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Cynthia Moss: The Elephant Lady
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11876 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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1 / 1994 |
3,075 Words |
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Elizabeth A. Schick
Elizabeth A. Schick is senior editor of Current Biography. |
Sitting in a chic cafe in the heart of midtown Manhattan, with her neatly trimmed ash blond hair and smart but casual dress, Cynthia Moss could easily pass for a member of New York City's literati, or perhaps its journalistic community. But Moss is actually a wildlife biologist who on most mornings awakens not to the din of midtown traffic but to a breathtaking view of Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest peak. She can see the mountain from her home--it's really a tented camp--in Amboseli National Park, a sun-washed stretch of protected land in southern Kenya.
The enduring attraction of this place for Moss has been its 750 or so wild elephants, some of whom she has known since 1972. It was then that Moss initiated the Amboseli Elephant Research Project, which since 1975 has been supported by the Washington, D.C.-based African Wildlife Foundation, of which Moss is a senior associate. Now in its twenty-second year, the project is the longest-running continuous study of its kind in the world.
Like anyone living among friends, Moss has come to know each of the elephants by name (she has given them such appellations as Wart Ear, Bad Bull, and Tuskless). She also knows who is related to whom and the sort of relationship each has with the others, as well as their mating rituals, foraging strategies, and migration routes, among many other aspects of their lives. "What struck me most of all was their family life," Moss says. "It is a matriarchal society, very closely knit. Watching elephant families is like watching a soap opera, in some ways. What is most fascinating is their complex social system, how the members of the family interact with each other and with other families."
A woman with a mission
Moss was in New York and several other American cities in the spring of 1993 to promote her two most recent projects, the documentary film Echo of the Elephants (1993) and a companion book of the same title, produced in collaboration with wildlife filmmaker and photographer Martyn Colbeck.
But on a more fundamental level, Moss was here on a mission: She wants to instill in people everywhere a sense of the specialness of Africa's elephants. If she can enhance man's understanding and appreciation of the animals, Moss reasons, she will be helping to ensure their survival as a species.
Her concern for the fate of elephants is rooted in their recent history.
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