You know what they say about having big feetHumans beware! The elephant population has finally had enough of the abuse that us humans see fit to unleash upon them and are getting slightly grumpy.

Apparently, despite the fact that overcrowding is down and suitable food supplies are up throughout Africa, an increasing amount of elephant aggression is occurring against us helpless humans. Why might this be? Well, the Poorhouse is no pachyderm psychologist, but last week's New Scientist reports a number of theories.

One such theory is that, understandably, after decades (or more) of seeing humans slaughter their parents for sport (or to break bits of their dead corpses up to sell to foreigners at an extortionate price) they have suffered some form of mental breakdown and become fixated on revenge.

Alternatively, one of the Daily Mail's favourite groups of ne'er-do-wells, teenage mothers, may cause nothing but death and destruction even in the world of Dumbo. Elephants traditionally live in a matriarchal society, with the elder female providing guidance on the elephantine equivalent of life, the universe and everything to each new generation. With no experienced matriarch to bring them up - as the saying goes, a handbag does not a good mother make - what chance do the younglings have to avoid a life of juvenile delinquency? This is exacerbated by the lack of elder male elephants, which may lead fatherless ele-kids to develop hyperaggressive type disorders.

Joyce Poole, from the Amboseli Elephant Research Project, thinks they may well provide the first diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder in a wild animal - due to the stress the average baby elephant experiences. Captive animals show similar symptoms to PTSD-suffering humans.

However, this is not proven science yet. Nay-sayer Leo Niskanen of the World Conservation Union African Elephant Specialist Group thinks we might be getting ahead of ourselves; rather "elephants and humans just keep bumping into each other" - and they're bigger than us.

Either way, let's learn a lesson from this before it's all too late and yet another species bites the dust. Let's turn the other cheek and see if it's not too late to try and befriend these much abused creatures. For those big-eared oafs who are insistent on being a bad 'un, the Poorhouse liked the sound of a software engineer in Samburu's idea. Regarding the increasing amount of mobile telephone masts being erected over there, "an elephant going close to a farm, could send a text message, saying: 'I'm about to invade your farm'". And as all good folklaw-rians know, we can at least be fairly certain that an elephant would never forget to top up his or her phone.

Save the elephants!