Elephants and aeroplanes

The Guardian, maybe thinking even its readers might tire of endless pages about leaks about snooping, has been floundering for copy for the last couple of weeks, at least to judge by the portion of it which has made its way into this house.

One result has been more copy about the dire state of the elephant world, with a replay of some of the material mentioned back on 7th March. It remains a mystery to me why no-one in Africa is pushing for farming elephants for their ivory.

And if we suppose that getting the UN or whatever international agency looks after elephantine affairs, is not going to cave in on this one any time soon and legalise the trade in fresh ivory (I assume that it is OK to trade antiques made of antique ivory), why does one of those enterprising businessmen from China not start an elephant farm in China, out of their reach? China is a big place and some parts are hot and wet, so there must be somewhere which would do. A quick google suggests that while breeding elephants in captivity in zoos is not easy, breeding in large nature reserves is not a problem. So I would guess that breeding in large farms would not be.

One might then have a taste the difference price for wild ivory and an every day value for farmed ivory, rather in the way that we do for salmon. And then there is the fossil ivory which Conrad talks about in 'Heart of Darkness', fossil I think for ivory which had been buried to hide it from thieves. Perhaps being buried in warm, wet soil is not good for ivory.

In the meantime, the Guardian suggests that the elephants in Botswana are kept going by water from bore holes, which does not sound like a very good use of a scarce resource at all. I would have thought that elephants were quite heavy on the ecosphere generally, consuming lots of water, fruit and vegetables and puffing out tons and tons of green house gas in the form of carbon dioxide and methane, and so should not be grown in poor countries where conditions are not good.

Back with more homely matters, two games of aeroplanes, in the dark, at Wimbledon, in the last two days. Confused on the first day by the presently curved flight path - with the planes swinging round from southwest to west in the right hand sky as one looks up the tracks towards London, quite unlike the more usual straight flight path to be seen from Clapham Junction - so I did not realise that I had scored a three until after the event. Two easy threes on the second day, by which time I had got the hang of things.