Painting elephants...
- Thread starter kinyonga
- Start date
Klyde O'Scope
Chameleon Enthusiast
There are more vids of this.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=painting+elephants
There may also be a darker side to this:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=painting+elephants
There may also be a darker side to this:
Klyde O'Scope
Chameleon Enthusiast
Exactly. I too was enthralled the first time I saw one of the painting elephant videos—so much so that I was (almost) ready to open my checkbook—until I saw the prices, and then found the exposé videos.
Now it just makes me sad. These majestic animals are intelligent and sensitive—one of the few that mourn their dead.
Now it just makes me sad. These majestic animals are intelligent and sensitive—one of the few that mourn their dead.
absolutbill
Chameleon Enthusiast
I fell into the same trap. My mom loves elephants, so after a trip to a zoo in Colorado where I saw they sold paintings that their elephants made I ordered her one for Christmas. After that I heard on my Stuff You Should Know (SYSK) podcast about the darker side of this practice and was upset. I'm hoping (probably wishful thinking), that this wasn't the case for these particular elephants because it was a nice zoo, but who knows?
I don't think all zoos "punish" the elephants for not doing things as was demonstrated in the video. I know our zoo has a gorilla that paints and i also know that our zoo uses positive reinforcement to target train the animals..so I'm sure if the animal learns to paint, they do the same thing with that.
