After the recent airing of a CBS Assignment America piece by Steve Hartman, many of you were seeking clarification.
The statement that has caused confusion is toward the end of the piece when I seem to say that elephants don’t need people or human interaction. The sound bite was an excerpt from an interview done two years earlier for the Tarra and Bella story.
If there had been more time for the expansion of my statement, you would have heard me say something like…..“Elephants don’t benefit from public visitation by strangers. But elephants thrive on relationships with caregivers with whom they form deep bonds.”
The media has limited time to report on any single subject, which can result in misunderstandings. Without a doubt, Steve Hartman knows of Tarra’s capacity to bond with another individual of a different species. He was the one who first introduced Tarra and Bella’s endearing relationship to the world.
My intention for the Sanctuary was to provide a rich captive environment for elephant rehabilitation: an environment where elephants have autonomy, can rediscover themselves and form deep bonds with others.
The Sanctuary is not the wild; caregivers are an essential part of the equation. The goal is to train caregivers how to develop sincere relationships with the elephants. The deeper the relationship between the elephant and caregiver, the more effective the caregiver can be in his/her job. Without a deep and respectful relationship, the caregiver could be a source of stress for the elephant.
The “people” I referred to in my comment are strangers. Of course elephants living in captivity will form strong bonds with their caregivers. It is an elephant’s nature to form deep relationships with other herd members. For elephants in captivity their relationships extend to the caregivers who provide for them on a daily basis. Caregivers are an elephant’s extended family and their relationships should be strong and healthy.
Provided that an elephant in captivity lives in a healthy environment with ample space, the freedom to make his/her own choices, other individuals to bond with and access to an abundance of live vegetation, s/he doesn’t need the distraction of and interaction with strangers. (Some zoo and circus elephants live in such a deprived environment that they benefit from such distraction and interaction.) Elephants in healthy environments thrive on mutually respectful long-term relationships with elephants and other individuals they consider members of their family.
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