Meet Gildah, SARMOTI's Beloved Mascot
Siegfried & Roy’s Magical White Lions and Royal White Tigers aren’t the only residents of their Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat on the endangered species list. Joining the exotic felines is Gildah, the illusionist’s Thai Ceremonial elephant.
While Gildah, who celebrates her 54th birthday on Friday, shares the magical of the Magicians of the Century, in Thailand elephants are treated more like oversized curiosities in a carnival show. And, there are only about 4,000 remaining…under 2,000 in the wild and the rest in captivity.
At the turn of the turn of the 20th century, an estimated 100,000 roamed the Thai countryside. They played a major role in everything from art to language and were revered. Thai temples are adorned with Ganesha, the elephant Hindu god.
The main reasons for the dwindling number are their natural habitat is disappearing and a 12-yerar old logging ban that forces the elephants and their owners out of work.
Unlike the elephants in Thailand, Gildah gets the best of care. She is the largest resident of Siegfried & Roy’s Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat and its only vegetarian. She disappears – and reappears – nightly on stage and mesmerizes Secret Garden visitors with her antics.
Gildah has excellent hearing that is superior to our standards. Her large ears act as amplifiers. She has a highly developed sense of small thought to be greater to that of any other land animal. She also has an acute deftness of balance achieved by high tactile sense and her trunk, arguably the most versatile of all animal organs.
Gildah’s trunk is a boneless mass with up to 100,000 muscles that can lift a coin or a heavy object. The trunk has a small finger like lip at the end, which can distinguish between size, shape, texture, hot and cold.
When totally submerged in water, the trunk can also be used as a snorkel. Trunks can hold six liters of water!
While Gildah once had some 300 different species as members of the proboscidea animal order, all are now extinct. The nearest current relative to elephants is the dugong and manatee.
