Can suck brains through trunk!
Mar. 11th, 2010 11:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blamebramptonVery busy and exhausting week this one, I'll be glad when it is done! I suspect I have only made it through without committing homicide thanks to Beethoven and Sigur Ros on the iPod (I like my angst orchestral). Sigh. Though it looks as though I am about to inherit a new mag to do a rescue job on, which will be fun!
The BIG news in Sydney this week is our Zombie Baby Elephant. There are a group of Thai elephants at Taronga Zoo who are the source of many inches of copy in local publications, both for and against. On the whole, I prefer my elephants in the wild. However, given the choice between harbourside setting and used as industrial power source in Thailand, harbourside is better. A lot of money has been put into the Taronga enclosure and a lot of support staff, too. Having visited a number of elephant sanctuaries in Africa and Asia, the Sydney set up is not bad.
All of which is preamble to this week's events. One of the elephant cows was pregnant and expected to give birth last week. She went into labour, but nothing happened. After several days of this, she was given an ultrasound, and the calf was found to be upside down in a position that meant it could not be born successfully. Worse, it was showing absolutely no signs of life. It was announced the calf had died, and the vets, like the other elephants, relaxed and stopped shadowing the mother, as stillborn calves can take weeks and months to finally be delivered (elephants, like kangaroos, have complex and fascinating reproductive systems.)
Very early yesterday morning, a keeper went in to check on the mother. She was looking a bit stunned, and the keeper noticed blood on her leg, so assumed she had delivered the dead calf. She saw a lump and went over to check. The lump raised his little head. The keeper, who I imagine had a minor freakout at that point, started calling for vets and help and went over to give assistance to the newborn. Mum elephant has allowed the keepers and vets to help get the baby up and about, and, despite being poorly, baby has been walking unaided and suckling, so may even survive long term!
People are calling it a miracle elephant, but obviously it is a Zombie and will be using that prehensile trunk for the new and improved brain extraction through ears method. It's damn cute, though, take a look:
In other news, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
powerflower11 , and for yesterday to absdax and lilliputian722 . I hope you all have the luck of a Taronga elephant and an absolute absence of the undead! Well, Abs can have Ianto, but that's it!
Oh, and re my last post: I should have known that a warning of 'OH GOD THIS IS AWFUL DO NOT READ' would see you lot clicking in droves.
The BIG news in Sydney this week is our Zombie Baby Elephant. There are a group of Thai elephants at Taronga Zoo who are the source of many inches of copy in local publications, both for and against. On the whole, I prefer my elephants in the wild. However, given the choice between harbourside setting and used as industrial power source in Thailand, harbourside is better. A lot of money has been put into the Taronga enclosure and a lot of support staff, too. Having visited a number of elephant sanctuaries in Africa and Asia, the Sydney set up is not bad.
All of which is preamble to this week's events. One of the elephant cows was pregnant and expected to give birth last week. She went into labour, but nothing happened. After several days of this, she was given an ultrasound, and the calf was found to be upside down in a position that meant it could not be born successfully. Worse, it was showing absolutely no signs of life. It was announced the calf had died, and the vets, like the other elephants, relaxed and stopped shadowing the mother, as stillborn calves can take weeks and months to finally be delivered (elephants, like kangaroos, have complex and fascinating reproductive systems.)
Very early yesterday morning, a keeper went in to check on the mother. She was looking a bit stunned, and the keeper noticed blood on her leg, so assumed she had delivered the dead calf. She saw a lump and went over to check. The lump raised his little head. The keeper, who I imagine had a minor freakout at that point, started calling for vets and help and went over to give assistance to the newborn. Mum elephant has allowed the keepers and vets to help get the baby up and about, and, despite being poorly, baby has been walking unaided and suckling, so may even survive long term!
People are calling it a miracle elephant, but obviously it is a Zombie and will be using that prehensile trunk for the new and improved brain extraction through ears method. It's damn cute, though, take a look:
In other news, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to
powerflower11 , and for yesterday to absdax and lilliputian722 . I hope you all have the luck of a Taronga elephant and an absolute absence of the undead! Well, Abs can have Ianto, but that's it!Oh, and re my last post: I should have known that a warning of 'OH GOD THIS IS AWFUL DO NOT READ' would see you lot clicking in droves.
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no subject
Date: 2010-03-11 01:23 pm (UTC)Yay for the baby zombie elephant. Or is it a zombie baby elephant?
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Date: 2010-03-11 01:25 pm (UTC)Did the people in the book turn out well? I have hopes for the little elephant, though they are tempered with the hard fact that elephant calves do often die.
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Date: 2010-03-11 02:27 pm (UTC)Let's hope that the little elephant will survive. *crosses fingers*
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Date: 2010-03-11 01:24 pm (UTC)I can't believe they couldn't figure out that it was alive.
The zombie baby elephant angle is verrrry funny. "Can suck brains through trunk" made me think of travelling thought. :)
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Date: 2010-03-11 01:29 pm (UTC)I turn to the Icelandics when I need a little bit of calming, Beethoven when I need a lot ;-)
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Date: 2010-03-11 01:46 pm (UTC)Definite no. In fact, the very thought of it is more than mildly disturbing.
I suppose it shouldn't be surprising, but I'm always amazed by what we don't know with machines.
It's bombastic melancholy and very sweet at times (Sigur Ros at least).
no subject
Date: 2010-03-11 01:44 pm (UTC)My daughters have just finished reading a famous book about a boy wizard. They realise that it's too soon to name the young calf, but have suggested "Harry Porntip" - The Elephant Who Lived!
Drew - March 11, 2010, 12:18PM
So cute!
no subject
Date: 2010-03-11 04:42 pm (UTC)*giggles*
Imagine the irony if the zombie elephant is actually Voldemort reborn.
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Date: 2010-03-11 01:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-11 01:48 pm (UTC)Is it wrong that I can imagine the keeper maybe having a little wee when the baby lifted his head?
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Date: 2010-03-11 01:53 pm (UTC)Also, walk sunday. with the feast saturday my life is too crazy.
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Date: 2010-03-11 02:08 pm (UTC)The Attack of the Zombie-But-Supercute Baby Elephants!
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Date: 2010-03-11 02:50 pm (UTC)to keeel you. Coincidence once again - inadvertendly defended art installation against aslödfkjasdlfkj woman saying there aren't metal sticks but hundreds of straws sticking out of the deflated globe and the bandaged continents, pretty clear artistic message about sucking there, too, that she wanted us to loudly proclaim as being sucky.no subject
Date: 2010-03-11 02:54 pm (UTC)Maybe less good news for Australia at large, though? I mean, once the baby starts indoctrinating other elephants -- adult elephants -- and they attack on mass. Well, it will be over for you, no?
I see it all as a metaphor for your Draconian pornography laws.
I wonder how they could tell the elephant looked stunned?
I am on a lot of cold medicine
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Date: 2010-03-11 03:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-11 04:39 pm (UTC)Um, is it me or does he really look like he's planning to grow up big and strong really fast and start eating... everyone?
"Harry Holmes and the Case of the Australian Zombie Elephant" sounds like biopunk with potential. *g*
If you want to be ruthless and keep us waiting for your sex scenes, maybe you should write that so we have something to read while waiting!
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Date: 2010-03-11 06:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-11 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-11 10:56 pm (UTC)[Had to use this icon. Sorry!]
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Date: 2010-03-12 02:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-12 06:23 am (UTC)*coughs*
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Date: 2010-03-12 08:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-12 09:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-12 09:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-12 12:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-12 02:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-12 07:18 pm (UTC)I suppose if it *does* start sucking the brains out of the rest of the elephants, and people, and spreading the zombie... thing, we'll hear about it.
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Date: 2010-03-13 06:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-13 10:57 pm (UTC)