Elephants in Captivity Need Your Help—Here Are 6 Things You Can Do. Ringling Bros. circus may have caved to public pressure and pulled the elephants it uses off the road, yet numerous exhibitors still stuff elephants into cramped, hot trailers and travel from venue to venue across the country. HELP ELEPHANTS NOW
Senator Lesniak of New Jersey plans to introduce a new bill called "Nosey's Law" which is named in honour of Nosey!
This new legislation aims to protect elephants from being exploited by banning elephants in circuses across the entire state of New Jersey!
Nosey's Law has our full support!
Huge Thanks from the whole AFNN team to Senator Lesniak ~ Action for Nosey Now - We applaud & Thank Senator Lesniak
But Nosey's owners say nothing they're doing is against the law or reflects mistreatment.
They have recent documentation from Florida Fish and Wildlife and the USDA to prove that.
They say Nosey is family, and they've treated her as one of their own.
Still, activists argue using elephants for show can be dangerous.
"I'm just hoping that people will understand that it's not a good thing to take your kids to the circus, or at these venues and have your kids ride on an elephant because it would backfire. I've seen it where elephants fight back," said Gretchen Stewart, an activist who wants to see Nosey transferred to a sanctuary.
"Our elephant has been in our family for over 30 years. She raised me. She's my big sister. I don't see her any different from any of my other siblings. People have tried to buy her," said Cathalina Liebel, one of Nosey's owners.
The owners say people have offered millions of dollars, more than what they make from performance profit.
But they say they've turned them all down, because Nosey is family.
Nosey performed in Georgetown from September 9th-11th, and it's not the first time she's been there.
Her show was a part of the Potawatami Festival.
This is just months after Barnum and Bailey officially retired elephants from their shows.
Their final performance with elephants was May 1st, 2016, after animal rights groups had been urging them to stop using elephants for years.
How We’re Helping Abused Captive Elephants. For too long Asia’s elephants have been seen as a resource for tourism, entertainment, and industry – a new initiative in Vietnam will change that.
The Vietnam Elephant Initiative will make the Elephant Conservation Centre (ECC) a reality in Dak Lak Province.
Animals Asia, working with partners Wild Welfare, Elephant Care International, and North Carolina Zoo, alongside a number of independent experts, aims to completely change the welfare of captive elephants in Vietnam – for the better.
Here’s How:
1. End the Practice of Elephant Riding
Elephant riding is a popular tourism activity for tourists visiting the Dak Lak region. Our aim is to end elephant riding in Vietnam’s tourism centres and to provide a cruelty-free alternative for tourists.
Each year captive elephants within Dak Lak are used as part of the Buon Duon festival, this culminates in an elephant race. We want to end the use of elephants at the festival and to end the race.
3. Support the Transition of the Tourism Industry Towards Elephant Watching Tourism
Working in partnership with the national and local government, elephant owners and tourism companies, we want to develop an alternative tourism activity designed around watching elephants in social groups within an elephant sanctuary. This will help to move the region away from elephant riding tourism towards a welfare-friendly alternative.
4. Improve the Welfare of Captive Elephants
We provide practical veterinary, nutritional and behavioral advice that supports improvements in animal management care and veterinary treatment for captive elephants in Vietnam. This includes support to the ECC to assist in the welfare of two young elephants, Jun and Gold, that have been rescued by the centre.
We provide advice supporting the development of an elephant sanctuary providing positive welfare and “whole of life” care to captive elephants rescued from the tourism industry. This will include the establishment of appropriate social groups to allow former tourism elephants to perform their social behaviours and the provision of large natural enclosures which will allow elephants space to roam free – a far cry from their former life of being chained and used for rides. Lead image source: Animals Asia/Flickr
Esampu's Rescue
The "Great Elephant Census" has some dreadful news: Savannah elephants -- genetically distinct from forest elephants (already known to be in steep decline) -- are frighteningly worse off than we thought. This mega-survey documents a 30 percent decline in savannah elephants over seven years, attributed largely to poaching for ivory. African elephants are also threatened by habitat loss and human encroachment and conflict.
It's now estimated that only 352,271 savannah elephants remain, compared to estimates of up to 650,000 made in 2013. Surveys of elephant carcasses suggest their deaths likely exceeded births -- a dire situation.
"These results are shocking," said the Center's Tanya Sanerib. "A world without elephants would be a very sad place -- it's time for international action." Read more in our press release.
Rescued Baby Elephant Meets a Dog for the First Time and Falls in Love.
If there’s any animal that can match them in the playfulness department, it’s dogs. Put the two together and you have the makings of a fantastic friendship.
The video shows Yindee the rescued elephant’s first time meeting a dog. You’d expect her to be a little afraid, but she jumps up and starts playing with the dog right away. The video is only a few minutes long, but I’d bet that the two were inseparable for the rest of the day.
Yindee is one of the residents of Elephant Nature Park, a sanctuary for orphaned or formerly abused elephants that allows their animals access to wide open spaces and plenty of sunshine. Enjoy your play time, friends!
This Baby Elephant Doesn’t Have a Mother so Now He Has a Blanket for Comfort. Animal conservation groups have been warning us for decades that the African elephant is at risk of extinction unless determined efforts are made to curb the trade in ivory and other wild animal parts. One African elephant is killed every 15 minutes for their tusks, which are worth more than gold. Extensive habitat loss, driven by increased human settlement of areas once used by these animals, has also served to drive these elephants further to the brink of extinction.
Efforts to protect elephants have been ongoing for many years, and the good news is that awareness of these animals’ plight is steadily growing. Recently, an important agreement was reached by the U.S. and China – the two largest consumers of ivory products in the world – to curb the trade.
Despite these gradual signs of improvement, the fact remains that for the brave people who are involved in the monumental effort to protect elephants, every day feels like a battle. Day in and day out, wildlife rescue organizations have to cope with an influx of ill, orphaned and traumatized victims of the illegal wildlife trade, habitat loss and human-elephant conflict.
One such organization, the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (DSWT) has just posted a new photo to their Facebook page, illustrating exactly why elephants so desperately need our help.
This poignant image shows DSWT resident, Loboito, snuggling up to a blanket which serves as a replacement for his mother’s warm body.
The image is a sad reminder of what humans have done to this majestic species. When an elephant is killed for their ivory, it affects not only the particular elephant involved but also their entire family. Babies such as Loboito are cruelly deprived of their mothers while older elephants are deprived of their children, sisters, or brothers. The bond between elephant mothers and their babies is akin to that of human mothers and children. Elephants are highly intelligent and emotional animals who love and care for one another just as strongly as humans care for one another. When a member of an elephant herd is lost – for any reason – they have been known to mourn and grieve their loved ones.
Elephants naturally live in matriarchal groups, headed by an older female elephant who is usually replaced by her eldest daughter when she dies. The group typically comprises of the matriarch, her daughters, and their calves. The females assist one another with the care and rearing of their young while adult males roam in separate “bachelor” groups. The deep, loving bonds between elephant families and herd members persist until death … but as this image of Loboito and his blanket demonstrates, when the family is torn apart by poachers, those bonds are tragically lost forever.
To find out how you can play your part in the fight to save elephants, check out some of the resources below:
- David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust’s Elephant Conservation page
- World Elephant Day
- World Wildlife Fund’s African Elephant Program
- Save Elephant Foundation
