THERE was a good audience at the February meeting of Cheriton Fitzpaine Ladies' Evening Organisation (CLEO), including seven visitors for an illustrated talk by Liz Rogers of Stockleigh Pomeroy.

Liz is a retired zoologist, who formerly taught at Edinburgh University.

She would often travel to sites to supervise her students in various studies, and over the years became especially interested in elephants.

Her first encounter with the huge beasts, was in Nepal, where they are used as a sort of taxi!

She was fascinated by their behaviour, especially when they made a protective circle around a newborn, or a sick animal.

Despite their size, elephants have very poor sight, and use their sense of smell to detect direction or danger.

In Gabon, when studying West Lowland gorillas, she saw many elephants living in the savannah, an ideal habitat for them.

It is thought that the species communicate with ultrasonic calls.

They are sometimes called "The Gardeners of the Forest", as they dig with their tusks to find the food they need.

In this area, there are also much smaller elephants, who live in the forest and are very difficult to detect, as they merge with the foliage.

Unfortunately, there is still a demand for ivory, and elephants are slaughtered for their tusks, often leaving babies behind.

They can also be destructive to crops, as Liz's group found when they tried to grow vegetables around their dwelling!

In Amboseli National Park in Kenya, the authorities work with the local people to try and protect the animals from poachers.

Liz was thanked by our chairman Julia Sanders, and answered many more questions over tea and coffee.

Separately, on a freezing cold Saturday morning, villagers were glad to sit in Cheriton Fitzpaine’s warm parish hall, eat one of the famous bacon or sausage baps, and chat to their friends.

The event was held by the hall committee, who were kept busy all morning.

Tickets for the upcoming pantomime were also on sale and found a ready market.

Mary Nunn