Human-Elephant Bonds

“To date, the Sheldrick Trust has successfully rehabilitated more than 60 elephants and reintroduced them into wild herds. A number of them have periodically returned to the sanctuary with their own wild-born calves in order to re-unite them with their human allomothers and to introduce their offspring to what – out on this uncharted frontier of the new “trans-species psyche” – in now being recognized, at least by the elephants, it seems, as a whole new subspecies: the human allograndmothers. “Traditionally, nature has served as a source of healing for humans,” Bradshaw told me. “Now humans can participate actively in the healing of both themselves and non-human animals. The trust and the sanctuary are the beginnings of a mutually benefiting interspecies culture.” (538)

In this quote, Siebert is discussing the effects of rehabilitation on the elephants. He quotes another researcher, Bradshaw, on this topic. In this particular section, Siebert is looking at the intense bond between the rehabilitated elephants and their caretakers. When he notes that some of the released elephants actually come back to the Sheldrick Trust to introduce their calves to the caretakers, as if the caretakers were their parents, which is fascinating. This shows the strong sense of family between the elephants, regardless of the species, so Siebert describes it as a “trans-species psyche”. Psyche, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “the mind, soul, or spirit, as distinguished from the body”, says that there is a connection of the soul that the elephants feel towards their human allomothers, or the allograndmothers, for the calves. The particular usage of the word psyche shows that Siebert is clearly saying that the humans and elephants are thought one in the same. The end quote from Bradshaw, “the trust and sanctuary are the beginnings of a mutually benefiting interspecies culture”, signifies this bond between the humans and elephants even further.