Happy Elephant Appreciation Day!

 

Today is Elephant Appreciation Day.
Elephant Appreciation Day was declared beginning in 1996 by Mission Media (a digital and print publisher of graphics).
The elephant generally deserves to be appreciated and upheld as an example of courage, strength, self-reliance, patience, persistence, and general high quality of being.

Origin of Elephant Appreciation Day:

Created in 1996, largely because elephants are ....large. (and a whole lot of other great things.) The founder, Wayne Hepburn, received a paperweight of elephants on parade from his daughter as a gift. He became fascinated by them. He amassed a huge collections of elephant books and paraphernalia. His fascination and love of elephants, led to the creation of this day so you and I can stop and enjoy this huge, lumbering beast.

Happy Elephant Appreciation Day! Everyone should appreciate an elephant. They are intelligent, loving, gentle creatures. I have had the good fortune to have several for friends! The one in the picture above is named Luke and belongs to another friend of mine.

A couple of links for the curious: If you want to make a badge, poster, or find some activities for the day (especially for kids), go Here. There are two types of elephants. African, which live in Africa (duh!), and Asian which live in the Asian tropical forests. To learn about Asian elephants go Here, and a link for the African species is Here. The last two links both lead to the National Zoo site.