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This year is a very special one
for the Born Free Foundation because this year,
thirty years ago was the death
of a young teenage elephant that we knew quite well
called Pole Pole. She had
bean in film that my husband Bill
was making in Kenya called 'An elephant called Slowly'. When filming was
over, about six or seven weeks later we asked
if we could buy her from the government and give her
to the Sheldricks so that she could join
the two juvenile elephants they had, to be one day
returned to the wild. And we were told that we could,
but that they would have to capture
another little elephant from its family in the wild,
and of course that was out of the question.
So, this poor little elephant came
to London Zoo where she lived
for about 14 years, the last years
quite alone, and then...
Although I tried to find a home where she could be returned to the wild and I
did find one in South Africa
the zoo was not willing really to discuss it but they did say
they would move her to Whipsnade, where she would have elephant
companionship. Unfortunately, this move
failed, she collapsed in her travelling create where she'd been standing for many
hours.
She was looked at under anaesthetic because she damaged her leg
and wherever they might have been other reasons as well
she was actually then, put down. But we were determined that
her death would not be in vein and so we began
our very little charity in 1984, then called 'Zoo Check', now
Born Free Foundation. And why we've come here
to Belgrade Zoo is because in this
zoo there is another solitary elephant, an Asian elephant,
also captured from the wild when she was small,
and who moved around a series of zoos in Europe,
five of them in the UK, until finally,
over twenty years later, she's been here for over 20 years in Belgrade
Zoo.
17 of those on her own.
Well, we all know the nature of
elephants don't we, and what torture that would be,
a female elephant on her own? And that's why we've come here because,
we found, in fact, there are over 40 elephants
alone in European facilities,
captive facilities, and we've chosen Twiggy
the young elephant here as an example of that.
So, please come with me
into the zoo, and we will go and look
at how Twiggy is, where she lives,
and to see if she's coping with her captive solitary life.
I can see her,
I can see Twiggy.
1,2,3,4,5,6 peacocks,
hooded crows, all sorts of birds
wandering on her grass.
Hey Twiggy!
Breaks your heart really,
to see this beautiful animal so isolated
from everything, in
what should be her normal life. No friends, no family,
communication,
freedom to eat when she felt like it.
What I'd really like to
point out, is this enclosure
which to a lot of peoples eyes might look
quite nice, it's got grass etc.. But, may I just suggest you
realise that the grass is very short,
she can't pluck it, she can't do anything with it.
She doesn't walk across it very much, she sticks
to the outside concrete area of this compound.
There is no natural shade.
There's nothing for her to do,
she has no logs to move about,
branches to pick up and put down.
She's
got no purpose, I would have say that, having lived alone for
seventeen years in this area. I would say it's a pretty
dismal life. It's not all concrete,
but she has worn a path in a circle around here.
I think it's the
lack of purpose and fulfillment that makes it the saddest.
When you think of elephants in the wild,
their family relationships, their emotional needs,
their interaction with each other, their communication,
the care they give to their young and their old,
their loyalty to family. None of these aspects
of elephant life can be fulfilled for Twiggy.
None at all.
I'll never forget her.
She symbolises all that
is wrong with the keeping of elephants in captivity.
Rob, it's so lovely to have you here, with all your knowledge and wisdom about
animals and particularly elephants in this case. Can you tell me a bit
more about your background working with elephants in captivity?
It all goes back to 1982 to my first
job was at London Zoo, and I worked as a keeper on a lot of the mammal
sections, including elephants, so I worked with Pole Pole.
I had the privilege of knowing her so a year or so, before she passed.
So you knew what really happened?
Yes, it was, it was a tragedy
I think the zoo thought it was a tragedy too.
Like many zoos, they'd got themselves into a situation they couldn't get out of.
It's interesting to think
30 years on, whether there are other elephants in a similar situation and whether we're going to
see going to something
of that sort today. But certainly after I left London Zoo I
went into academia for many years, and then came out
and again worked with elephants, this time at a safari park in England,
where we had three beautiful little Asian elephants
and it was there that I started to get concerned about the way elephants
were being kept. I was too young and naive when I worked at London Zoo to fully realise
what was going on, but I did when I was older and it was
that that made me really start to focus on
elephant welfare and the way that elephants were being kept in captivity.
I then went to work at
the R.S.P.C.A., of the first things I did was set up
a project and look at the welfare of elephants in zoos, that was back in 2002
and that's been rumbling on ever since.
I think the focus on elephants has become much more intense
public much more aware about elephants needs, much more aware about the problems that elephants have in captivity
and because the people like Born Free, who are able to bring it to the
attention of the public, it's been what I hope
are some improvements, but I think in the scale of things, we've got a long way to go.
Elephants are family animals, they feel things, they care, they love their
families, they look after the old and the young, and here we have this elephant in
a zoo all by itself she's got no young or old to care for.
She's got no companionship or communication, and maybe that's
strengthening the view of the public and how they
view elephants in captivity, do you think?
I do. I think
there've been some wonderful people working in Africa
and in Asia who've brought elephant knowledge
to the public. But really,
we've known that elephants live in social groups
and that they traveled big distances and eat huge amounts of food,
over a long period of the day and
they communicate over miles and we've known that for a long time.
And yet it's taking a long time for that to settle into the minds of the people
who hold them captive.
You've spent, I don't know how long in Africa, on and off,
over many decades now, you've seen
herds of elephants, how would you summarise the
major difference between wild elephants and the ones that
you're seeing in a typical zoo.
Well, elephants in the wild are being the kind of animals that they are
in an unrestricted way, providing they're not poached and
harassed. They are
supreme communicators within the group,
the local group, as in the families and the long distance.
Their sensitivity, their communication through their feet
ultrasound and all that long distances, in the zoo
there's nothing to communicate with, so
a lot of their natural behaviors and instincts
are totally suppressed.
I feel such pity for,
well, to be honest with you most animals
in captivity, because they're not leading the natural life for which they were born.
But, elephants with their intelligence and their sensitivity and their understanding
and their loyalty to each other or emotional life,
all the complexity of their nature, mostly
always repressed and virtually eliminated when
they're in a captive situation. But. with elephants there is
concrete proof the effect of that, as you were talking about,
wild nature has been suppressed and the consequences of that
and in elephants it comes out in a number of ways. For a start, walking on
substrates that they're not made
walk-on concrete all the time, they have terrible foot problems, standing their own urine for hours,
they wouldn't do it in the wild. Many, many elephants have
died through foot disease.
Joint illness in circus elephants, because they're made to do unnatural postures.
But also, as you know,
elephant mothers are wonderful mothers, they don't kill their young in the wild,
but they do in captivity. And they have still births, a huge number of elephants
are born dead because...
...who knows why?
That's a rarity in the wild as well.
Babies are dying before they're a year old, the figures are huge in captivity
which is unheard of again if the wild. If they survive their 1st year
they're living half as long as they would, even in a logging camp
in Burma. One can imagine that that's probably not an idyllic
situation but it's still better than captivity.
People ask me, 'why can't you rescue this elephant and take it somewhere else, so a sanctuary or something?',
if only! Because, first of all
where is there a sanctuary they can be taken to? There are sanctuaries in
the United States, we know, but there are none in Europe.
Well, wonderful if someone would start a sanctuary in Europe
to rescue solitary elephants. But, what's the guarantee
the that empty space, in that zoo, where
the rescued elephant has come from, won't then be occupied by
another elephant that's been either caught from the wild, or brought from another zoo?
It's no good making space for the same thing to go on,
so it's a very multi-pronged task isn't it?
It's very complicated & very difficult.
I'm not making excuses, and no-one would want more than us
to actually have somewhere we could take these amazing animals who've suffered
enough. No, it's very difficult. I mean, circuses and
zoos are institutions with
hundreds of years of history behind them, and it's difficult to change
that around, just in a
few short years. I think there is the beginning of
some sort change, and I also know that where there's a will there's a way.
We don't yet have enough
will,
but I'm I'm still hopeful and I think it's down to
people like... people support Born Free, other organizations
to engage in positive conversations with
zoos & circuses to say, 'We know what elephants need,
everybody don't knows what elephants need, and we don't see you meeting those needs!'