Size Doesn't Matter

Photo by JoAnn Sturman

Scott Sturman
fliesinyoureyes.com

Each morning and evening in Nepal’s Tiger Tops National Park visitors are permitted to ride elephants through the wetlands in search of tigers and rhinoceroses. All but one of the working Indian elephants are female, so Steve and I jumped at the chance to ride the 9000 pound male with enormous tusks. Weighing 3000 pounds more than his female counterpart, he is the largest animal in the park by a substantial margin.

African elephants, whose large ears are shaped like their native continent, are bigger than their Indian cousins but cannot be domesticated. Indian elephants have small ears that are coincidentally shaped like India and have been used for thousands of years for lifting, carrying, pulling, and pushing.

Handlers and passengers mount elephants differently. Drivers face the animal and while gently grasping the ears, stand on the tip of the trunk. With the appropriate command the trunk, which can lift 25% of the elephant’s body weight, sends the handler skyward. He sits on the back of the neck and places his bare feet behind the ears and guides the animal by exerting pressure to this sensitive area while uttering commands. Riders access the six passenger carriage in a more mundane manner. They simply climb to the top of a platform and step down into it.

Although the tiger population in Tiger Tops is robust, the camouflaged predator is difficult to spot among the bushes, elephant grass, and trees of the park. As this was our last evening at Tiger Tops, many of the guests were discouraged and elected to pursue other activities. Four of us decided to give it one more try.

While searching for tigers in the dense undergrowth, elephants constantly forage. Their trunks grab huge clumps of elephant grass or tree branches, tear them loose, and shove them into their mouth where their huge molars grind the matter to make it suitable for swallowing. Ironically, the chewing process eventually leads to the elephant’s demise. As the sixth and last set of molars wears away, the inability to masticate leads to malnutrition.

Even the short tempered rhinoceros gives an elephant wide birth, and an hour into the ride we saw many of them grazing or lounging in the water. The quiet was interrupted when our driver heard or saw something in a dense thicket and signaled to his partner who was guiding a female elephant with the other two passengers aboard. Intending to flush the prey, they entered the suspicious area as the elephant crushed everything in its path. We sat atop the imposing male elephant, blocking the escape route.

Suddenly, a snorting water buffalo with foam pouring from its mouth erupted from the bush and charged headlong toward us. Although out weighing the buffalo by 6500 pounds and towering five feet over him, the elephant was no match for his testosterone driven adversary. The normally plodding pachyderm instantly transformed into a cheetah, turned about, and sprinted in the opposite direction while leveling everything in its path. Fortunately, only one female elephant witnessed the display of cowardice, and once again was reminded that size doesn’t matter.

Edmund Hilary - Savior or Destroyer?

Annapurna South, Nepal

Scott Sturman
fliesinyoureyes.com

Edmund Hillary, the first to summit Mt. Everest and a life long advocate of Nepal's Sherpa people, is widely acclaimed for his compassion and humanitarian work. Today in Nepal his popularity remains undisputed, and he is credited for his efforts to bring schools and hospitals to some of the country's hardiest but poorest citizens. Yet these seemingly uncontroversial acts of goodwill can lead to social instability and destruction of fragile ecosystems.

Those living in the Third World survive in a delicate equilibrium between the demands made upon the environment and the its ability to sustain these needs. The situation is particularly acute in communities based high in the mountains where the growing season is short and there is little land available for agriculture. High birth rates coupled with equally high infant mortality and short life expectancies maintain the balance needed for these societies to survive under harsh conditions. Altering this fragile interplay between life and death can have devastating repercussions unless population control issues are considered in their entirety.

In 1950 Maurice Herzog climbed Nepal's Annapurna and became the first man to conquer a mountain higher than 8000 meters. He returned to France and wrote Annapurna, the most popular mountaineering book ever written which eventually sold 11 million copies. At that time the population of Nepal was 7 million. Today the population is 29 million crammed into a country the size of Arkansas but living in an arable area equivalent to New Hampshire. It is one of the poorest countries in the world with a per capita income of $100/month and an unemployment rate of 46% with 25% of the population living below the poverty line. Extensive deforestation and pollution abound due to the destruction of the natural balance between human population and the demands upon the land.

Most everyone who visits Nepal praises its people, who have the uncanny ability to make their guests feels welcome. However, under this exterior one has the feeling the country functions on a narrow reserve where the slightest perturbation could throw it into chaos. The government is totally dysfunctional, and there are simply not enough resources to support the ever increasing population which is flocking to congested urban areas.

Whether it is providing immunizations for children in Africa or hospital care for parturients in Nepal, there is a sense of purpose and moral gratification experienced by those who provide these humanitarian services. The efforts are widely acclaimed by the international community. But this is the “feel good” part of problem solving which is difficult to criticize. There remains a more somber aspect to these acts of charity and goodwill. Without comprehensive family planning programs and the introduction of methods to increase production of goods and services without destroying the environment, these efforts undermine the sustainability of the people they are intended to help. No doubt Edmund Hillary's intentions were noble, but programs meant to help poor countries must address the entire demographic problem from the outset, or within a few generations the act of goodwill will become a death sentence.