Trans-species Culture

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 reunite with their human allomothers and to introduce their offspring to what — out on this uncharted frontier of the new ‘‘trans-species psyche’’ — is now being recognized, at least by the elephants, it seems, as a whole new subspecies: the human allograndmother. ‘‘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 nonhuman animals. The trust and the sanctuary are the beginnings of a mutually benefiting interspecies culture.’’ (538)

This passage from Seibert’s “An Elephant Crackup” describes the rehabilitation and reintroduction of over sixty abused elephants into the wild. He writes of the elephants who come back to their human mothers and introduce their children to their allograndmother, a human figure in their lives who they have learned to trust. Bradshaw explains that, “Traditionally, nature has served as a source of healing for humans.” This idea follows Seibert’s idea of trans-species psyche, a relationship between humans and elephants. Bradshaw also explains that “Now humans can participate actively in the healing of both themselves and non-human animals”, meaning that the close relation of the human and elephant psyche affords us the ability to form a “mutually benefitting interspecies culture”, as Seibert describes.