I think that, while they could have been more thorough in their testing, they did a fine job.
I know of stranger things that happen in nature and have perfectly logical explanations that just aren't apparent right off.
I doubt it has anything to do with the contrast in colors...elephant's don't have very strong eye sight and from what I remember, most of it is centered around movement, not color. Not to say that using a brown mouse once would have been a bad idea.
Also, the fishing wire was not the problem. In the full episode, the elephant walks right through it in the control experiment.
These elephants are not wild, they are in captivity...one of the reasons they used these were that they were not trained like circus elephants but they were also not dangerous, like wild elephants. The scent of humans shouldn't have played that great a role since they have keepers in their habitat often....their food is from people.
I know of stranger things that happen in nature and have perfectly logical explanations that just aren't apparent right off.
I doubt it has anything to do with the contrast in colors...elephant's don't have very strong eye sight and from what I remember, most of it is centered around movement, not color. Not to say that using a brown mouse once would have been a bad idea.
Also, the fishing wire was not the problem. In the full episode, the elephant walks right through it in the control experiment.
These elephants are not wild, they are in captivity...one of the reasons they used these were that they were not trained like circus elephants but they were also not dangerous, like wild elephants. The scent of humans shouldn't have played that great a role since they have keepers in their habitat often....their food is from people.