The Astonishing Elephant

by Shana Alexander

When Shana Alexander, a staff writer at Life magazine, won the right to name her own assignments, her first choice was a week-by-week account of a zoo elephant's pregnancy, believed to be the first in the history of captive elephants. Finally, in 1962, after twenty-two months, the baby was born, and Alexander's story was proudly trumpeted on Life's cover. Ever since, between other projects, she has made writing and learning about elephants a special interest.

In The Astonishing Elephant , Shana Alexander tells a story filled with drama, humor, sorrow, greed, sex, science--and surprising human interest. Physiologically, elephants are unique--entirely different from all other mammals. Yet, since antiquity, observers have agreed that the elephant is the animal most akin to man.

Today both species of elephant--Africans and Asians--stand on the brink of extinction. Hope is arising, however, from a new generation of young American scientists, many of them women. Female zoologists and biologists have led the field in new findings about elephant ecology, family and sexual patterns, and the animals' continual communication by ultrasound, inaudible to human ears.
The Astonishing Elephant also reveals, for the first time, a hair-raising story of elephant "genocide": in the years between the Civil War and World War I, all male elephants in U.S. circuses were stealthily killed--shot, poisoned, drowned, and even hanged. The reason was musth, a periodic condition of mature males that renders them uncontrollable. So, gradually, only female elephants--now with masculine names--were put on parade, with no one the wiser.

Most important, The Astonishing Elephant details a decade of heartbreaking trial and error and eventual triumph as scientists have tried to learn how to breed elephants via artificial insemination.

Shana Alexander has traveled the world for this story. She has visited India and Africa, interviewing the brave researchers who are devoting their lives to the oversize mysteries of elephants. She has looked back in history, detailing the elephant's importance in every major religion, in work, in warfare, and in its position--now threatened--at the heart of every circus, from Rome to Ringling.
The Astonishing Elephant contains everything old and new that a reader has ever wondered about elephants, told in the stylish prose for which Shana Alexander is celebrated.

Genres: Animals, Science, Nonfiction, Nature, Africa, History

320 pages, Hardcover

First published May 16, 2000

Reviews

[Joe Rodeck · Rating 4 out of 5]

They're the strongest swimmers in the land animal world. T'would be nothing for an elephant to swim to Saipan. Memory stronger than a human's. Some believe smartest animal after man.

Some say strongest sense of smell. I can get along with that as far as scent differentiation; but can't believe a bloodhound can be beat for sheer tracking power.

Includes a nice mini bio of PT Barnum, who overcame huge setbacks on the way to creating the Greatest Show on Earth.

This is an outstanding homage to a magnificent animal in history and legend by a real pro.

So much on mating, breeding, estrus, pheromones, and artificial insemination gets tiresome: quit while you're ahead.

[Redbear · Rating 5 out of 5]

While Sarah Gruen might have written the novel Water for Elephants it was Shana Alexander who did the legwork and exhaustive research. I recognised almost every character in WFE taken almost verbatim from Shana's book. The Astonishing Elephant is a fantastic window into the secret world of captive elephants. This author deserves the highest accolade. Excellent read.

[Adelaide · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm impressed by how this book spans such a wide scope and still maintains its focus. Alexander follows the relationship of humans in and from the West with elephants, while more specifically meditating on elephant reproduction in captivity.

I wish Alexander had been more pointed about her specifically Western perspective as that is part of what makes the material particularly interesting and tragic. The majority of the individual elephants in this book are living in an environment that is alien to them. The majority of the humans in the book are dealing with animals they have little history with and consequently little knowledge of.

Anyone who enjoys this book might be interested in this online elephant database and a local perspective on Morgan Berry's fate. Be prepared to be heartbroken by some of the contents of both, as is often the case with any information about the interaction between elephants and humans.

I now know more about the elephant reproductive system and elephant artificial insemination than I will likely ever need to.

[Lyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

This should have been a fascinating book but it was a fail in almost every way except for a few interesting elephant facts e.g. how many "keepers" have been killed by captive elephants (answer - a lot).
I couldn't work out what the author's agenda was but the focus was almost entirely on captive elephants and, while she sometimes pointed out how cruelly they are treated, despite our best intentions, long sections of the book were devoted to artificial insemination and other man-made "solutions" for dwindling elephant numbers.
I skim read the last 1/3rd. A big thumbs down.

[Gerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

What amazing information about elephants.I have always admired them and do so even more after reading this book. The sad part of the book is the stories about the abuse elephants have endured over the centuries. I appreciated all of the interesting facts about elephants that ere presented.

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a must for anyone interested in elephants.

[Emma Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really interesting and insightful look into the world of elephants, and their relationships with humans. From their anatomy, reproduction, history and present condition to the world of humans and elephants, how we have not only used them, but abused our power and yet adore them as well. I found Shana's work to not only be very engaging, but not so detailed as to leave me feeling lost or lose interest. I highly recommend it if you're a fan of elephants.

[Anne Chappel · Rating 3 out of 5]

What is really astonishing about the information in this book is the degree to which elephants have been maltreated through the ages. This huge, mostly gentle, giant has been abused in manifold ways in circuses and zoos. The book is mostly about elephants in captivity and the quest to be able to breed captive elephants through AI - artificial insemination. The AI process is incredibly invasive and take a great deal of specialist and expense. AND they don't want male offspring as male elephants become unruly once they are adult. The story of how elephants have been treated in circuses is not longer a secret, ' ...elephants spend most of their long lives either in chains or on trains, under constant threat of the bullhook, or ankus—the menacing tool used to control elephants. They are lame from balancing their 8,000-pound frames on tiny tubs and from being confined in cramped spaces, sometimes for days at a time. They are afflicted with tuberculosis and herpes, potentially deadly diseases rare in the wild and linked to captivity.' Alexander tells about this but is strangely distant in her criticism. She gets on board with the zoos that are trying to breed using AI.
If all those funds were instead spent on securing wilderness for Asian and African elephants I believe it would be a much better decision. Alexander says that AI in the USA will help save the elephant from extermination. This is hardly likely. It has more to do with the dollars that zoos get from their elephant exhibits. Its a sad book, a heartrending book.
In recent times we have learnt more and more about how amazing the elephant is: its emotional nature, its intelligence, its social structures and its way of communicating. And yet we continue to abuse them. The day that the last circus releases their last elephant into a sanctuary will be a day to celebrate. This book is now 16 years old and hopefully we have moved along that road a little way.

[Margaret Willey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book, but be warned. It will forever change the way you see Zoos. And there are heartbreaking stories of elephant tragedy. Especially circus elephants, I can't even write about it, I will start to cry. Elephants are like ancient gods. The only good things about the movie "Three Cups of Tea" was Javier and that elephant.

[Gretchen Gingerich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of good info; but get's kinda long. You wonder- where is this going? Still, I never knew there were so many elephant killings and elephants killed in this country...

[Caitlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some parts are challenging to get though, due to the horror these animals endured and continue to endure. But the book also empowers you to make changes and want to help!

[Amy Turner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up as a discard from the library in Lawrenceville. The focus is on elephants in captivity, often sad.