Picture a psychiatrist at her desk reviewing a case file. The report describes a young, teenaged male who, with several others his age, killed nearly a hundred victims. The case is astounding—not only because of the intensity and magnitude of the violence, but because nothing remotely like it has ever happened in the community before. Not even a single murder. As the psychiatrist turns the pages and reads on, the pieces of the puzzle start to come together. A few years before, the young killers had witnessed the massacre of their families and been orphaned. Afterwards, although still very young, they were relocated to another community with few adults to raise them; importantly, it was absent of older, mentoring males.

Resignedly, the psychiatrist writes her opinion: post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). She recommends intensive counselling and psychotherapy. Trauma and social breakdown—in this case, loss of a mother and community—compromise normal brain and behavior development, often resulting in hyper-aggression, violence and other asocial behaviors. Although treatment is called for, such developmental trauma, in the absence of family and friends who can psychologically, emotionally and physically support recovery, often leads to a pattern of psychobiological disorders. Trauma becomes neurobiologically etched and may be transmitted across generations. Unfortunately, the teenagers' story echoes those of many others, each unpleasantly familiar in their association with a string of wars and genocide in Uganda, Rwanda, Iraq and Sudan. However, there is something different and perhaps more disturbing about this account.

These teenagers are young male African elephants. At a South African park, in the 1990's, three young males attacked and killed 58 white and five black rhinoceroses; at a second park, young male elephants killed 40 white rhinoceroses. While these events have by far been the most dramatic, elsewhere in Africa and Asia, reports of elephant aggression are appearing more frequently. Moreover, violence is not just directed at other species. In yet another African park, male-on-male intraspecific mortality is responsible for 70% to 90% of adult male elephant deaths.

Les éléphants commettent des génocides, les rats ont des crises de fou rire,... Voilà un bon coup dans les dents à la soi-disant supériorité de la race humaine !

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