Wild Animals and Justice: The Case of the Dead Elephant in the Room

Abstract

Elephants, the largest terrestrial representatives of the animal kingdom, are highorder

mammals with complex ethology and social dynamics, looming large both in

natural landscapes and cultural settings in diverse locations.1 Elephants are “wonderful or terrible, depending on where or who you are.”2 Rupp and Hitchcock have noted that ideas about elephants persist in people’s imaginations and expressions, in children’s literature, and in commercial and political emblems.3 Elephants rank alongside gorillas, pandas, tigers, and lions in their status as so-called flagship or iconic species.4 In social sciences, human–elephant interaction has been studied through ethnozoology,5 multispecies ethnography,6 and ethnoelephantology.7 The cultural significance and social roles of elephants emphasized by anthropologists, cultural geographers, and political ecologists suggest that perceptions of elephants are neither uniform nor constant.....