Can elephants run fast?

[Guest guest]

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http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/research/workinprogress/story/0,,1827732,\

00.html

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*Working with elephants*

 

How do you get an elephant to bare its sole?

 

*Chris Arnot

Tuesday July 25, 2006

The Guardian <http://www.guardian.co.uk/>*

 

 

Elephants held in zoos and safari parks tend to have trouble with their

feet. The hard concrete floors of enclosures bring on cracks, like athlete's

foot on a large scale. " And the English countryside doesn't really suit

them, " says Charlotte Miller, a research student at the Royal Veterinary

College of London University. " They like mud and softer, swampier ground. "

 

Miller has had chance to observe elephants' feet at close quarters - a

process that depends entirely on the cooperation of each individual

elephant. One that felt disinclined to bare its sole could hardly be forced

to do so. Lifting a leg is not really an option for anyone with less than

superhuman strength or the services of a haulage contractor. " They have to

be well trained, and most of them in captivity are, " she says. " A zoo keeper

or trainer taps its leg and it will be raised on command. " The fact that

Miller herself walks without a limp is confirmation enough that she hasn't

yet been trodden on in the course of her investigations. " You have to be

sensible, " she says, " and alert. "

 

Working with elephants gives her the opportunity to study the locomotion of

the largest living land animals, she says. " Investigating their anatomy can

help us to understand the impact of large size on structure and function. "

Indeed, the title of her PhD thesis will be the Biomechanics of Large Size

and the subtitle will ask: Why Can't Elephants Run Faster?

 

Perhaps we should be grateful that they can't - particularly anyone

unfortunate enough to be caught in the path of a stampede. " Wild elephants

can be quite dangerous, " she concedes. " You wouldn't just go up to one and

start poking around. " None the less, she will be travelling to Thailand at

the end of this year and South Africa next year to investigate the Asian and

the African varieties in habitat more congenial to their wellbeing.

 

" I'll be working initially with the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre, " she

says. " Their animals are also well trained because they're used for logging

work in the forests. They're likely to be quite fit, less prone to cracks in

the feet and arthritis. The hope is that we can use anatomy and movement

studies as a benchmark to measure against those in captivity. I'll be able

to make precise comparisons about the way they move about. If you can tell

that one is walking unusually, then vets can be alerted and something done

to treat the elephant's feet. "

 

Better for the elephant and better for the owners of zoos and safari parks,

who don't want their exhibits to look as though they're on their last legs.

" An elephant is a fairly major investment, " says Miller, who works closely

with safari parks at Woburn and Bewdley in the West Midlands as well as

Whipsnade and Colchester zoos. " Sometimes one or another will ring me up to

tell me when one is about to be put down. Being up to your elbows in dead

elephant is not pleasant, but it can teach you a lot about the anatomy of

large animals. They can be kept in freezers for a while, but not for ever. "

 

Eventually the elephant graveyard beckons.

 

In the long term, Miller can foresee some possible practical applications

arising from her research. " It may be possible to design robots for logging

in forests where elephants aren't available, " she says. " They would be able

to move like elephants and be a lot less destructive of the undergrowth than

the trucks and lorries that are used now. "

 

For the time being, however, it is the pure science of the project that

intrigues her. " I've always been interested in ways that animals move and an

elephant is, quite simply, the largest thing we have that walks. Even then

they're nothing compared to the largest dinosaurs. "

 

And does she find elephants quite endearing?

 

" Yes, they can be. Some have very sweet personalities. At the same time, you

can tell when they're not impressed. "

 

Quite possibly because their feet are playing them up again.