young animal remained standing beside its [sic] mother …. Until my men arrived, I observed how pitiful little baby continuously ran about its mother while hitting her with his trunk as if he wanted to wake her and make their escape.” …

If you are a mother, what would you do if someone tried to take your child? If you have a mother, what would you feel if someone shot her so they could put you on display? What would you feel as you poked at her, hit her, wanted her to wake up so together you could make your escape, but she did not awaken?

-From Derrick Jensen’s “Thought to Exist in the Wild: Awakening from the Nightmare of Zoos"

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