Twilight of two elephants

RIP, party crashers

They congregated at the fence outside our office’s summer party, uninvited but deeply curious at the proceedings. We couldn’t admit them, only watch in mutual admiration. Rosie and Hadari, a pair of African elephants, stood as close to the fence as they could. Early in the day, they freely wandered their small, reconstructed savanna. While a far cry from the cages of older zoos, it was a poor facsimile for their native land.

Nevertheless, having those huge pachyderms so close requires several layers of fencing. Despite their gentle demeanor, one wrong move could turn disastrous around elephants. They were in the zoo, in a paddock imitating their natural environment, but they were as interested in us as we were in them. They stuck close as we gathered then resumed their wandering not long after we sat for lunch. They were never forgotten.

Hadari at the fence line

That day in 2015, none of us knew the elephants' time in Nashville was closing. Two months later, the zoo began renovating its African exhibits and the two elephants retired to the Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tenn. The facility takes in elephants retired from zoos and circuses. To give them as natural an environment as possible, it isn’t open to the public.

Recently the two elephants died days apart. According to The Elephant Sanctuary, 46-year-old Rosie was euthanized New Year’s Eve after a foot infection worsened and left her unable to walk. The sanctuary’s next act spoke to the social creatures in their care. They allowed the other elephants to visit the body after she died. Sanctuary staff found Hadari dead on January 2. She likely collapsed from cardiac arrest.

When an otherwise healthy elephant dies two days after her longtime companion in captivity and retirement, all sorts of questions spring to mind. Less than two weeks ago, Carrie Fisher and her mother Debbie Reynolds, who were extremely close lived next to each other, died a day apart.

I don't mean to compare elephants and humans - we can never truly know the thoughts and feelings of elephants. But the impact of social animals upon each other is worth exploring.

Researchers say that elephants express a wide range of emotions and develop deep relationships with other elephants.We can never know if grief played a role in Haradi’s death, but the idea applies a poignant symmetry to their relationship. The two, along with other elephants, lived in the Nashville Zoo together for five years (Hadari logged 20 years in Nashville).
 
No matter what caused Hadari's death, I'll always think fondly of the day when the elephants returned our interest at the Nashville Zoo

Another glance at Rosie