Jumbo e-prayers for elephants
2007-05-10 09:24
Port Elizabeth - A prayer group for elephants, which has a link to the internet, are on their knees as South Africa considers the possibility of selective culling.
The prayer circle, known as E-posse, spans several continents via an internet link which leads to Join the Elephant Prayer Circle.
Anna Breytenbach, one of the few animal communicators in South Africa, is throwing her full weight behind it.
The prayer group is 258-strong, which includes 34 South Africans in prayer for the welfare of the tusked giants.
Breytenbach who trained at the Assisi International Animal Institute in California to communicate with animals and who practices in South Africa and North America, gives her blessing to the prayer group in an e-mail.
"Each one of us can make a difference through our thoughts and our intentions."
Leslie Temple-Thurston, the American who started the internet prayer group for elephants, believes that nature conservation organisations are really not doing more than just plugging the leak in terms of sustainable conservation practices. "It's finger-in-the dyke stuff."
Real progress was difficult because too many people still saw themselves as "outside" nature.
She writes in her request to people to join the elephant prayer circle: "Only when people begin to realise that they are one with nature, and that what is happening in nature will impact on them on a spiritual plane, will there be hope for the flora and fauna kingdoms.
"If we begin in spirit to pray for the welfare of elephants and ask ourselves how we can get back in balance with nature, then help will undoubtedly come.
"If that's the case, then they should pray for a miracle, for example a bigger earth, so that there could be unlimited space for everyone," was the reaction of Professor Pieter van Niekerk, head of the department of agriculture and game management at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.
"They mean well, but don't have much information. There are unfortunately only three options with overpopulated elephant numbers: translocation (which is expensive and traumatic for the animals) birth control (also expensive and difficult to do effectively) and selective culling."
For him, the only sensible option is the last one.
"There is a biblical injunction that we should rule over nature in a responsible way. Too many elephants not only destroy the vegetation, they also destroy the land and cause erosion. When flora is destroyed it takes generations to recover."
"In any event, what will we do if the elephants multiply and the water runs out? Selective culling must be implemented so that those that remain can live a good life and generate good and strong populations."