Worth a Thousand Words
The title of the article is “Abused elephant rescued by Wildlife S.O.S.” The caption under the picture of the elderly elephant with tears streaming from his eyes reads “Raju cried as he was freed from 50 years of cruelty; he was delivered to freedom to the Elephant Conservation and Care Centre at Mathura, India.” The first few paragraphs of the article, by David Strege of GrindTV Outdoor, say:
Under the cover of darkness, a team from London-based Wildlife S.O.S rescued an elephant that had been abused for 50 years in India and transported it 350 miles to an elephant sanctuary where it walked free for the first time on July 4th.
Raju, believed to have been poached from his mother as a baby, was beaten and left bleeding from painful spiked leg shackles by an abusive owner who had the elephant beg for handouts and survive by eating plastic and paper for food.
The owner also tore out hair from Raju’s tail to sell as good luck charms, Wildlife S.O.S. founder Kartick Satyanarayan told the U.K. MailOnline.
A year after learning of Raju’s plight, Wildlife S.O.S. last week led a team of 10 veterinarians and wildlife officials, 20 forestry department officers and six policemen, and seized the abused elephant from the Uttar Pradesh area of India, after receiving a court order.
“The team [was] astounded to see tears roll down his face during the rescue,” Pooja Binepal, a spokesman for Wildlife S.O.S., told the MailOnline. “It was so incredibly emotional for all of us. We knew in our hearts he realized he was being freed.
The ending of this story, though happy, isn’t as good as it should be. The poacher/abuser apparently has not been beaten and left bleeding from painful spiked leg shackles and forced to beg for handouts and to survive by eating plastic and paper for food. Yet.
I have faith in Karma. The keeper will get his, sooner rather than later, I suspect. NancyO
“Men tend to have the beliefs that suit their passions. Cruel men believe in a cruel God, and use their belief to excuse their cruelty. Only kindly men believe in a kindly God, and they would be kindly in any case.”
-Bertrand Russell in London Calling (1947), p. 18
So true.
Digsby Version.http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2014/07/innocents.html
<i?The poacher/abuser apparently has not been beaten and left bleeding from painful spiked leg shackles and forced to beg for handouts and to survive by eating plastic and paper for food.
A bit too Old Testementarian for my taste.
Andrew Sullivan (“The Dish”) had a post on this yesterday, and a picture of another elephant with tears running.
I recall a TV video, I think on “60 Minutes” years ago of a mother and daughter elephant (circus animals) being re-united on a sanctuary farm in the southern U.S. after being apart for about 20 years. The mother elephant was in the forest when the daughter arrived and when she approached the main buildings where the elephants are washed and fed she began making a moaning sound. The two jogged towards each other and leaned into each other.
I recall another PBS science show (either “Nova” or “Discovery”, I forget which) which showed a bunch of experiments on animal intelligence. In one, a bunch of bananas was hung from a cloths-line above a chimp enclosure, higher than the chimpanzees could get to by normal means. Two wooden crates and a broom were then placed in the enclosure. One of the chimps stacked the two crates on top of each other so their longest sides were vertical, climbed on top, and could just reach the bananas with a broom.
The narrator then interviewed a skeptic of animal intelligence, who said the experiment proved nothing – the chimp could be copying something similar which she had seen before – that a valid experiment would have to use items which the chimps had never seen before to do something which no chimp had ever seen done. I wondered to myself if the skeptic could pass such a test himself.
Jim V
i gave up “science” after having to listen to too many such skeptics.
anyone who has a dog…who is not a fool… knows that animals have creative intelligence. i’d tell you stories, but better you should find out for yourself.
Jazz
you are right, but none of us has the power to inflict old testament [unishmetn so expressions of desire to do so are simply poetry or therapy. i am a new testament sort of person myself, so i have an excuse to give myself when i do not intervene in such cases. otherwise i would suspect myself of cowardice.
We are an arrogant species, aren’t we? I saw the video of the mother and daughter reunited, and it was amazing!
A friend of mine grew up in the circus life , (a small circus, not Ringling Brothers). She has great love and respect for elephants and will tell anyone who’ll listen about how awesome they are, how intelligent, gentle and loving.
I wonder if man will ever reach such a stature?