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Elephant welfare - how much do we care?

Category: 1. General News, 4. Welfare News, Elephants in captivity | Date: Jul 24 2008 | By: elephantvoices

Every day we receive messages about how captive elephants are being treated, often with disturbing photos or video footage. A mission of ElephantVoices is to promote responsibility for securing a kinder future for elephants. Our aim is to do this is primarily through education - by inspiring wonder in the intelligence, complexity and voices of elephants - rather than jumping on one campaign after another. We are a small team and we are not able to take on individual battles for each and every elephant. But sometimes we feel compelled to make our opinions known and below is an example. It’s a letter to journalist, Robert Wilonsky in The Dallas Observer e-mailed today, as a response to his request for Joyce to comment on video footage (linked below) of elephants in Africam Safari Zoo in Mexico where the Dallas Zoo plans to send their elephant Jenny.

Dear Robert

The music is hauntingly beautiful and put to the swaying of confined elephants brought tears to my eyes. Why do we humans feel such a need to confine and control other animals? Is our pleasure in seeing them worth the cruelty that we inflict on them? Elephants are intelligent socially complex individuals who have the same basic needs that we have: Freedom and autonomy, companionship and affection, just to name a few.

The first elephant in the video looks very unhealthy; she is too thin; all of the elephants in the video are swaying - a behavior only seen in confined elephants. Like so many captive elephants they are bored and frustrated with nowhere to go and no one to see, no new smells to investigate and nothing to strive for. The result is standing in one place and rocking, slowly losing their minds. Well, wouldn’t we do the same given similar circumstances? I often try to put myself in the elephants’ shoes, so to speak. Ever had to stand for hours and hours alone waiting for that bus that never comes? Feet and back aching? I, too, start to step from one foot to the other. I, too, rock back and forth, I sway. But I don’t wait for a bus for days, for weeks, for months, for years. I have the freedom to choose to go.

We need to wake up to the reality of what we are doing to other creatures and stop hiding behind a lot of constructed arguments for keeping elephants in this way.

Jenny should go to a sanctuary.

Regards, Joyce Poole

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8 Responses to “Elephant welfare - how much do we care?”

Joanne - UK, on 29 Jul 2008

Hi there, I thought I’d post a link which I saw on the David Sheldrick site to try and get more people to sign the petition regarding the CITES decision to allow China to purchase from the ivory stockpiles.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/CITES/

Amy, on 03 Aug 2008

I’m delighted to see you’re on flickr now! How very, very cool to see photos you took TODAY!!!

TheTeach, Seattle, on 26 Aug 2008

How much do we care? We care whole heartedly, from the depths of the soul! I’ve made the elephant my champion species for life. What does that mean? It means that every spare $20 dollar bill I can allocate will find its way toward people and NGOs that are working to study and save these magnificent beings from extinction. It means I will use my position as a teacher to educate my students about the magnificence of these beings and other animals. It means I will sign petitions and write politicians to address this issue. It means that as long as I am alive, I will fight on behalf of the elephant. I’m frankly ashamed at the death and suffering my species has inflicted on these intelligent and compassionate mammals (and many others). I vow to be part of the solution. Sure, I’m only one voice, a few dollars here and there, but if enough people also champion the elephant, we can save them from the ignorance, conflict, and greed that is destroying them, depleting their numbers one day at a time. We must stop the “march toward extinction”. For millions of years, these behemoths have marched across the sands and savannahs of the African continent, through the rainforests of Africa and Asia. Our duty and commitment must be to insure that they will march confidently into the future. And that future African and Asian people will be able to look over the horizon and witness with pure joy, the march of the behemoths, as they quietly stride on their way.
You do what you must, because it is right, no matter the stats or the odds. Fight the fight! Champion the elephant! I am. Best Wishes.

TheTeach, Seattle, on 26 Aug 2008

We must all utilize our voices on behalf of elephants. Best Wishes.

elephantvoices, on 26 Aug 2008

Thank you, TheTeach. Passion is what this world needs more of, and certainly nature including wildlife/elephants. We’re drowning in requests and work related to how poorly we human beings deal with elephants, wild or captive, African or Asian. Right now Joyce is in the US in the so called Ringling case - while we at the same time are spreading our scope to include work on Asian elephants. More about that soon. Excuse us for being quiet lately - that’s only on WD until we get our heads over water… Best, P

TheTeach, Seattle, on 26 Aug 2008

So glad to hear that you’ll be taking up some efforts on behalf of the Asian cousins. They seem to get largely ignored by the conservation press, and their future and numbers seem to be even more precarious than the African elephant. We do have one thing going for us in Asia and that is the cultural reverence for the animal and its traditional role in some of those societies. Now mind you, I’m not condoning the use of elephants as loggers and slave laborers , but the traditional mahoot has demonstrated the bonds possible between our two species. There seems a genuine love and respect there. For now, if that helps sustain the species in parts of Asia, then we should take what we can get. What I’ve read is that this tradition is gradually dying out. Some mahoots in Thailand have been reduced to begging in the streets with their elephants at their side. It may be good that they don’t have to work anymore, but without a function to the people there, what is to become of them? The fact that females are tuskless also works to their survival favor. In Malaysia and Indonesia, it is the oil palm farm industry that is probably the biggest threat they face, from habitat destruction. Your thoughts on any of these points? Please correct any misconceptions I may have. Best Wishes

TheTeach, Seattle, on 26 Aug 2008

P & J,
Please to reccommend a reputable NGO or group of fieldworkers who are working on behalf of the Asian elephant. I’ve been trying to direct some funds in that direction as well, but couldn’t find a recognizable charity that specializes in Asian elephant protection and conservation. I think WWF and WCS are in there but the online info was rather vague about the projects themselves. What I’d like to see is a wildlifedirect blog for an elephant conservation project in Asia. Surely some people there currently working in the field would like to set that up with wildlifedirect, and add there voices to the blogging community. There is a Bornean Sun Bear blog and orangutans. There should be one for Asian elephants as well. I curently support Elephant Voices, Dzanga Forest, Virunga, and Elephants-Botswana, as well as a number of large NGO’s working for elephants in Africa. Trying to help scattered populations of elephants throughout. It’s piece-meal at best, but one has to do what they can to show support.
Best Wishes

Wherever they are - elephants need our support | Elephant Voices, on 27 Aug 2008

[…] has inspired me to post a few reflections based on our post Elephant welfare - how much do we care?, and her comments afterwards. What each and one of us have to do is to decide what we believe in - […]

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