Ned

I try to limit my soapboxes to just a few issues, because otherwise I overreach myself. One of the top news stories for today is the trainer killed at Sea World. I've watched some of the video, and the killer whale responsible was shown isolated in a tank barely deep enough to be fully submerged. While the death is tragic, one has to wonder how this didn't happen sooner. Animal are not meant to be kept in a cage the size of a prison cell.

I developed a fondness for elephants after discovering that they have an ability to feel grief, and will travel hundreds of miles to visit the graves of loved ones, ritually caressing bones, or even visiting long after there is nothing left. However, my fondness turned into a soapbox when I first saw Ned.

Ned was an Asian elephant who was seized by the USDA in 2008. He was a captive-born elephant, sold from circus to circus, until someone reported that his owners were starving him. In November of 2008, he was seized from the circus and trucked to the Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee for temporary placement until he was well enough to move to a permanent home. You see, Ned, at 7260 pounds, was nearly a ton underweight.

I have watched the video of him first stepping off the truck and slowly lumbering to his new barn over and over again, and each time I am aghast at how thin he is. You should not be able to see an elephant's shoulder blades. I immediately gave as much as I could afford to the sanctuary, specifically to help pay his caregivers' salaries, and every week or so, I checked the Sanctuary diary to watch his progress.

Sadly, hope and prayer cannot cure everything, especially an underweight elephant. Ned would make some progress, gain a little bit of weight, have a good day wandering around his yard, trumpeting to the resident females on the other side of the fence and playing with his caregivers, only to turn his nose up at food the next day as Sanctuary vets struggled to find out what was wrong with him.

One day in May of 2009, Ned's caregivers entered his barn to find him lying down. They did everything they could, sitting with him around the clock, giving him anything that would ease his pain and discomfort, and on May 15th, Ned transitioned from this world, on the heels of one of his sister elephants at the Sanctuary. He was only 21 years old.

His necropsy showed that he was suffering from an incurable illness at the time of his seizure, due to his life in captivity. 

Studies on elephants, particularly in captivity as well as in the wild, have proven their ability to suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Baby elephants who have seen their families killed have woken up screaming from nightmares, and elephants in captivity who move constantly, separated from what few friends they can make, develop foot problems, can lash out at trainers, and are often seen displaying rocking behavior. An elephant at the Sanctuary, named Winkie, accidentally killed her caregiver in a PTSD episode, and displayed remorseful behavior immediately following. The family of the caregiver and the Sanctuary were adamant that Winkie should continue life at the Sanctuary, and the caregiver was buried on the Sanctuary grounds.

Knowing what I know about elephants and other animals in captivity, I cannot in good faith support any wild animal, particularly elephants, in captivity. I am by no means a card-carrying member of PETA, but I know why animals shouldn't be kept in a cage.  I am sorry for the family of the trainer who was killed, and I hope that those who can make these decisions realize that maybe they should change the way they do things at zoos, circuses, and theme parks.