I’ve known about The Elephant Sanctuary in rural western Tennessee for some time, though it’s not open to the public: it’s near where some friends of mine live, and in fact they helped build the fence around the huge site. But I was reminded about the important work the organization is doing by a piece that was running on CNN over this past weekend (you can see the online version of the story here): Sanctuary founders Carol Buckley and Scott Blais have just finished a rescue of a group of pachyderms from the Hawthorn Corporation, which had abused and mistreated creatures in its supposed care.
It’s best just to let the Sanctuary explain its mission:
Operating on 2,700 acres in Hohenwald, Tennessee, The Elephant Sanctuary has been developed specifically to meet the needs of endangered African and Asian elephants. The nonprofit organization, licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, is designed specifically for old, sick or needy elephants that have been retired from zoos and circuses. A true sanctuary, The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee is not intended to provide entertainment; resident elephants are not required to perform for or entertain the public. Instead, they are encouraged to live like elephants. As stated by Phil Snyder, former regional director of the Humane Society of the United States, “The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee represents the future of enlightened captive elephant management.”
The story on CNN was heartbreaking, if also happy: I can’t understand how anyone could see these smart, social beings greet one another, some after being separated for years from other elephants they’d previously known, and doubt that there is emotion and consciousness at work. Perhaps that emotion and consciousness are not exactly like ours, but they're there nevertheless, and as far as I’m concerned, the further up the consciousness scale an animal is, the more approaching a crime it is to take them from their homes and force them into unnatural lives, like performing in a circus. Buckley and Blais have come up with what is perhaps the next best thing to being left alone for these elephants, particularly when returning them from where they were taken is out of the question: they have plenty of room to roam, to chose their own food, to chose their own company... and they’re free to make their own decisions, which must be the most liberating thing for an intelligent and self-aware creature.
The Elephant Sanctuary Web site is a geeky treasure, and features an Elecam, a live Webcam that lets you see the animals without disturbing them. You can also see and buy prints of beautiful and mysterious prints of original art by one of the elephants, Tarra. Also: many, many cool pictures of elephants frolicing in the snow, playing with the dogs, and generally behaving pretty geekily themselves.
Sorta off topic, but one of the reasons why The Elephant Sanctuary touches me so much: I do believe that if we’re ever going to have any hope of talking to whatever possible extraterrestial aliens we might meet someday, we’re going to have to figure out how to communicate a lot better with animals like whales, dolphins, and elephants. Whatever elephants may have to say to us, it may turn out to be a little bit nicer than it might otherwise have been thanks to Buckley and Blais.
Oh, for pete’s sake, go buy a T-shirt or something.
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