>I once went to a lecture at the Seattle Zoo about elephant keeping. They
>said that male elephants are so evil tempered during the rut that they are
>almost physically impossible to keep.
Make that "very difficult." It can be done. It is done.
> 99% of the adult elephants in
>captivity are female, and the males are almost always killed just after
>puberty (20 years old or so). It seems nobody can afford to build an
>enclosure to safely hold a crazed 7 ton beast. All zoo elephant births are
>the product of artificial inseminations.
That is not so. K|benhavns Zoologiske Have for one does keep a male elephant. Zoos from all over Europe send their female elephants to Copenhagen when they want little elephants. This doesn't happen too often. Elephants travel expensively. Flying in a portion of semen is much cheaper. But it does happen occasionally.
In nature, female elephants simply stay away from males in mush(sp?). In the zoo, they are kept apart. It is true that the male gets real nasty. Ever see an elephant sneak up on a pigeon? I have. Looked _real_ strange. He did manage to kick the pigeon, and then step on it.
>There are, however, intrepid
>wildlife biologists who venture into the bush to collect semen from wild
>elephants. (This also helps add diversity to captive populations.) Now
>_there's_ a plot idea for you...
How do you do that?
>(When I asked if mahouts in SE Asia worked with only female elephants, the
>keeper said they used males, too. If an elephant kills his mahout, the
>beastie just gets a new one.)
Usually the mahout and the elephant grow up together. When the elephant dies, the mahout retires.
>I would think that neutering a reptile would be tough. Earthly reptiles
>(and birds) have internal testes - up by the kidneys. Actually, semen
>gathering would be tricky too, because in reptiles both sexes have a cloaca.
> I imagine they mate rather like ducks.
Ducks, unlike other birds, have something like a penis. It doesn't have an internal tube for the semen, but does enter the female, and it does guide the semen.
Sandy Petersen <sandyp_at_idpentium.idsoftware.com> writes:
>>ON THE HERESY OF DUALISM
> The best depiction of the Vegetarianism belief I've ever
>seen.
Let me guess. That is because it is the only one you've seen, right? No, really: thank you for your kind words. It is quite a step for a newbie to post something to this erudite company.
>More -- the best depiction of _any_ Mostali belief. You got any
>more?
Not written up like that, though I have got a number of ideas. I suppose most Openhandists would consider Isolationists (= "orthodox" mostali) not so much heretics as a bit stuck up. Octamonists on the other hand would consider the orthodox mostali Openhandists. They interact with other races, don't they? OK, trading is a more extreme form of Openhandism than war, but that is a matter of degree.
How much interest is there in the mostali anyway?
And now for something completely different. Does the river running past Zoria and Riverjoin have a name? Is there anything on Riverjoin anywhere other than the short description in the Genertela box? I am working on a city cult writeup for Riverjoin. Is there any interest in such a thing?
Klaus O K
End of Glorantha Digest V1 #186
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