Friday, November 11, 2011

White Elephant? Thailand








Three white elephants were discovered in Thailand during 1977, and were presented to King Bhumibol Adulyade. And in March 1983, an even more dramatic event took place - the discovery of a whole community of white elephants in Indonesia. Not only was it very surprising to find a community of such creatures, but also it was an equally important discovery zoogeographically, because this was the very first record relating to any white elephants in Indonesia. Plans were soon made to transfer this priceless herd to a wildlife sanctuary in order to ensure its protection - but by the time that the relocation efforts had been put into action, the elephants had moved on, and were not found again.

ShukerNature: PINK ELEPHANTS ON PARADE!

"This is the first I have heard of a whole herd of "white elephants," that amazingly have disappeared. Does anyone know any more about them? If we are to believe the illustrator below Alexander the Great was gifted with four "white elephants" as early as the 15th century."


Alexander the Great presented with white elephants. Image taken from La Vraye Histoire du Bon Roy Alixandre, early 15th century. Published in France

4 comments:

Leon Friederichs said...

May I use one of your elephant pictures in my blog? It's actually quite hard to find a real white elephant picture via google.

Wade G. Burck said...

Leon,
Use away. My feeling is, if I or anybody else put's it out there on the web, it is for whom ever want's it. To may copyright crybabies out there these day's.

Wade

Anonymous said...

Wade
You're so cool! Months ago I lifted your (painted) white elephant pic from this blog, entered it in a contest and got a notice early last month that I won first prize. I took it with a grain of salt but I just logged into my PayPal and payment has finally cleared so now I can tell you thank you! Glad you're not a crybaby about copyrights! And now if you'll excuse me, since I have no outstanding bills whatsoever I'm going to blow it all on ebay! Thanks man!

Wade G. Burck said...

Anonymous,
Good for you!!!! Copyright, like so many other things is this world, has gotten completely out of hand. Wildlife photographers are the only ones who should be able to copyright their work, as well as someone who has been authorized to take a photo of an individual. Not some nitwit who was in the right place, at the right time. In the "old day's" a photographer, in addition to asking if they could photograph you working, gave you a set of picture's taken gratis, as well as let you chose which one's should be published. No one should be able to photograph someone performing/working or photograph a statue made by someone else, then copyright it. Quite often I run across pictures of myself on ebay, some publicity pictures, but often photos taken without authorization, for sale. Then they set it so you can't even download a copy of the unauthorized picture. An "individual" should be able to decide if they are "public domain" or not, not the person taking the picture.

Wade