their intelligence and their majesty as one of the last remaining species of megafauna at that scale, as well as their role in the ecosystems they live in. rats are way up there in importance, too, for the same reasons regarding ecosystem health. do you have any idea, for example, how many species of insect rely on elephant dung for their survival and reproduction? how many other species than rely on those insects? and then how many on the species that rely on those insects? and so on. that's just their excrement. the way they shape the environment and change it through their natural behaviour is also extremely important.
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