Mozambique’s Niassa National Reserve could be home to tens of thousands of elephants. Or the elephant population there could be zero. The choice is ours.
The problems facing African elephants and other iconic species around the world have not disappeared. Traffickers still deal in ivory. Forests are still being whittled away. We can’t let the programs we have in place to help get taken, either.
Urge your representative to cosponsor the WILD Act. The bill supports several measures essential to saving endangered animals.
An elephant was starved to death in Cambodia as punishment for his “bad behavior” by an owner who refused to feed him for a month. The elephant, named Beong Kok, was 35 years old. He got loose in March, sparking anger by running through a village. When he was caught by his enraged owner two days later, the owner refused to feed him so that he would be too weak to behave unpredictably.
Although houses in the village were damaged when Beong Kok was loose, a worker with the local elephant conservationist group reports that there were no injuries. Witnesses to the cruel treatment of Beong Kok say that the elephant gave up and died on the side of the road after trying and failing multiple times to get to his feet. By the time wildlife workers found him, it was too late. This abuse must not be allowed to stand. Sign to demand punishment for this unacceptable cruelty and justice for Beong Kok.
Elephants have long been treated inhumanely in the interest of human entertainment. The most recent instance of elephant mistreatment comes from HBO and the producers of the popular sci-fi series “Westworld.” Instead of using technology to create realistic looking elephants for the show, producers felt the need to use two real elephants in a recent episode.
Before arriving on the set of “Westworld,” these innocent elephants were subjected to horrific abuse by the elephant trainer and supplier Have Trunk Will Travel. Shocking footage taken by Animal Defenders International (ADI) during their 2013 undercover investigation of the elephant company shows the animals being brutally beaten with bullhooks and shocked with stun guns. The elephants can be heard screaming out in pain as they are subjected to this horrifically torturous “training.” Read more here.
