Elephants

Global stories from 2024 that we loved ... but that you may have missed

9:03am December 27, 2024

These stories didn't get huge numbers of views, but readers who found them stayed with them for what qualifies as an eternity on the online clock. Here are our underappreciated favorites.

There’s a wrinkle — or many — in the story behind an elephant’s trunk

7:00am October 13, 2024

A bump in the elephant brain stem pointed scientists to the wrinkles on their trunks and the role those folds play in the animal’s life.

Wild elephants may have names that other elephants use to call them

3:15pm June 11, 2024

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

Forget names like "Dumbo"—wild elephants appear to have their own unique names that other elephants use while talking to them in low rumbles.

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A screenshot of a video from the website Storyful shows an elephant walking through Butte, Mont., after escaping from a nearby circus on Tuesday.

National

Watch: A circus elephant runs loose in a Montana town before being recaptured

5:58pm April 17, 2024

by Joe Hernandez

The animal was having a routine bath when she was startled by a truck backfiring and ran away before being recaptured by handlers. Videos of the unexpected sight were shared widely on social media.

Left to right: Barbies in India; Maya softball players in Mexico; walking on a frozen fountain in the mountains of Pakistan, where efforts are underway to revive the ancient art of glacier mating.

Health & Safety

From glacier babies to a Barbie debate: 7 great global stories you might have missed

9:55am December 28, 2023

by Marc Silver

Here are our editors' picks for stories from 2023 that we wish more people would see: from an elephant safari for teens to mating glaciers in Pakistan to a debate about Barbie's skin tone in India.

Sixth graders from Habu Primary School in Botswana on a safari. The trip is the high point of a multi-pronged effort by the nonprofit Wild Entrust to resolve a chronic conflict between rural villagers and the wild animals that destroy their crops.

Health & Safety

Elephants are a menace for these 6th graders. Then they went on a safari ...

10:18am April 30, 2023

by Nurith Aizenman

Botswana has one of the last thriving elephant herds – and a history of human-elephant conflict that threatens both sides. A nonprofit has a program to shift that dynamic. Will it work?

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Caretaker Bomman with Raghu. "I feel like getting Raghu was a gift from God," he says.

'The Elephant Whisperers' — An Oscar-nominated love story about people and pachyderms

7:00am March 05, 2023

by Kamala Thiagarajan

Nominated in the documentary short film category and now streaming on Netflix, the film depicts the loving relationship of a tribe in India and the pachyderms who share the forest with them.

An elephant is hoisted into a transport vehicle at the Liwonde National Park in southern Malawi on Sunday.

World News

How do you move 250 elephants to their new home? Very carefully

2:47pm July 14, 2022

by The Associated Press

One by one, the elephants are being sedated and moved from Malawi's overcrowded Liwonde National Park to the much larger Kasungu park 236 miles away in the country's north.

Bronx Zoo elephant "Happy" strolls inside the zoo's Asia habitat in New York on Oct. 2, 2018.

Happy the elephant is not a person, a court rules

4:26pm June 14, 2022

by The Associated Press

The 5-2 decision by the court comes in a closely watched case that tested the boundaries of applying human rights to animals.

Bronx Zoo elephant Happy strolls inside the zoo's Asia habitat in New York in 2018.

National

Happy is an Asian elephant. But can she also be considered a person?

8:33pm May 18, 2022

by The Associated Press

Through an attorney, the Bronx Zoo argues Happy is neither illegally imprisoned nor a person, but a well-cared-for elephant "respected as the magnificent creature she is."