Baby elephant frolics on a beach

Exactly what it says on the tin: is there anything else quite so joyous?

Baby Elephant playing on the beach (via Neatorama)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Anonymous

Elephants shouldn’t be owned by anyone. The guy in blue “owns” that elephant.
heyitstay

Am I crazy for watching videos like this and The Happiest Penguin Ever and thinking “wow, that animal is FREAKING OUT”?
za7ch

Sad thing is I’m thinking this baby is being all dopey because it’s pumped full of drugs. :(
- Alan
  
  Nah, baby elephants just like to play. I was at a zoo just the other day, watching a 7 month old elephant doing the same exact thing.
rebdav

I think it would be fun to grow up with elephants a common sight, and monkeys too.
Ocker3

I cringed as soon as I heard the lady telling her kids to say “wake up baby elephant”, she was training them to interfere with animals rather than just watch them and let them do what they want. And it was incredibly obvious that this was a paid performance at the end when she insisted on each of the kids giving their review of the event. She was seeking approval for having arranged this entertainment for them.

not funny, not a good video.

show me the video I recently saw of an orphaned elephant making friends with a sheep and becoming relaxed enough to eat again, Then I’ll smile.
Quiet Noises

I recently caught the doc For the Love of Elephants. I had never known just how delightfully goofy animals baby elephants are. You can watch the doc here:

http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2010/loveofelephants/
Kirsten Anderson

A baby elephant goofing around really is the purest manifestation of joy. I dont think this baby was doped up- they play like this naturally, so do baby rhinos. It’s amazing to see these majestic and stoic looking creatures act like total happy spazzes as babies.
JhmL

:/
lackhead

Maybe it is just the raging liberal in me, but going from “awwwww” to “are those kids wearing Exxon/Mobil schwag??” was a bit of a jolt.
- pidg
  
  Maybe it is just the raging liberal in me, but going from “awwwww” to “are those kids wearing Exxon/Mobil schwag??” was a bit of a jolt.
  
  ZOMG, people who work for oil companies are not all bloodthirsty childkillers – some of them are almost human!
- trieste
  
  I’m sure the children, or proto-hipsters as I call them were wearing it ‘ironically’.
- Tatsuma
  
  How else do you think they can afford to take the kids on a vacation to Thailand? If your Daddy was working at ExxonMobil you could enjoy some fun in the surf as well.
Anonymous

No tip ? That baby can’t eat sand.
David B

This reminds me of one of the best memories from my year-long trip through Southeast Asia when I was younger. We (girlfriend and I) were up in Northern Thailand and had stumbled upon an elephant hospital; not the ones in the Lonely Planet guides packed with tourists, but a more off-the-beaten-path one. It was full of retired work elephants and young mothers, as well as some babies. The mothers and their babies seemed to me the most joyful creatures on earth, frolicking and having a really good time. We stood at one of the pens for a good hour, just watching them all together, and occasionally getting sneezed on by the one baby with a cold.
Tavie

thank you for this.
Anonymous

Unfortunately, that elephant has suffered a lot, and many others too. Particularly a cruel process named “phajaan”, that is done at a very young age to these amazing creatures.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HC1kXyZpdWI
Anonymous

I have a special respect for Boing Boing, specially Cory Doctorow, but I cannot avoid stressing my discontent regarding this video. This video was shot in Thailand and it is widely known that in Thailand (and other places) people resort to phajaan training to domesticate elephants, starting at an early age. I am not 100% sure that this particular elephant is subject to it. Nevertheless I can only tell what hints me to that. It is stated by the person that uploaded the video that the baby elephants come to “play” at the beach twice a day. Why so regularly? Moreover, the beach clearly seems like a beach in front a touristic resort where there are plenty of women (and men) like the one that shot the video and that love these scenes. So it seems to me that this is clearly a touristic thing. Moreover, in the end the elephant suddenly stops “playing” in the sand when the trainer signals to him. Then the trainer grabs on to the elephant’s ear and the baby elephant starts waving goodbye with his trunk. Baby elephants don’t wave goodbye naturally, they have to be trained. In what condition was he trained? Most probably he was also trained to “play” in the sand twice a day. Because of this, looking at this video just makes me feel bad.

-artur palha
teleny

And they say that elephants were once aquatic creatures….
TEKNA2007

I was thinking (listening to the mom talk to her daughters) this could be used as an example (for a later stage of development) in the “How to Talk to Your Baby” series.

http://www.npr.org/2011/01/10/132740565/closing-the-achievement-gap-with-baby-talk
pjcamp

I don’t get it.

Where’s the banana?
Anonymous

And in another hour or so that same little elephant and its handler will be roaming the tourist districts of Phuket until well into the night (and next morning), giving drunken foreigners the chance to buy it some sugarcane. Not quite so cute in that context.
Suburbancowboy

We’ve seen the Benny Hillifier, this video needs the Henry Mancinifier.
- BDiamond
  
  You mean something like this?
  
  http://www.twoyoutubevideosandamotherfuckingcrossfader.com/#6Nh49a8q2E4/NUCYIVMpZ0M
- Ugly Canuck
  
  I take it that you are referring to this masterpiece of early 1960s American pop music:
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nh49a8q2E4
  
  The John Wayne movie it’s from, “Hatari!”, is IMHO pretty good – but everybody in it smokes way way too much!
  
  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056059/
  
  Gotta love those elephants!