1/21/2005: Elephant uses human-like toilet

I'd found it already when madmonkey and elspode sent along this item, which is so clearly IotD material that it just isn't... well hell, yes it IS funny. Hilarious even.



And true. Thai mahouts are training some elephants to use toilets to cut down on the waste problem, which would be enormous when you think about it.

full story

Oh thank god... I first read the title as "Elephant uses [a] human like [a] toilet"

It could happen. (but it didn't)

Well one had to wonder about the source. I mean the Sun isn't the most reputable rag out there, but I suppose anything could happen. If the news item had appeared here it probably would have been in the check out line in the Weekly World News with a headline like "Aliens Teach Elephants To Use Flush Toilets".

Someone get that elephant a magazine or something.

Wait wait wait. The elephant using the toilet is real (or at least if it's a hoax, nobody has debunked it yet). The snopes article referenced above was referring to the myth of someone getting, uh, for lack of a better term, pooped on to death by an elephant.

Right. My Snopes reference was in response to RQuinn, not the original post.

Well Jinx the can was potty trained in a week or so
(Meet the Parents)

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrisinhouston Well one had to wonder about the source. I mean the Sun isn't the most reputable rag out there, but I suppose anything could happen. If the news item had appeared here it probably would have been in the check out line in the Weekly World News with a headline like "Aliens Teach Elephants To Use Flush Toilets".

Well, from the looks of the soil they could use a little additional organic matter!

I buy the elephant training bit- no problem.
My question: how do they flush the damn thing?
Or do they just clean it out. If they clean it out , wouldn't it be easier off the ground?
By the looks of the "plumbing" in the image, it doesn't look like it could handle a 200 lb jake.
If I were a mahout, I'd train my ele to run a backhoe & be done with it.

I suspect it's like an outhouse, that the white part is just sitting on top of a much deeper hole. When it gets mostly full, they can just cover the top with dirt and move the throne to another hole.

actually, the concrete square it sits on would indicate a direct opening onto a sewer. wonder if the elephant has any fear of aligators?

From UT's link;

i wonder how they got him to sit on the toilet when he needed to go? i bet it was mean. i hate these people!!

Simmer down, you're not suppose to hate them until they've been bad. They've only been bad in your imagination as far as you know.
Hell, it could have been the 'phants idea for all we know.