"LOOKING OUT THROUGH JAIL BARS, SEARCHING FOR COMFORT… (with thanks to Sharon Pincott)
I can’t tell you how distressing photographs like this from China are, of some of the young elephants that left Hwange, Zimbabwe, on their ‘flight to hell’ on the night before Christmas Eve."
Some of the elephants uplifted are probably not even 3 years old. Torn from their wonderful normal wild life with their mother close by and their herd there to protect them - except they couldn't protect their children this time around, thanks to man's savagery and greed.
China, you need to realise that these are highly intelligent animals with deep family bonds; with females who stay in their natal families for their entire lives. Elephants grieve their missing and dead in a similar way to what we do. How can you not care? Baby elephants torn from their mothers are known to wake up screaming in the middle of night, suffering nightmares.
It is certainly not only activists and those in the West who find this an abomination, I think you will find that more and more of your citizens are realising what a crime this is..
Elephants have an expected lifespan of 75-80 years and, if you think that the environment of a cement cell in a zoo (or whatever other type of "accommodation" is deemed fit for them), living in a climate far removed from what is "normal" for them, is right for ANY BEING to exist for another 65 odd years, then all I can say is that you are heartless and thoughtless.
PLEASE, PLEASE stop this dreadful practice. You are supposedly stopping the sale of ivory products (I hope this isn't already too late) and yet you are buying the very creatures who carry the ivory and are quickly becoming an endangered species here in their African home. Please open your eyes and ears - and, hopefully, your heart - and stop this.
Update #37 years ago
Thank you so much to those who have signed and shared, please will you continue to do so and send tweets as well. I have today written to Premier Li of China advising him of the petition and that the current signatures number 1310 (I desperately need a lot more) and asking that this practice of buying wildlife be stopped and that they get their money from Zimbabwe through other means. I will update you here if I hear anything further from him.
Update #27 years ago
Thank you to the 1243 of you who have signed this petition ! Please keep tweeting, sharing and signing so that this isn't allowed to happen again to these poor creatures.
Update #17 years ago
I just wanted to thank all who have signed my Petition for the Zimbabwe wild baby elephants who have been shipped to awful conditions in China. The response has been amazing and I so appreciate your support, thank you, thank you, 837 signed thus far, please let's keep this rolling.
