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Endangered Animals Pictures Biography
Located 25 miles from Denver on a plot of land encompassing 53 square miles (twice the size of Manhattan), sits one of the most curious airpots in the world, The Denver International Airport. Leo and I had a long layover at the airport last weekend. As we walked around, we couldn't help but notice that something about this place isn't right. So I did some digging.
Stoney the elephant was born in Cambodia in 1973, captured for the circus industry in the U.S., and died after an injury in a windowless warehouse behind a Las Vegas hotel-casino in 1995. His story, and that of Big Mary, an elephant hanged in the U.S. in 1916 for killing a human, make the bulk of this heavily-annotated exploration of the world of animal training, importation and selling for the entertainment industry.
Stoney's is a hard story to read, as it was, according to the author, to write. It is the tale not only of the elephant who died young and never knew a proper life in the wild, but of the people who persecuted him and those who appreciated him, the regulators, the ignorant indifferent public, and the activists who tried to help him. They held a funeral for Stoney after his death and now his story is not staying in Vegas, as Jaynes brings out the whole sorry saga, lest we forget.
Elephants are getting more attention these days as we realize that their numbers are dwindling (due to poaching, culling and drought) to unsustainable levels, and that their minds and social organization are complex and nuanced beyond our earlier assumptions and wildest guesses. Orphaned elephants are being rescued by a few sanctuaries in Africa, but elephant society is intensely communal, the matriarchs are dying off and only inexperienced females are trying to keep their families going in hostile circumstances. Meanwhile, captives like Lucy in Edmonton and other zoo and circus elephants around the world languish in agonizing isolation and loneliness, while the public and politicians turn away. Have we left this emergency until it is too late?
Elephants Among Us: Two Performing Elephants in 20th Century America, by M. Jaynes. Earth Books, 2013 (978-1780997063 - coming in May - www.earth-books.net)
To help you sustain a sense of hope, go to the website for the California-based organization Performing Animal Welfare Society, showing its sanctuaries and rescued individual animals: www.pawsweb.org.
Says PAWS: "A wildlife sanctuary is a place of refuge where abused, injured and abandoned captive wildlife may live in peace and dignity for the remainder of their lives."
Endangered Animals Pictures Biography
Located 25 miles from Denver on a plot of land encompassing 53 square miles (twice the size of Manhattan), sits one of the most curious airpots in the world, The Denver International Airport. Leo and I had a long layover at the airport last weekend. As we walked around, we couldn't help but notice that something about this place isn't right. So I did some digging.
Stoney the elephant was born in Cambodia in 1973, captured for the circus industry in the U.S., and died after an injury in a windowless warehouse behind a Las Vegas hotel-casino in 1995. His story, and that of Big Mary, an elephant hanged in the U.S. in 1916 for killing a human, make the bulk of this heavily-annotated exploration of the world of animal training, importation and selling for the entertainment industry.
Stoney's is a hard story to read, as it was, according to the author, to write. It is the tale not only of the elephant who died young and never knew a proper life in the wild, but of the people who persecuted him and those who appreciated him, the regulators, the ignorant indifferent public, and the activists who tried to help him. They held a funeral for Stoney after his death and now his story is not staying in Vegas, as Jaynes brings out the whole sorry saga, lest we forget.
Elephants are getting more attention these days as we realize that their numbers are dwindling (due to poaching, culling and drought) to unsustainable levels, and that their minds and social organization are complex and nuanced beyond our earlier assumptions and wildest guesses. Orphaned elephants are being rescued by a few sanctuaries in Africa, but elephant society is intensely communal, the matriarchs are dying off and only inexperienced females are trying to keep their families going in hostile circumstances. Meanwhile, captives like Lucy in Edmonton and other zoo and circus elephants around the world languish in agonizing isolation and loneliness, while the public and politicians turn away. Have we left this emergency until it is too late?
Elephants Among Us: Two Performing Elephants in 20th Century America, by M. Jaynes. Earth Books, 2013 (978-1780997063 - coming in May - www.earth-books.net)
To help you sustain a sense of hope, go to the website for the California-based organization Performing Animal Welfare Society, showing its sanctuaries and rescued individual animals: www.pawsweb.org.
Says PAWS: "A wildlife sanctuary is a place of refuge where abused, injured and abandoned captive wildlife may live in peace and dignity for the remainder of their lives."
Endangered Animals Pictures
Endangered Animals Pictures
Endangered Animals Pictures
Endangered Animals Pictures
Endangered Animals Pictures
Endangered Animals Pictures
Endangered Animals Pictures
Endangered Animals Pictures
Endangered Animals Pictures
Endangered Animals Pictures
Endangered Animals Pictures
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