“Do we have the right to preside over the suffering of intelligent animals for our own entertainment and pleasure, whether or not they represent ambassadors for their free-living cousins?

“How much mental and physical suffering by individual elephants is tolerable in exchange for a measure of conservation support generated? And, is the keeping of several hundred elephants in shamefully confined spaces an acceptable way to educate the public and prevent the extinction of free-ranging elephants?”

“We only need watch the tip of an elephant’s trunk, the posture of its ears and the angle of its head to gain a window into its actively engaged mind. In the wild, everything elephants do is an intellectual challenge: locating and manipulating a wide variety of food items; remembering the location of water during a drought; searching for potential mates; deciding where to go, who to go with, who to join and who to avoid.”

“What happens to the psychological and physical well-being of such intelligent creatures when we remove the need to search for or manipulate widely dispersed and diverse food items? Or when we eliminate the multifaceted demands of being part of a large social network in a complex and fluid society?”

From: Mind and Movement: Meeting The Interest of Elephants.

Let’s end captivity for all elephants. Let’s stop enslaving elephants for entertainment and “education.”

Elephants are not a form of entertainment or a photo prop.

Let’s give our elephants some dignity.

It’s our responsibility.

Let’s start locally.

Act now.