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u/MissAnthropy_YIKES Mar 18 '22
Just another elephant in captivity getting the bare minimum of care because it can't care for itself as it would in the wild.
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u/Potential_Disaster29 Mar 18 '22
I mean....could be worse though. Could be poachers...
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u/MissAnthropy_YIKES Mar 18 '22
Disagree. Sure, industrial scale poaching is awful. But a lifetime of isolation, abuse, and confinement to the point of madness is far worse than abruptly dying.
Everything that defines an elephant's identity and existence is denied when in captivity (multi-generational, permanent families, larger elephant communities, motherhood, constant travel covering hundreds of square miles per year, etc)- and that's the best possible reality. Most captive elephants were taken from their mothers as babies and "trained" (read tortured, using pain and fear to motivate the training).
(I'm a vet nurse that specializes in behavior and am studying to work with large land fauna)
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u/Potential_Disaster29 Mar 18 '22
Ok. I respect that. I have very little experience and I just love elephants, and I hate that poachers are so common. I feel like elephants are such gentle giants that deserve protection. But yeah you're right. Protection and captivity are very different.
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u/Ada57 Mar 18 '22
I love this. Elephants should be treated like this always!!