15 miles south of Gainesville in Williston is a large animal rescue/sanctuary, the Two Tails Ranch. We went there this week with our home school group to see elephants, zebras, giant tortoises, tigers, ostriches and more.
It turns out that the reason she was “dancing” is because elephants are so heavy, they have to stay in constant movement or their organs will become crushed under their own weight. This is also why they sleep standing up; lying down for more than 20-30 minutes causes fluid to build up in their lungs. Amazing.
The elephants at Two Tails are all Asian elephants, distinguished from their African cousins by smaller ears, lighter skin, no tusks for the females, two domes on the head instead of one, and a difference in toe count. The lighter skin pigment includes freckles, as see on this female’s face:
The information given was rather sobering. Unless current bans on importing elephants to the US are lifted and intensive breeding programs are implemented, these endangered animals will likely be extinct in the next 75-100 years. They require enormous amounts of land in order to thrive, as they are destructive of their habitats and must migrate often. Unfortunately, current preserves are insufficient, and elephants in Asia are being culled as nuisance animals in areas heavily populated by humans. Their shrinking habitat has also caused insufficient genetic diversity among potential mates for healthy offspring. Add to this the fact that elephants are actually choosy about their mates, and the birth rate is drastically insufficient to keep up with the death rate.
Luke, a beautiful male, did a log-manipulation demonstration for us. He also lay down for the trainer, which she said requires absolute trust, as that is the elephant’s most vulnerable position, since they can’t get up quickly.
This emu is about 4 months old, half the size of an adult. A handler picked it up and let the kids pet the feathers on his back.
The sanctuary also had several zebras. We learned that predators see mostly in black and white, so the zebras’ stripes make it hard for the predators to distinguish individual animals in a herd, which discourages attack. The zebras were fearless and came right up to our group to check us out:
