John,

I don't consider myself a fundi on this but from my experiences the cows have much much stronger bonds between each other than they do between cows & bulls. Logic would back this up. After all, the cows pretty much spend their entire life with the same group of females......When you shoot a bull, it's either alone or in the company of a small number of other bulls and at the shot they generally all bug out in whatever direction they're pointing. .... and don't usually come back. With cows, they tend to bunch up and react as a team or unit.........and will often come back to see what happened to whoever is missing. Their behaviour at all times indicate to me that cows have much stronger ties to each other than the bulls. Because I'm not a fundi, I don't try to explain all the reasons, frankly, I couldn't do a good job of it....... but my advice would be to read the books I mentioned as they will go some way to explaining the differences. As I said, I don't agree with them all, but they do all raise good points and are all worth reading.

Erik talks about Elephants in places I've not been lucky enough to get to yet - and it could well be that he's right..... I certainly wouldn't ever doubt his word. I'm basing my statements on the areas and the Elephants I've had personal experience of only and then tieing it into what I've read. As I said, it's up to each individual to make up his own mind. I certainly wouldn't like to think I'm trying to convert anyone.... I'm just expressing a personal opinion.