Of course zoos are not good for elephants.  Isolation from their normal 
social structure is terrible for any creature.  This elephant mom needs help 
from other elephant moms!  Just like humans...

At an Area Conf a few years ago, we had a speaker who had studied two groups 
of elephants in the wild, comparing those with a normal family life with 
some orphaned ones returned to the wild that had not been in normal 
families.  Normally, elephants go around in groups, the biggest groups are 
made up of a bull, and his multiple wives and their offspring.  The rest of 
the males go around together in other groups.  In the group of females, the 
young females learn from their seniors how to mother, so the orphaned 
females in the contrasting group did not do well at all, with sad outcomes 
for mothers and babies.

Nan Jolly M.B. B.Ch. LLLL
Port Elizabeth, South Africa
True partnership is just another way to shrink the ego and enlarge the soul. 
Victoria Moran in "Creating a charmed life"



> This is very interesting to me.  We were in St. Louis last week and 
> visited
> the zoo and did get a chance to see the new baby elephant and mother.
> Mother and baby kept far back from the spectators.  Mom seemed nervous to
> me, swaying her head back and  forth, back and forth and not moving very
> much. Baby kept very near mom.  I wonder if just being in the zoo 
> envrinment
> itself is not good for this mom and baby.
> Sheena Carnes, BSN, RN, LLL Leader, CBE 

             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html