There was once a very gentle elephant that suddenly went berserk in the London Zoo, attacking three sailors and killing two of them in an instant, with only one managing to escape. At first, people couldn't understand why the elephant would suddenly go crazy, but later, the survivor suddenly realized what had happened. It turned out that three years ago, on the docks of Malta, these three sailors had teased the elephant, which was about to be transported to London, when they were bored. Unexpectedly, three years later, the elephant still remembered them and successfully carried out its revenge.
There's no doubt that elephants are very intelligent animals, because they have a well-developed brain, with an average brain weight of 4.8 kilograms. Their memory is excellent. Even after being separated for several years, hundreds of familiar elephants can still recognize each other's voices, and they particularly remember those who have hurt them.
Elephants are found in China. According to records, they once distributed to the Yellow River Basin in the Shang Dynasty, but with climate change and human activities, their distribution range has gradually been compressed, and now they only exist in Cangyuan County and Xishuangbanna Prefecture of Yunnan Province, China, with only about 200 individuals. With the intensification of human activities and the reduction of forest areas in Xishuangbanna, the habitats of wild elephants have been further compressed, and conflicts between humans and elephants have become increasingly inevitable.
There was once an incident in Mengwen Farm in Mengla County, Xishuangbanna, where a female worker was killed by a wild elephant. According to locals, this area used to be a "elephant nest". After being cultivated, elephants began attacking humans and had multiple "outbursts". For example, they took down rubber bowls placed on trees and stepped on them into the soil, or uprooted smaller rubber trees, and later chased after people wherever they saw them.
In addition, elephants are not kind to people's crops. In the past, they occasionally came to eat, but now they often "harvest" the crops as soon as they mature, which is very timely. To protect farmland, the World Wildlife Fund once donated 80 sets of electric fences to Xishuangbanna. These electric fences are charged by solar energy and can discharge electricity instantly, but elephants quickly figured out these devices. They knocked down trees, damaged fences, or used their trunks to pick up branches to hit fences, and even crawled through when the voltage was lowered during rainy days. Some even endured electric shocks to break through the fences. In the mutual struggle between humans and elephants, resentment has been accumulating and conflicts have been intensifying. Elephants even vented their anger on the straw huts built by people, and some elephants not only wanted to tear them down, but also had to throw the timber into the river before they were satisfied.
Therefore, elephant's revenge comes from its self-awareness and emotions towards its fellow creatures. It reminds us that in the process of human development, we must consider the living space of animals and plants, including elephants.