Bring our Malaysian Elephants Home

Title:

Bring Them Home: A Global Plea to End the Solitary Confinement of Malaysia's Displaced Elephants

To:

• The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability (NRES), Malaysia  
  
• Department of Wildlife and National Parks (PERHILITAN), Malaysia
• The Directorates of Tashkent Zoo (Uzbekistan), 
• Kyoto City Zoo (Japan), 
• Fukuyama City Zoo (Japan),   
  
• Tulsa Zoo (USA)

The Plea

We are voicing a collective, global cry for justice for five forgotten souls: Putri, Cik Ubi, Fukuchan, Billy, and Rosie. These are Malaysian Asian Elephants, born to roam the lush, vibrant rainforests of their homeland. Instead, they were bartered away under the guise of diplomacy and education, scattered across the globe into a life of profound, unnatural isolation.

Elephants are sentient, deeply emotional, and fiercely matriarchal beings. In the wild, they survive on community, touch, and shared wisdom. To sentence an elephant to live without its own kind is to sentence it to psychological execution.

Today, we demand that the Malaysian government initiate diplomatic repatriation protocols, and we call upon the international holding zoos to release these majestic animals to accredited sanctuaries where they can finally touch the earth, feel the companionship of their own species, and heal.

THE FACTS:  FIVE LIVES IN ISOLATION

PUTRI (Tashkent Zoo, Uzbekistan): Sent away in 2005. Since her companion Putra tragically died from a heart attack in 2014, Putri has spent over a decade utterly alone in a harsh, concrete enclosure, enduring freezing Uzbek winters far from the tropical warmth she belongs in.   

CIK UBI / MITO (Kyoto City Zoo, Japan): Transferred in 1979. Cik Ubi is one of the longest-serving casualties of wildlife diplomacy. She has spent nearly half a century in confinement, completely severed from her native habitat.  

FUKUCHAN (Fukuyama City Zoo, Japan): A survivor who has weathered severe health crises, including a debilitating battle with tuberculosis. Her solitary confinement in a small enclosure compromises her physical and mental recovery every single day.   

BILLY (Tulsa Zoo, USA): Sent to the United States in 1989. After decades of public outcry over his cramped concrete conditions at the Los Angeles Zoo, he was moved to Tulsa in 2025. Yet, he remains confined within the zoo system. Billy deserves true sanctuary, not another enclosure. 
ROSIE (United States): An aging Malaysian-born elephant navigating her twilight years in a foreign climate, far from the native soil of the land that birthed her.

Our Demand:

We call upon the Malaysian Ministry of NRES and PERHILITAN to step up, review these historical transfers, and formally request the repatriation of these elephants. We demand that the holding zoos cooperate with international wildlife organizations to transition these five elephants to authentic, non-zoo sanctuaries.

Bring them home. End their isolation!

 Putri has been living completely alone in Tashkent Zoo since 2004. Elephants suffer mentally from isolation. We ask Tashkent Zoo to release Putri to a natural sanctuary in Malaysia. End her isolation and bring her home!

Cik Ubi (Mito) at Kyoto City Zoo and Fukuchan at Fukuyama City Zoo continue to endure loneliness in cramped enclosures. Elephants are social, sensitive creatures. We call on Japanese zoos to return them to a sanctuary in their homeland of Malaysia. End their solitary confinement!

For the United States (Targeting Tulsa Zoo & US Advocates)

English: Billy and Rosie have spent decades displaced in the US zoo system. Billy's 2025 move to Tulsa is not enough"zoo captivity is not a substitute for a true sanctuary. We demand the immediate transition of Billy and Rosie to accredited, expansive wildlife sanctuaries where they can live free from confinement in a concrete environment. 

Bahasa Malaysia :

Putri, Cik Ubi, Fukuchan, Billy, and Rosie adalah Khazanah Negara yang dihantar pulang lalu hidup kesepian dan terasing di luar negara. Kami mendesak pihak NRES dan PERHILITAN untuk bertindak segera menggunakan saluran diplomatik bagi membawa pulang gajah-gajah ini ke santuari semulajadi. Hentikan pengasingan kejam ini! #BawaMerekaPulang #SelamatkanGajahMalaysia