The Elephant In The Room



In Defense of AnimalsTake Action for Elephants in Traveling Shows in New Jersey! Help Pass Nosey's Law to END Traveling Elephant Performances in New Jersey!

New Jersey Senator Raymond J. Lesniak introduced Senate Bill 2508, Nosey's Law in September. This bill would ensure that, "... no person shall use an elephant in a traveling animal act" in the State of New Jersey. It may come up for a vote in the New Jersey Senate as soon as October 20, 2016, and your senator needs to hear from you!

This bill is inspired by the tragic life of Nosey,  also sometimes called Tiny or Peanut. She is a crippled elephant who is constantly dragged around the country, and forced to give rides or perform circus-style behaviors.

She has had to endure extreme cruelty with bullhooks, starvation, electric prods, and being chained so tightly that she could not lie down or move more than a few feet.

According to a 2004 USDA report, she was beaten in the dark with shovel handles and sledgehammers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture continues to renew Liebel's operating license, even though her abusive "owner," Hugo Liebel, has been cited for over 200 Animal Welfare Act citations and violations. The USDA has consistently failed to protect Nosey and will not remove her from the torment of Hugo Liebel. Click here to read more and take action.

New Jersey state Sen. Raymond Lesniak recently introduced "Nosey's Law," a bill that would make New Jersey the first state in the country to prohibit traveling elephant acts. The bill, S2508, will soon move to the Senate floor for a vote. California and Rhode Island have passed bans on bullhooks (weapons resembling fireplace pokers that handlers use to beat, prod, and terrify elephants), but Nosey's Law would make New Jersey the first state to ban traveling elephant acts completely—a huge step toward ending the abuse and exploitation of elephants used for human entertainment.
Please contact your state senator today and urge him or her to support Nosey's Law. Please share this alert with local friends and family, and thank you for everything that you do to help animals! And, sign on to the petition at PETA too.
Nosey the elephant
Baby elephant rescued after being trapped with two adult elephants for 48 hours.

Tell the Oklahoma City Zoo to send Bamboo to a Sanctuary
200,772 of the 210,000 Goal have already signed the petition! After years of public protest, Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo finally closed their elephant exhibit last year. Animal welfare advocates rejoiced at this news and called on the zoo to send its two elephants, Chai and Bamboo, to a sanctuary. Instead, they were transferred to the Oklahoma City Zoo where things got even worse. 

Chai, 37, died this past January from emaciation and a systemic blood infection. The zoo claimed that there were no warning signs of Chai's illness leading up to her tragic death, but records recently released under a FOIA request tell a different story. Apparently the poor elephant had suffered from weight loss, skin lesions, and other health problems - all signs of her deteriorating health - months before she died.

And now, despite the Oklahoma City Zoo's public statements, it looks like Bamboo's health is also in jeaopardy. Records show that the 49-year-old elephant has dropped from weighing 8,600 pounds in May 2015 to just 7,420 pounds on July 1, 2016. 

Bamboo is not thriving in her new home. She was expected to become the matriarch of the Oklahoma City Zoo's existing elephant herd, but has gotten into repeated fights with the other elephants. She has been biten on the tail at least three times, with one wound considered an "amputation" that took months to heal. Just this past April, another female elephant chased and pushed Bamboo, leaving a six-inch scrape on her trunk.

As a result of the conflict between Bamboo and the other elephants, she has been separated from the other elephants overnight at least 28 times over the course of three months.


Bamboo has gone through enough. She should be allowed to live out her remaining years in peace. Please sign this petition demanding that the Oklahoma City Zoo retire Bamboo to a sanctuary.  Please follow Oklahoma Friends of Elephants (OFE) on Facebook.

Zimbabwe is capturing baby elephants and shipping them to their deaths.
Since February, Zimbabwean authorities have been capturing LIVE animals to export to China. And now, the Zimbabwean Water and Climate Minister said they plan to sell live baby elephants to even MORE countries.[1]

Elephants belong in the wild in Africa -- not cramped in pens, separated forever from their families.

These babies are in distress, injured, and abused. We need to stop this torture.


We simply can’t let this happen any longer. Last year, Zimbabwe sent 24 elephants from Hwange National Park to China. Photos showed baby elephants -- some as young as two -- with signs of distress, injury and abuse.

They’ve done it before, and they’ll continue to do it unless we take action.

We need to protect elephants from this horrible fate.

Please, rush a donation to Save Animals Facing Extinction to help our efforts to save elephants:

http://go.saveanimalsfacingextinction.org/Save-Elephants-Now

In Defense of Animals
The Winners and Losers in International Wildlife Trade at CITES. Illegal trafficking in wildlife parts is an estimated $19 to $23 billion dollar criminal industry, responsible for driving plant and animal species to extinction in the cruelest of ways, and plundering ecosystems into ruin. Fortunately, the 183 member nations who have agreed to be bound by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) wrapped up their triennial meeting on October 5, and decided to add protections to hundreds of species in trouble. CITES protects animals by regulating trade across borders. But CITES could have, and should have done much more. READ MORE