How to Feed an Elephant

I can’t count the number of times that I have been at a party, at church, at a football game, or even in my office at work, when someone has approached me with the question of how you go about feeding an elephant. Now, I know what you are thinking: “Anyway the elephant wants.” But, actually it is not that simple. This fact was illustrated on a recent trip to India. Frances and I had traveled to the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu to observe some ecological research being carried out by scientists from the Indian Institute of Science. We were spending time in the forested areas in and around the Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary, a region containing all manner of wonderful animals and plants, including wild and domesticated elephants. But, I digress. So how do you feed an elephant?

Step 1: Find an elephant. From what we observed, this is not really very difficult given their size and their ability to identify people who want to provide them food.

Step 2: Prepare food. This is likely going to be the most complicated portion of the exercise given that you need to know about elephant likes and dislikes. I assume that it will be catastrophic for the human if they give the elephant something particularly unpalatable. The food preparation therefore needs to be a careful, even painstaking, process involving cooking, mixing and finally constructing what might best be described as elephant balls.

Step 3: Proceed to feeding area holding the elephant’s balls. Wait for the elephant to approach (hopefully stopping before standing on top of you). Once elephant is in position, insert ball. Quickly withdraw hand being careful to not drop the ball.

Step 4: Repeat procedure until the elephant is satisfied. Like the food preparation, I assume that the accurate diagnosis of when an elephant is full will be learnt by painful experience, with premature termination resulting in extremely negative feedback.

There you have it. Now go find and feed an elephant.