An elephant
story, and that of family values gone haywire! Cow elephants in the Kruger
National Park were introduced to contraceptive pills to cut down their population into small and happy families. But the outcome was a
mammoth problem - elephantine free love resulted in
a jumbo-sized social and sexual mayhem.
The specially designed
hormone implants, it was
found, left the cows constantly in heat and created a
rampage among the bulls to
mate. "The bulls want constantly to mate with the
females," complained Douw
Grobler, veterinary doctor at
Kruger Park. "At one stage,
there were eight bulls around
one cow. This is unacceptable," he added.
The oestrogen implants
which were injected into
sedated females, work along
the same lines as contraceptive pills in women. In the
ensuing melee, families
broke down and two cubs
were reported missing.
The park staff presumed
they had strayed from
the herd as their moth-
ers remained permanently distracted.
Grobler said the population control progzamme was being
shelved and the animals were under constant watch to ensure
that normalcy be restored.
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