Elephants and Tusks

Elephants, apart from their massive sizes, are also known for their tusks, considered to be an essential elephant feature that everyone knows about, regardless if a person in question has actually ever seen an elephant or not.

Though tusks have become readily identifiable elephant attributes, not everyone is aware of the 1980 movie entitled Tusk, telling the tale of a young girl and an elephant who happened to be born on the same day.

Based on the novel written by Reginald Campbell, the French language movie has been considered by many as a waste of time, but as it is based on the realities of the threats elephants are faced with in poaching, the movie’s message is far from being that of trivial.

As a part of the elephant’s physiology, tusks are actually the “teeth” of an elephant, defined as their second upper incisors. Unlike how humans and other mammals use their teeth, an elephant uses its tusks for digging, pushing, and other tasks that their trunks can not effectively do.

Thinking of them as “arms” is also apt, since elephants are known to have certain inclinations with which tusk they are more prone to use, with “left-tusked” and “right-tusked” elephants being around. Also, unlike human teeth, the tusks of an elephant is known to grow like how fingernails would grow.

The tusks of elephants are often valued for their ascribed exotic value, with many finding the ownership of real elephant tusk items as a symbol of wealth. Utilized in the making of jewelry items, souvenirs, accessories and other items, elephant populations are threatened by illegal poaching activities, primarily targeting the tusks of elephants as the “score”.

Though elephants are large, their size makes them big targets, which doesn’t really do anything in protecting them from being taken down. Their tusks, an important part that elephants need to have to survive, continue to be hunted by poachers, and as the movie Tusk shares, encouraging the demand for elephant tusks stands to be the best move in protecting them as a species.

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A person’s a person, no matter how small.

That’s the moral of the story of Horton Hears a Who, a film based on the Dr. Seuss book of the name, which tells the story of Horton the Elephant, who encounters a talking speck, which actually turns out to contain the community of Whoville, home to the Whos. Since Horton is able to hear the people of Whoville’s pleas for help thanks to his big ears, he happily does all he can to protect them from harm. However, the rest of the animals around Horton ridicule him for talking to a speck, leaving him to find a way to prove their existence. In the end, Horton and Whos make their existence known, proving that “a person’s a person, no matter how small.”

The book further cements man’s fascination with elephants. Elephants, recognized as the largest animals on land anywhere on earth, are perhaps the most easy to recognize creatures on earth. As such, these giant animals are among the most beloved creatures known to man. Elephants are divided into 3 species, namely the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the smallest of the 3, the Indian or Asian elephant.

Although their ancient ancestors once roamed virtually all parts of the world, wild populations of elephants are now boxed in continually decreasing swaths of land across Asia and Africa. Ever since the advent of the ivory trade, elephants have been hunted mercilessly for their ivory tusks, which is the most valued source of the material. As such, elephants are at constant threat of poaching, adding to a list of growing problems that include loss of habitat and human encroachment.

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