12. The lion sleeps tonight
Massage therapy has been around for centuries – for animals as well as humans – even though it has only been realized as important in the United States for less than two decades. Shortly after Anthony Guglielmo opened his office for human massage, he received a call to look at a horse named Champ, who’d been abused. Since animals weren’t his stock and trade, he said no, but Sylvia said she’d call back in a few days. Tony did some checking and before long was on his way to a horse massage instruction session.
It was ten hours away in Ohio. After a week, he had massaged five horses and learned a great deal in the process. He came home, called Sylvia and said he’d look at Champ. His experience paid off and Sylvia was impressed with Guglielmo. Tony even survived being in the same place with Cocoa, who recently had surgery and probably should have been avoided. Tony made some contact with the horse and avoided being booted out of the facility.
He and his wife Cathy visited the Florida Keys for a vacation and stopped at the Dolphin Research Center. Like bats, dolphins use echolocation to determine the size, density and shape of objects close to them. Tony saw a few of these creatures including Cindy, who was unlike the others. She was thin and in need of something, so Lynne, the medical director asked him for help. Since he and Cathy were about to end their vacation, Lynne figured that Tony needed a week to familiarize himself with the ailing dolphin. Arriving at home, Guglielmo checked into some east coast aquariums about dolphin massage, but had no luck. When he called the New York Aquarium he was told that there was an animal there that he could look at. He now had a bigger challenge.
Nuka was an 1800-pound female walrus having health problems. That was what she should have tipped the scales at but only managed to be 1300 pounds. Her hips and rear flippers weren’t functioning properly and that contributed to the difficulties. However, Tony began some message therapy. After a few weeks, he came to see her at the aquarium and spotting a walrus, didn’t think it was Nuka, as her hips were normal and she was using her flippers the right way. Guglielmo had worked his magic again.
As expected, the New York Aquarium had some Atlantic bottlenose dolphins and Tony massaged two of them, Tab and Presley. Since boys will be boys, they were troublemakers. Guglielmo had to soothe them out of their aggressive habits. He had more luck with Tab than his buddy but knew that working with them would give him experience that he needed for handling Cindy. After a few sessions, Presley was still being a rascal until Tab appeared next to him and it appeared they were having a conference. From that point on Elvis was more cooperative, indicating that Tab had told him to knock it off.
When Tony first saw Rudy the penguin, he thought he was looking at Quasimodo from the Victor Hugo novel. When he moved closer, the therapist hadn’t encountered such a horrible odor. They looked so adorable in the March of the Penguins. Tony would have to breath through his nose for a while. Guglielmo started in on Rudy, who was less than a foot tall. His second massage was a week later and Tony noticed that Rudy had really grown. His posture was improved as well. The penguin would get bigger and have ten weeks of treatments. Once again, Tony’s method worked, even though Rudy still had a slight curve in her back – it took a while, as is the case with all penguins – but Rudy was found to be a female.
Guglielmo had another walrus to tend to. Wanda was lethargic and obviously suffering. She wouldn’t eat, either. She was scheduled for an endoscopy except that the vet administering it wasn’t big on alternative medicine. Tony was summoned before the procedure to see what he could do. Though in pain, Wanda knew that Guglielmo and the others were friends in the area to help her get better, so she was submissive. The master was at it but trying a few things didn’t help. They had to change strategy. Then Wanda became so relaxed that she had a small bowel movement. The group knew that Wanda would make it. The endoscopy that followed revealed a plastic bag and handball inside the walrus. After returning from the hospital, the other walruses greeted her and were happy to have her back.
Maybe massaging a shark isn’t a great idea and hasn’t been done – that is, until Tony met Baby the sand-tiger shark. Sadly, sharks have a bad reputation, unjustly so. Blame it on the movie, Jaws. You may not have noticed then when humans are attacked by these creatures, it’s because the latter thinks they found a sea lion, which unlike the two-legged victim, tastes like chicken. Maybe that’s not true, but sharks really don’t like the way humans taste. I won’t go any further with that.
Gugliemo worked on Baby, but carefully. She was so named because she was the smallest of the litter. After messaging for almost forty minutes, the shark relaxed and Tony found what he thought was an air bubble between the skin and the muscles. It certainly would explain Baby’s behavior. A stethoscope and ultrasound confirmed that the masseuse was correct. A week later Dr. Paluch, the aquarium veterinarian, used a long needle to get rid of the bubble. At most other aquariums, Baby would have been euthanized, instead of being given a chance. This was thanks to Tony and the others.
Guglielmo has massaged more than a hundred animals comprising seventeen different species. Besides those mentioned, he also worked on these creatures: Mambo point, a trotter, who returned to his winning ways with his master and rider, Mike Sorentino, Jr.; a boxer named Reddog – a canine not a pugilist; Mickey, a seventeen year old striped cat; a supposedly defective ferret – that’s quite common; Kathy, a Beluga whale; Cindy, the dolphin mentioned earlier; Snuggles, a long-eared bunny. No doubt, these creatures are similar to humans, since each has emotions and feelings. Suffering reaches both species and massage can offer great relief. You can read more in the book by Anthony Guglielmo and Cari Lynn, The Walrus on My Table: Touching True Stories of Animal Healing. Obviously animals are smarter than many people think.
Far away in Nairobi, Kenya, can be found a rescue facility, the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. In 1974, a baby elephant needed more than just nourishment. Daphne Sheldrick became the foster parent, but feeding Aisha a variation of cows milk didn’t help. Aisha was still sickly. Other liquids were tried with no better results. It wasn’t until coconut milk was given to her that the baby elephant’s health improved. Aisha followed Daphne around as if the latter were her mom.
Aisha was still quite young but she was doing fine. One day Daphne had to fly to her daughter’s wedding, leaving the young elephant. There were others who would take over her role. Soon, the young elephant wouldn’t eat and with each day, became worse. By the time that Daphne returned, Aisha was nothing like she had been before Daphne departed. She soon died. Aisha had suffered sudden-death syndrome, broken-heart syndrome or gripping fear. Staff members were grief stricken, none more than Daphne. It was like losing a child. The story of Aisha and Daphne was first aired on the PBS’s My Wild Affair on July 16, 2014.
I mentioned the naturalist and author Jeffrey Masson earlier. In 1987 he was visiting a game preserve in India when he came upon a few elephants. When he was about twenty feet from them, a large elephant flapped his ears. Jeffrey answered with Bhob, gajendra, an elephant greeting. The animal let out a roar, which Masson felt was a friendly retort. It wasn’t and the initial ear movement was a warning. The pachyderm charged him and he tried to run away, realizing that elephants can outrun humans. Eventually, Jeffrey tripped and fell into some tall grass, which saved him since these animals have bad vision. It was a close call and he was lucky.
Indeed, elephants, like many animals, have feelings such as joy, sadness, compassion and happiness. They can feel pain and suffer. Game warden G. G. Rushby was doing some elephant control as he shot a few females, but wounded a small male. He was dazed and not sure what to do when the orphaned calves came to his rescue, helping him and leading him to safety.
In the southern part of Kenya is a region called the Amboseli. Wildlife thrives there and for over 400 years so did the Maasai tribe, being great protectors of the land. They didn’t hunt the animals but protected them from predators. In 1974, Amboseli National Park was created and the Maasai were asked to depart. The tribe was given some compensation and still reside close by, treating the animals well, for the most part.
The park is home to numerous herds of elephants. In September 1978, a project was initiated to study them. Led by Cynthia Moss and Martyn Colbeck, the team set up tents and noted the behavior and habits of these massive animals. At times they watched from their Land Rover, with a few of the species calmly approaching and accepting of the scientists. They also came close to the area of the tents to feed. They were a fearless and friendly bunch of creatures. Humans and pachyderms showed great respect for one another.
Elephants in the Amboseli live together in families, led by a matriarch. At age fourteen, males typically leave the group so families consist mostly of females: the leader, daughters, granddaughters, cousins and aunts. One such clan is the EB group, headed by Echo, who was initially joined by Erin, Emily, Eudora, Ella and Little Male. Naturally, in time, others joined the group. Echo wasn’t responsible for the naming. Cynthia, Martyn and other researchers did that, but after being called a name, an individual elephant identified with it.
Echo, who led the EB members for over nineteen years, was given her name based on the sounds emulating from her collar. Observing elephants, Cynthia’s team noticed that they were very emotional and devoted to the members of the herd. When Emily died, her bones were found and Eleanor, Edgar and Erin knew that they belonged to Emily. In general, watch over the dead covered a few days – such was their concern and feeling. When Grace gave birth to a calf that died hours afterwards, she and her older calves were distraught.
The only concerns of the observers were males who could become aggressive at times. Elephants were concerned about predators, but were safe inside the park. They roamed outside it during the dry seasons and then were in danger from poachers seeking ivory. In October 1989, all international ivory trade was banned. Another affect of the dry seasons was the birth cycle of calves, which was delayed because of the condition of both the females and males. A lack of nutrients produced lethargic elephants.
EB members accepted the scientists and trusted them, but they had stronger bonds within their family. As you may have guessed, elephants are smart animals with feelings. Some can live to the age of 60 or 70. Average weight of an African elephant is from two to six tons. The Asian variety weighs less. A calf is walking almost at birth. There are numerous videos and nature programs about these amazing animals. You can read about them in the book by Cynthia Moss and Martyn Colbeck, Echo Of The Elephants: The Story Of An Elephant Family.
A week after the sad story of Aisha, My Wild Affair featured the story of Chantek, an orangutan brought up as a human child. Lyn Miles was a graduate student in Chattanooga at the University of Tennessee (UT) in the late 1970s and her project was to communicate with Chantek, who was only a few months old. This was through sign language. The orangutan is the fourth species of great apes and Chantek wore diapers, but he learned quickly, even providing some signs of his own. As might be expected, one was for eating, which he mastered after a month. He called ketchup toothpaste and bottled water to him was car water. Working with the orangutan was more than a full time job for Lyn, but student volunteers helped her. Ann Southcombe played a huge role as a full time caregiver and teacher.
Chantek rode in the car to fast food places. He didn’t drive probably because Lyn and Ann hid the keys and he didn’t know about hot wiring. He loved orange sherbet – after all, he was an orangutan – and pistachio ice cream, preferring it from Dairy Queen. He also loved cheeseburgers. He was into the business world and knew the value of cash, more or less. When he asked Ann for a drink, she would sign, Where’s your money? He’d give some to her. Real coins were used at first and then washers. He may not have been that smart – on second thought, maybe he didn’t know about counterfeiting.
If the orangutan wanted to head out for some ice cream, he’d point Ann to her car. Then he took the keys and opened the door and they were off. He knew the way there, too. Chantek was extremely intelligent. He knew how to work with tools – more on that shortly. He rode a tricycle and helped cleaning up, which he didn’t seem to mind. If he followed Lyn out the door, he observed and then could escape by himself.
As he matured he grew stronger, similar to that of a half dozen men or more. A full grown of his type could weigh 200 pounds. Just like Christopher Hogwood and Stoffel, you couldn’t keep this orangutan penned up. He was so smart he unraveled the meshing in a chain link fence, left and then restored it so you couldn’t tell how he got out. A fence with some electric didn’t fool him. He used a small stick to short it out and then left without needing a comb to straighten his hair. He returned to his trailer with soda and sweets, but he could have hurt himself as well as others. The university was concerned and then it became an issue when a co-ed was attacked. She had no serious injuries, but before long the orangutan was banished from the program, after being on campus for eight years. It wasn’t because he hadn’t graduated.
Chantek wound up in the place from which he came, the Yerkes Natural Primates Research Center. He wasn’t happy in a five by five cage, from which he couldn’t escape. Depressed as he was, he managed for eleven years. In 1997, he then was moved to the Atlanta Zoo, a place he liked better – anyplace had to be better. It wasn’t the UT, but the zoo is known for the largest collection of orangutans in the United States. Once the orangutan left UT, Ann and Lyn visited many times. Once he asked Miles for ice cream and a whopper, but she knew how he felt when he was gently told no.
For quite some time, he thought of himself as an orangutan person. Chantek did have other orangutans at the zoo, so he had some companions. He called the caretakers there, key men since they carried the keys wherever they went. Today, Chantek is 36 years old, thriving and has a girl friend orangutan. You may wonder where the orangutan went when he slipped away at night from his trailer. One clue may that he never got a university degree. Second, like humans, he was smart and didn’t need it. Chantek wasn’t about to look for a job.
You can watch the video about Chantek, Ann and Lyn at video.pbs.org/video/2365286726/?start=60. You can also visit the orangutan’s website – I told you he was brilliant – at Chantek.org. Actually it’s Lyn Miles’ doing about her work. My passionate and life-long commitment is to see Chantek and other enculturated apes as persons living in culture-bearing communities, with agency and choice. – H. Lyn Miles
Chantek wasn’t the only animal in his species that had deep feelings. Washoe was a chimp that gave birth to a baby that died a few hours after because of a defective heart. Her second baby, Sequoyah was sickly and perished at the age of two months from pneumonia. Researchers brought Loulis, a ten-month old chimpanzee for Washoe. At first it appeared that Washoe wouldn’t accept Loulis but that changed. The chimp became a dedicated mother, with Loulis learning over four-dozen signs from her new mom.
From so many of these animals, what I have read and written in this book should convince you that many scientists have it all wrong when stating that animals aren’t intelligent. In most cases, they haven’t done the research. As Aisha and Echo illustrated, animals have intense feelings. They experience joy, sadness, despair, loneliness and disappointment. Like Alex and Graycie, they can say, I’m sorry. They’re clever, as Chantek proved by his night moves and even more so by his chain link fence restoration. Did you forget that he could use tools and brooms to clean up, just like Felix – Unger, not the cat. Christopher Hogwood could leave the premises too and he was loved and returned that love. He had to be smart to escape becoming ribs or sausage.
Some might insist that humans can’t be matched because of language, but dogs, cats, lions and birds communicate with other animals in their family as well as with other species. It’s just in a language that many people can’t comprehend. That shouldn’t surprise us since many humans speak only one language, and that one not very well. Though animals fight and we know about predators and prey, when it comes to WMD and all-out war, wildlife, domestic and captive species are superior to humans, hands down. Maybe, that should be hands up.
Androcles and the lion
In Rome, people gathered to watch the Great Circus, where beasts battled slaves. The master of Androcles was an ex- consul and the latter cringed when he saw his opposition: a huge lion. As the animal slowly approached Androcles, he was terrified. But the animal was wagging his tail and soon licked the hands and feet of the slave. The two recognized each other and Androcles was relieved. Later Caligula asked Androcles why his life had been spared that day. The slave related the time he escaped to a cave and a large lion entered it, but he was wounded. The man removed a splinter from the lion’s foot and treated the injured paw, which the lion placed in Androcles’ hand. He then went to sleep. They lived in the cave for three years with the lion hunting for the pair. Androcles was recaptured and then condemned to death in the arena. Because of this day at the Great Circus, the people voted for freedom for both Androcles and the lion. ‘This is the lion that was a man’s friend; this is the man who was a physician to a lion.’
“The Lion Sleeps Tonight” is a song also known as “Wimoweh”, “Mbube”, “Azimbawe” and “Wimba Way”. Many artists have recorded it but the Tokens had the biggest success when it rose to the top of the charts in 1961, earning over fifteen million dollars in royalties. A few lines from it follow.
In the jungle
The mighty jungle
The lion sleeps tonight
In the jungle
The quiet jungle
The lion sleeps tonight
The king of the jungle and his friends are at rest there – it’s their home. Sadly, humanity has messed up the picture, starting with the endless massacre of species as already pointed out. The animals’ homes have been decimated by the destruction of the rain forest and building of developments. When trees are leveled and the area turned into farmland, the result is the same. Wild animals captured for collectors of exotic pets have a difficult time in their new environment. Many die on their way out of the jungle. Anyway you look at it, this is poaching. No one should have cobras, panthers, wolverines, honey badgers, scorpions, spiders or giraffes for pets.
When it comes to having a dog or cat as a family member, caution should be exercised. African Grey Parrots are easily bored so they need constant attention. Sheepdogs are used for herding other animals, and since they love to run, living in an apartment in the city will not be to their liking. Even not so active dogs want company, which is hard to provide in this crazy 24/7 world. Before you get a pet, do quite a bit of research and thinking.