The Story Behind Their Suffering
Captive Elephants
All around our country, solitary captive elephants are suffering for our supposed entertainment, in circuses, zoos, pseudo-sanctuaries, and roadside attractions. To be separated from their families, isolated, and confined is especially devastating to elephants, who are by nature complex, intelligent, self-aware, intensely emotional, and highly social. That we continue to do this is a moral atrocity.
Some elephants used for “entertainment” are born in captivity. Others are captured in the wild. In many instances, these elephants have been violently separated from their mothers, shipped across the world as freight, and sentenced to a miserable existence — deprived of the company of other elephants, or any sources of comfort or contact. Asian elephants may be “trained” to comply by means of “the crush” or “the Phajaan”, which involves binding them with ropes and beating them for weeks or months on end. The isolation, emotional and physical chaos, and relentless torment to which they are subjected is shattering.
Typically, captive elephants are neglected, deprived, housed, and transported in deplorable conditions, and left to languish in emotional despair and unrelenting physical agony. This abuse exposes them to chronic health problems; they have shorter life expectancies than elephants in the wild – which, given the circumstances, may serve as a stroke of unintended mercy.
Audrey Mealia, global head of wildlife at World Animal Protection, has said: “For too long, these intelligent, sociable creatures have been the victims of a cruel trade that rips baby elephants from their mothers and family groups. They are destined for a life of suffering and brutality behind the scenes, cruelly exploited as entertainers under the guise of innocent fun for visitors. Tourists are duped into believing they are helping these elephants and the conservation of the species, while in reality, they are creating the demand for such activities.”
Wild & Orphaned Elephants
There are a host of issues to be addressed concerning wild and orphaned elephants. For wild elephants, there are issues of poaching, conflicts with humans, the dangers attendant to tourism, and ensuring they remain free. Orphaned elements pose their own concerns, including determining the circumstances under which they can be reintegrated to the wild, the means by which they became orphaned, and how to care for them as they mature.
A Word About Looking Away
It’s excruciating to learn and think about the extreme suffering, isolation, relentless physical agony, and abject fear we bring to bear on elephants and other animals here and around the world. It’s a great relief and much tidier to look away. But as emotionally wrenching as it is to endure seeing and hearing about this, the elephants have to live it for a lifetime. At an absolute minimum, we owe it to them to bear witness to the unspeakable consequences of our conduct.
