Elephants produce 10 times more meat than pigs, so why not breed elephants to eat?

In some parts of Africa, elephant meat is known as divine meat, with extremely high nutritional value and magical healing power.

According to research, elephant meat has higher protein content per 100g than beef, iron content is 46% higher than beef, potassium, zinc, vitamin C and B vitamins are high.

Compared with pork, the fat content of the two is similar, but the cholesterol of elephant meat is relatively low.

Elephants are vegetarians, and some people believe that elephant meat is very suitable for diabetics.

In addition to this, some tribes believe that the skull of an elephant has healing powers.

Throughout the history of domestic and foreign, people also highly evaluate the taste and taste of meat.

In the Manchu and Han banquets, elephant bud is one of the eight treasures, and it must be very delicious.

In traditional Chinese medicine, elephant meat is a traditional Chinese medicine. Although it is "sweet", it has curative effect on "baldness and sores".

Some foreign explorers have eaten the elephant meat provided by the tribe, thinking that the legs, trunk and tongue are the most delicious, while other parts of the fibrous meat are too old and taste like chewing wax.

It has also been suggested that elephants eat grass and fruit, so their meat may be similar to beef, but most people who have eaten it think elephant meat tastes like venison.

To be honest, for human beings, just because of the two points of delicious taste and high nutritional value, some people will pay attention to breeding. Why has the elephant with such a high meat production rate not become the mainstream meat like pork?

Before answering this question, let’s talk about a cruel reality: Elephants have always been food for humans. They used to be and are still being eaten by humans.

Archaeologists have discovered a 400,000-year-old ancient rhomboid skeleton, with some stone tools scattered around it, indicating that the elephant was cut and eaten by humans at that time.

Eating elephants is not surprising in a hunter-gatherer society. Early humans already had a set of tactics to round up large prey, and elephants were one of their main sources of protein.

In modern times, although elephants have long been listed as protected animals, they are still hunted.

Many people think that elephants are killed for their expensive ivory, but the reality is that in many places, elephants are still killed for their meat.

1/3 of an elephant's ivory is attached to the skull. In order to obtain ivory quickly, ivory thieves usually cut off the ivory of the elephant directly from the head. In this case, the elephant basically did not survive. Chance.

If the food brought by the poachers is not enough at this time, they will use elephant meat as a supply; if the number of poachers is relatively large, they will try to take away the elephant meat and sell it.

In some parts of Africa, elephant meat is known as "sacred meat". It is said to have many magical properties.

In 2007, the price of ivory in a certain area was US$13.6/lb, while the price of elephant meat was only US$5.45/lb. Although the unit price was low, it was better in quantity. Therefore, the total price of meat obtained by an elephant was much higher than that of ivory. . An incomplete tusk sells for only around $180, but elephant meat can easily fetch $6,000.

However, not all people who eat elephant meat are evil. In some places, they just eat elephant carcasses and do not take the initiative to kill!

Elephant carcasses that poachers can't take away, or elephants that die from illness, are usually eaten by nearby villages.

The fresh meat is eaten by the locals by stewing or pan-frying. The unfinished meat will be dried, smoked and preserved for emergencies, and it will also be used for sale. The market price of smoked and dried elephant meat is about 6 US dollars per catty. .

It can be said that elephant meat is a scarce source of protein for the locals and one of the important economic sources!

Why don't we breed elephants to eat?

If it can be farmed, not only meat, but also ivory, is it very tempting?

But in fact, there are only protected areas for elephants, no elephant farms, in general, mainly because it is not cost-effective to breed elephants!

1. When you grow up, you eat a lot;

Elephants are the largest mammals on land, weighing up to 3-8 tons. An adult elephant eats 225 kilograms of food a day, and is looking for food for 16 hours a day.

It has a large appetite and a long lifespan. It can live for 70 years and mature at 10-15 years old. The breeding cycle is very long.

Just imagine, if you really want to breed, you start raising it when you are young, maybe when you are old and retire, the farm has no income yet, and it is in danger of going bankrupt at any time.

2. Low reproduction rate;

It takes at least ten years for elephants to mature sexually. Although they can reproduce all year round, they only give birth to cubs after 20-22 months of pregnancy. Only one calf is born, and the output is too low.

The point is, based on experience, elephants in captivity will only have lower reproduction rates.

3. Very dangerous and difficult to control;

Although elephants are docile most of the time, during the breeding season, males can be very cranky, uprooting trees and even stepping on cars, which is very dangerous.

Elephants are social animals, and many elephants gather together. How much land should be provided to raise elephants in captivity? What kind of fence can enclose and control them?

4. It is immoral to cull elephants.

Many zoologists believe that the cognition of elephants, comparable to that of cetaceans and primates, is one of the most intelligent animals in the world, and their social structure is very similar to that of human families.

Elephant families are generally led by older females. They will pass on the experience they have accumulated throughout their lives to the next generation and the next generation. Like humans, they will also help the entire family with grandchildren.

Like humans, elephants also hold funerals.

After the companion died, the elephant family did not leave immediately, but stopped and kept trying to help the companion up. After several attempts, it was determined that the companion was really dead, and then they were buried in the soil and placed on the corpse. Put on the leaves, stay for a long time before leaving, like mourning the dead in front of a human cemetery.

All the signs point to the intelligence of elephants, coupled with the fact that elephants are highly altruistic animals, sometimes at the expense of themselves in order to help humans.

Animals like this are generally considered cruel and immoral by zoologists.

at last

We can domesticate cats, dogs and pigs, and we can also breed chickens, ducks and geese on a large scale, but some animals can never be controlled by humans.

Elephants seem to be "enslaved" by humans, doing some hard work of moving trees and carrying heavy objects, but this does not mean that elephants are completely tamed by humans.

The wisdom of an elephant lies in the fact that it expresses its goodwill towards human beings with its actions and hopes to coexist with human beings. So where is the wisdom and goodwill of human beings expressed?