It's hard to find someone who doesn't appreciate the elephant, the largest land mammal on earth with the biggest brain, and the longest gestation period, an animal known for its sense of family, its empathy, its memory, and for being damn cuddly to boot. Yet we humans consistently sanction the murder of (primarily African) elephants for (primarily) their ivory, at a rate faster than new elephants are born, and we capture Asian elephants to use for hard labor or so-called "entertainment." Through deforestation and other destructions, we have also decreased their natural habitat in Asia by up to 95%. As a result, where there were 100,000 Asian elephants in Thailand alone only 50 years ago, there are now just 4,000, out of a population of only 40,000 Asian elephants across the entire continent. One out of every three of these Asian elephants is in captivity.

Patricia Sims has documented the plight of captive Asian elephants across two documentaries, Return To The Forest (2012) and When Elephants Were Young (2016). Both films were narrated by William Shatner, and the first led Sims to launch World Elephant Day, which takes place on August 12 every year. Speaking from her home in British Columbia, Canada, Sims talks to One Step Beyond host Tony Fletcher about why these beautiful animals are a "keystone species," about the complex historical reasons so many are kept in captivity, and about programs that seek to return captive elephants into their natural habitat, so that they can once again be free to roam, maintaining the ecosystems on which we all rely.

Please visit https://tonyfletcher.substack.com/p/everyone-loves-elephants-so-how-do for full YouTube videos/links etc. as listed below.

Links:

World Elephant Day

World Elephant Day YouTube channel

Return to the Forest

When Elephants Were Young

The Elephant Queen

Tony and Noel Fletcher's Vlog on their "Government Elephant Ride" in Chitwan National Park, Nepal, 2016 is here

Ze Franks on "True Elephant Facts" at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvOr1-P6XR8

https://unitedforwildlife.org/news/10-amazing-elephant-facts-need-know

https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/elephant

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant

For more information on this and Tony's other podcasts, and to subscribe for weekly culture updates and a long-form weekend article, visit https://tonyfletcher.substack.com/

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