I agree. The "poachers" may have been farmers protecting a crop, and the elephants may have shown up at that particular refuge purely out of a herd instinct. Or it could have been just dumb luck.
I'm very skeptical they knew they would be helped because they mated with elephants that grew up in that place.
> "poachers" may have been farmers protecting a crop
Do you contend that poachers are not the major threat to elephants? You would have to in order to reinforce your case that the article's citing them increases the chance that the story is fabricated.
Otherwise I would have to conclude that fabrication is at work in your argument.
The fact that poachers exist doesn't mean these particular elephants were attacked by poachers. If the writer assumed poachers based purely the poison arrows they yes, the story is, ipso facto, fabricated. Whether or not poachers are "the" major threat to elephants is irrelevant.
Elephants are pest animals to the people who actually have to deal with them. The fact that the attackers used poison arrows instead of AK-47s is a pretty good indication these are not professional poachers.
if probability x >> (1 - x) then citing 1-x does not reinforce your case.
More generally, the underlying message here of course is not whether or not this particular story is true, but that there is a large body of evidence that elephants are intelligent animals. It is extremely unlikely that all of these stories are untrue. Thus the underlying thrust of your arguments (elephants are probably stupid) is disingenuous.
Eh? I never said elephants are stupid. The elephants in question had never been to the refuge before - my problem was the writer assumes because they mated with elephants who had they knew where to go. I find that a really difficult claim to accept.
Look, I like a feel-good story as much as the next guy, but this one is a bit much.
But your original post went to some length trying to show that this "news story" was a fake. If you were right, then the author of the story was expressing a bias, an opinion, an attempt to influence, a "message". Gees - you're all over the place on logic.
Excuse the pun, but I call "Bull"