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An elephantstory, and that of family values gone haywire! Cow elephants in the KrugerNational Park were introduced to contraceptive pills to cut down their population into small and happy families. But the outcome was amammoth problem - elephantine free love resulted ina jumbo-sized social and sexual mayhem.
The specially designedhormone implants, it wasfound, left the cows constantly in heat and created arampage among the bulls tomate. "The bulls want constantly to mate with thefemales," complained DouwGrobler, veterinary doctor atKruger Park. "At one stage,there were eight bulls aroundone cow. This is unacceptable," he added.
The oestrogen implantswhich were injected intosedated females, work alongthe same lines as contraceptive pills in women. In theensuing melee, familiesbroke down and two cubswere reported missing.The park staff presumedthey had strayed fromthe herd as their moth-ers remained permanently distracted.Grobler said the population control progzamme was beingshelved and the animals were under constant watch to ensurethat normalcy be restored.