Category: nature

animal welfare
A Journey with Elephants By Greg Vogt – Conservation Guardians

Chapter 1: The awakening

Thandora – part 3

Moral dilemma

It was at that moment that I knew my life was about to change. The moment I reported that I knew a plan was going down to take young elephants from their mothers to enter the tourism industry, I would be targeted. I knew that at some stage I was going to report the facts that I knew of and that hell would follow this. I would be accused, threatened, and emotionally assaulted by the culprits when they found out that I was the whistleblower.

This one simple example is representative of how some of the places get wild elephants into captive environments.

Not all of them, but some of them.

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elephant in captivity
A Journey with Elephants By Greg Vogt – Conservation Guardians

Chapter 1: The awakening

Thandora – part 2

After six years of working intimately with captive elephants, interacting with some of the world’s top vets, meeting leading elephant researchers and being invited to write the code of conduct for captive wild elephants in South Africa, I thought I had a grasp on the subject.

Thandora however taught me otherwise.

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elephant in captivity
A Journey with Elephants By Greg Vogt – Conservation Guardians

Chapter 1: The awakening

Thandora

For six years I had been waking up before the sun rose and my day began working with elephants. These were captive elephants, elephants that each had their own story, but no voice to tell this story to the world.

I had however been hearing their story being told by others for fifteen years.

Sadly in the year I was introduced to Thandora I had chosen to step away from working in this industry.

Thandora grazing in the fynbos (Cape Floral Kindom). A beautiful site for us humans to see, but is it really what Thandora wanted? Grazing and browsing for her was hard work for very little reward.

 

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