According to a new report, #elephant poaching levels in Africa continue to outpace elephant birth rates.
Elephants have strong family bonds and share with us many emotions, from grief to compassion and joy. We’re proud to collaborate with actress Li Bingbing to bring awareness to these profound similarities.
Li Bingbing PSA – ‘Hunted’ from WildAid on Vimeo.
Filed under Animal Activism
We met in Tojo Park. She was sitting watching the ducks. I was sitting watching the ducks. We were on opposite sides of the pond. We eyed each other. “I will not let this one get away.” I told myself. I had been alone in Takaoka, Japan for well over a month by myself and I had yet to meet another person who spoke English. I had seen a girl at the train station a few weeks earlier and I had run after her. But she started to run and then she ran harder so I gave up. I had become a stalker without realizing it.
This duck watching girl didn’t want me to go away any more than I wanted her to, so we walked towards each other somewhat hesitantly and greeted each other awkwardly. Then like two hysterical long lost friends we went off to the local western coffee shop where we listened to Elvis and Rock and Roll for the next two hours and we drank endless coffees with free refills and ate donuts with elaborate iced western scenarios on top of them. I loved her instantly. Her name was Kerry Robinson and she came from Australia. Our first date was at the Californian restaurant where we ate Japanese style tacos and drank cheap Japanese wine. We got very drunk and they had to ask us to leave when the restaurant closed for the night.
We spent one entire year together living in this little town which had been sold to me as the Switzerland of the Orient. It was kind of. Not really. It had mountains. But Kerry and I spent a year there together. She was trying to figure life out and so was I. She had a boyfriend in Australia who called a suitcase a ”port” and it made her crazy. We talked endlessly and sometimes she worried that she would lose her Australian accent. I assured her she wouldn’t and then for the next few days she had this crazy Oz accent and I was like WHAT THE HELL.
Often we would go to her house which was luxurious compared to mine. By luxurious I mean it was furnished and had a kotatsu, a heated table which helped keep us warm while we drank wine and smoked our brains out. She had asthma and kept her inhaler nearby. I don’t think it mattered because we were both young and didn’t realize we could die yet or that life had any real consequences. And we didn’t care so we just kept on smoking and then taking deep puffs on the inhaler and we’d make plans for our next outings.
We were very different but we loved each other madly and she made a big dent on my life. She made me crazy though. I never met anyone who could walk so slowly. No matter how hard I tried to walk with her inevitably it was just all much too slow for me and before too long we were walking single file until I got a bike and then we would double ride and then she got a bike and we would single file on the bikes.
We always joked about the fact that neither of us had medical insurance. “Don’t worry”, I would say to her smoking one of our millions of cigarettes. “I’ll throw you on the kotatsu and amputate your leg with the kitchen knife. Knock you out with the bottle of Japanese wine.”And then we would kill ourselves laughing because it was never anything else except her leg that we were going to amputate.
At one point we tried different things to become immersed in Japanese culture. I tried flower arranging which lasted two sessions and then I wanted to throw the vase across the room. Someone told us about a local karate teacher whose wife was willing to teach foreigners. So that’s what we did. We studied karate. And it was fun. We were both terrible but our teacher and her daughter ( a 12 year old black belt) were kind and patient with us. Then we decided we should learn Japanese so we started Japanese lessons. We found a teacher who would give us private lessons at her house.
Her house was a free standing modern house that was part of a new suburb that was built in an area surrounded by rice paddies. Kazuko our teacher was a wife and mother and I guess she was also a part time teacher. We went for lessons twice a week. We would ride our bikes there (single file) and park our bikes outside the house. The room where the lessons took place was upstairs and Kerry and I would sit in desks facing the wall where Kazuko would hold court teaching us katakana, then hiragana. We would go over dialogues and she would quizz us, encourage us, laugh with us but always gently guide us back to the important work at hand. There was a window in the classroom that faced the backyard and it was always open.
Although I’m sure Kerry and I went there in winter it seemed like it was always warm and bright in that room with the sweet smell of country air and rice paddies blowing gentle breezes our way. The curtain would lift and fall as the summer came and then went, with Kerry and I practicing and learning until we could manage respectable conversation. Kazuko was determined that we shine. And we did. And then we’d get back on our bikes, Kerry with her crazy hat and the two of us with our matching boots and off we ‘d go laughing the whole way back about how hard that damn language was and did you get how this worked – nope not at all – you. Nope.
But we knew the year was drawing to a close and every day felt more important than the last. And it’s a terrible feeling knowing that you have this short time together with someone and that this experience is going to end. Has to end. The richness of it all is related in some respect to it not being a forever thing.
We said goodbye at the train station. Matching jeans, matching shoes. As nervous saying goodbye as our first hello. We promised to stay in touch. I would come to Australia for a year. She would come to Canada. And we did stay in touch for awhile. A long while. She got a job with Quantas and flew and met me in Amsterdam. And then she came to Toronto. But my life was broken for awhile and I found it hard to maintain the joy of our year away when everything seemed wrong with my current life. And then I heard she had had a baby. Gracie she had called her. And I had hoped that I could overcome the wrongness of my life to embrace the goodness in hers but at that time I couldn’t do it. So we lost touch. And I have no idea where she is. And I look for her all the time. But I think of that year away with her a lot. Of riding our bikes in the rice paddies, eating crazy mile high donuts with icing this big, of sitting getting drunk in California restaurants millions of miles away from home, of reckless cigarette smoking listening to Air Supply, of sitting in the classroom with the wind blowing the sweetest smell of spring into our lives. That was Kerry Robinson. A girl from Sydney Australia. Still my very dear friend wherever she is.
Filed under Random Musing
I have been shocked by the number of people I know who have ridden elephants. I’m even more shocked that they have no of the dark side of animal tourism…those days need to be over. We know too much about so many animals, particularly elephants. The more we know, the less we will support tourism that is based on animal abuse…and hopefully put our money towards appreciating seeing animals in their natural habitat and supporting the communities who are an integral part of this.
Please read this and share:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatlife/11048530/The-dark-side-of-animal-tourism-in-Thailand.html
You can also find a guide to elephant sanctuaries by country right here.
Filed under Animal Activism
If my hands and feet had characters, I would say my hands are the diplomats, the breakers of bread, the lovers of love, the do-gooders, my collaborators. My feet on the other hand are unpredictable rascals. Risk takers? Yes. The occasional mad dancers and the devils in my head? Absolutely. They are the ones that make me take mad flying leaps off cliffs.
As an entirely unpractical person it’s fair to say my feet, those devil may care vehicles of madness, frequently win the argument over the more practical hands and head. So when those feet tell me to jump, I jump.
The nature of the ‘flying leap’ isn’t an every day occurrence but it can be characterized by a disposition. For example, mail box keys aren’t for me, 1) I wouldn’t be able to find the key in any event, 2) if I could find the key, the mail would remain unopened possibly for years on end.
The thing about my feet though is this. They’ve taken me places. I have never regretted seemingly thoughtless responses to my heart. By that I mean – I never regret not planning, or not over thinking. For me over thinking leads me to inaction. And inaction leads me to never taking risks. And I realize I love the risk not for the risk itself but for what it brings. I love the feeling of unexplored and un-mapped territory – a place in my heart that is waiting to be etched by the newness of it all. I know now for certain that I have nothing to lose except the freshness of life.
My rascally feet brought me as a young girl to Vancouver – halfway across the country from my family; they helped me leave my first husband and move away to a foreign Asian country – the downside perhaps being that I barely knew where Japan was and I packed for tropical weather. They led me to interesting work experiences where I had no experience except the will to do it; it lead me to going on a date on Lavalife and meeting the love of my life; it lead me to a barn one day with a pocket full of money and coming home with a gorgeous sick little pup who changed my life; it led me to waking up one night and saying to Dave – I’m going to do something. I’m going to do something which launched my rage against a world that senselessly and mercilessly slaughters animals into something that echoes a battle cry against the growing horrors of injustice. A small committed group of people can change the world. I believe that. So what is next? Who knows I never know what is next. What is next is as unplanned as the vagaries of the heart. But I have my beautiful husband, adventurous feet and increasingly braver heart. I am open to the world.
So ‘thank you’ feet, you naughty rascals. I have no regrets. I can’t wait to find out what’s next.
Filed under Random Musing
Twilight
– Dan Bellm
After the men had
eaten, as always, very
fast, and gone—I thought
of them that way, my
father and brother—the men—
not counting myself
as of their kind—the
time became our own, for talks,
for confidences—
I was one of her,
though I could never be, a
deserter in an
open field between
two camps. Even my high school
said on its billboard,
Give us a boy, and
get back a man, a wager
that allowed for no
exceptions, like an
article of war. Gay child
years away from that
lonely evening of
coming out to her at last,
of telling her what
she knew already
and had waited for, I’d sit
in the kitchen with
her after clearing
the meal away, our hands all
but touching, letting
a little peace fall
around us for the evening,
coffee steaming in
two cups, and try at
ways of being grown, with her
as witness, telling
the truth as I could—
which is how, one night, that room
became a minor,
historically
unrecorded battleground
of the Vietnam
War. I think she knew
before it began how she’d
be left standing in
the middle with her
improvised white flag, mother,
peacemaker, when I
said I refused to
go; never mind how, I’d thought
her very presence,
her mysterious
calm, would neutralize any
opposing force, draft
board, father—it’s not,
we know, how that war came to
pass. For years I’d still
call her at that hour,
the work done and the darkness
coming on, even
all those years when Dad
was the one who’d come to the
phone first, and then not
speak to me. Twilight
times with her, when a secret
or what I thought was
one could fall away
beneath her patient regard,
though I would never
manage to heal her
hurts the way she tended mine—
those crossings-over
to evening when the
in-between of every kind
seemed possible, and
doubt came clear, because
she heard, and understood, and
did not turn away.
–
Alison’s Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Alison-McGhee/119862491361265?ref=ts
Filed under Poem of the Week
I have been shaken out of my reading lull with Emily St. John Mandel’s wild, beautiful book Station Eleven. The book moves back and forth between two very different but related worlds. One world is the world today as we know it and the other is the one that exists after a pandemic kills 99% of the human race.
The book opens in a theatre in Toronto where aging and legendary film actor Arthur Leander plays King Lear for his final time. He suffers a massive heart attack on stage and dies. A member of the audience runs to help him, the same man who years earlier, had as a paparazzi, stalked Leander and his wife Miranda outside his Hollywood mansion. When the paparazzi/medic leaves the theatre he calls a friend who tells him people are dying everywhere – that he should get out as soon as he can.
This last evening marks the end of the ‘old’ world. The new world order picks up with characters whose iives at some point or another have intersected with Arthur’s’ life. By moving back and forth between the old and the new world we not only find out about Arthur’s life but also of those who survived the pandemic.
The new world picks up in year twenty with Kirsten, who is now in her twenties and a survivor of the old world.She had been a child actress in the old world and now travels with a Shakespearean Theatre caravan who roam from settlement to settlement and in between dodge the dangers of a civilization that has become entirely undone. Nothing remains of the old world except ghosts of its former structures, abandoned houses, cars, buildings and airplanes – meals left half eaten, skeletons fully dressed lying in beds, on roads and in cars reminding the survivors of another life and time.
This merry band of artists and actors called the Travelling Symphony travel under the banner “survival is not enough” a line taken directly from Star Trek. As a part of her old world possessions Kirsten has two limited edition comic books in her possession called Station Eleven which tells the story of Dr. Eleven, a physicist who lives on a space station after escaping an alien takeover of Earth. These comics at one time belonged to Miranda Leander, Arthur’s first wife, who was their author.
So what does all this mean? This book is more than just a story of a fading actor and his empty life. It’s more than a dystopic vision of post modern collapse and the end of the world as we know it. This is a rich novel where art and life are inextricably intertwined and it’s as though the world is a stage. And indeed the novel opens with Arthur in his last moments playing one of the greatest characters in literature – King Lear.
This theme continues with Miranda’s comics. She is driven to create a world that mirrors her own strange life in many ways. And as these comics get passed on they become the lifeblood of inspiration to two characters (Kirsten and the cult leader) in the new dystopian world. And in many ways the post pandemic world resembles Station Eleven – an outpost world created out of the ruins of the death of a civilization.
And again, there are moments in the book, for example when Arthur is dining with his old friend and he notices that Arthur is no longer himself but is acting. It could be a commentary on the shallowness of Arthur and the world he lives in but it’s also the indivisibility of life and art. Life and art flow through each other like a river. Life without art is only survival as the Travelling Symphony knows. It elevates the human condition on every level and in the end it saves us from ourselves, each other and from barbarity. It’s what makes us a mensch.
I feel that Emily St. John Mandel has written a book that lays art against a bleak hopeless world (both the new and the old) and shows us that everything from comics to film and theatre including old standards like Shakespeare make the world an infinitely better more hopeful, and more feeling place.
Filed under Book Reviews
Tourists often have no idea what elephants have to go through in order for them to experience them on treks, rides, see them painting, begging on beaches or any other number of things that elephants naturally would not be doing. In order for elephants to perform including being ridden they have to be ‘broken’. Elephants are wild animals. I believe that if people really understood what they were contributing to when they participated in or supported any of these activities that they would not do it.
For elephants to be ridden or used in tourism in any way they go through a process called “phajaan” meaning ‘breaking an elephant’s spirit.” Elephants after all are wild animals. The process of phajaan is when a baby elephant is taken from its family and its mother and aunties are killed. They are put in crates, starved and beaten, its legs bound closely together so it can’t move, until its spirit is broken and the elephant can be forced into a life of labour. You can find more about this here,
We know a lot about elephants. Everybody understands that they are endangered both in Asia and in Africa and more than that that they are the equivalent of humans in emotional and social sophistication. Elephants, of course, lack the malice and cruelty of people. Increasingly people are becoming aware that elephants need to be supported as much as possible in the wild or in sanctuaries that allow them to live as close to a natural existence as possible.
The tourist trade is getting better, but still has a long way to go to direct people to sanctuaries….Many operations pose as ‘sanctuaries’ but in fact are not. This list was compiled by a friend of mine Leanne Fogarty who works who works tirelessly on behalf of Asian elephant captured in the tourist trade. Please share this list with your friends and family.
Thanks, Tessa
List of Elephant Sanctuaries by Country
Cambodia
Elephant Sanctuary Cambodia – http://www.saveelephant.org/elephant-sanctuary-cambodia/
Angkor Wat, Siem Reap
Elephant Sanctuary Cambodia is located inside the Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary.
Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary – http://www.cambodiawildlifesanctuary.com
Provinces of Preah Vihear, Siem Reap and Odor Mean Chey
Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary is located inside Kulen-Promtep Wildlife Sanctuary.
Elephant Valley Project – http://www.elephantvalleyproject.org
Sen Monorom, Mondulkiri
Phnom Tamao Wildlife Zoological Park & Rescue Centre – http://www.phnomtamaozoo.com
Phnom Penh, Takeo
This is a zoo but the Elephant Rescue inside it has a very good reputation.
India
Wildlife SOS – http://www.wildlifesos.org
Agra, Uttar Pradesh
There is a Bear Sanctuary and Elephant Conservation & Care Center and they are situated side by side.
Chandaka Elephant Sanctuary – http://www.orissatourism.org/wildlife-in-orissa/chandaka-elephant-reserve.html
Bhubaneswar, Odisha (formerly known as Orissa)
This sanctuary is actually a wildlife reserve.
Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation Centre – http://www.wrrcbangalore.org
Bangalore, Karnataka
Laos
Elephant Conservation Centre – http://www.elephantconservationcenter.com
Sayaboury City, Sayaboury
Myanmar
Green Hill Valley Elephant Camp – http://www.ghvelephant.com
Kalaw, Myanmar
They do allow “short” rides on the elephant, but best camp we know of in Myanmar.
Nepal
National Trust for Nature Conservation’s Biodiversity Conservation Centre – http://www.ntnc.org.np
Baharatpur, Chitwan
Sri Lanka
Elephant Transit Home – https://www.facebook.com/ElephantTransitHomeSriLanka
Udawalawe National Park, Ratnapura, Sabaragamuwa” to front of name – my mistake.)
Sri Lanka Wildlife Conservation Society – http://www.slwcs.org
Udahamulla, Nugegoda
Elephant Freedom Project – http://www.elephantfreedomproject.com
Kegalle, Sabaragamuwa
Thailand
Elephant Nature Park – http://www.saveelephant.org/elephant-nature-park/
Mae Taeng, Chiang Mai
The Surin Project – http://www.surinproject.org
Tha Tum, Surin
Erawan Elephant Retirement Park – http://www.saveelephant.org/erawan-elephant-retirement-park/
Kanchanaburi City, Kanchanaburi
Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand’s Wildlife Rescue Center – http://www.wfft.org
Tha Mai Ruak, Petchaburi
Burm & Emily’s Elephant Sanctuary – http://www.bees-elesanctuary.org
Mae Chaem, Chiang Mai
Friends of the Asian Elephant Hospital – http://www.elephant-soraida.com
Lampang City, Lampang
Elephant’s World – http://www.elephantsworld.org
Kanchanaburi City, Kanchanaburi
Elephant Hills – http://www.elephant-hills.com
Phanom District, Surat Thani
Boon Lott’s Elephant Sanctuary – http://www.blesele.org
Si Satchanalai District, Sukhothai
Usually booked out 6 months in advance and they only take 6 people per night.
The best of times really were just hanging out doing nothing. But doing nothing in the end was something if you know what I mean. Get this. My mom had this red shag rug, a zebra skin on the wall and a fake leopard bar. A bar! Can you believe it? We lived in this tiny apartment but there was a bar. And her chair, the chair that nobody sat in except her, was this leather piece. Black leather that looked like this except black. She never said nobody could sit in it. We just knew we couldn’t. And sometimes if we wanted to check it out you would for a few uncomfortable minutes and then move. It was like she was always in it even if she wasn’t.
Some days for no reason at all, I would decide to give her the performance of a lifetime. And I would stand in front of her, somewhere between the chair and the fake leopard bar and I would sing. There would be no holding back. No shyness, no thinking about the neighbours.Just pure unadulterated ‘out there-ness”.belting out Edith Piaf when I was going through my Edith phase, or Bowie or maybe a little cabaret. I liked to mix it up. I would strut and dance and sing like my life depended on it. And she would sit there in that chair, my only audience member. Afterwards I would bow and she would just look at me and say “Wow, that was so great. You are so great.” And I believed every single word and for those few short moments I would really feel super human as though I was a real star. And those words and that moment got me through some tough times later in my life. And I’ve always been thankful that I had somebody in my life who was kind enough, generous enough to say that. Because you can get a lot of mileage out of saying that kind of thing to a kid everyone once in a blue moon.
Filed under Random Musing
To Certain Students
– V. Penelope Pelizzon
On all the days I shut my door to light,
all the nights I turned my mind from sleep
while snow fell, filling the space between the trees
till dawn ran its iron needle through the east,
in order to read the scribblings of your compeers,
illiterate to what Martian sense they made
and mourning my marginalia’s failure to move them,
you were what drew me from stupor at the new day’s bell.
You with your pink hair and broken heart.
You with your knived smile. You who tried to quit
pre-law for poetry (“my parents will kill me”).
You the philosopher king. You who saw Orpheus
alone at the bar and got him to follow you home. You
green things, whose songs could move the oldest tree to tears.
For more information on V. Penelope Pelizzon, please click here.
Filed under Book Reviews, Poem of the Week
Hi everyone,
The Global March for Elephants and Rhinos has made it easy to take the following action. Please read the instructions and sign the form letter and then copy and paste the letter to the United Arab Emirates. Then please share. Letter is here.
Filed under Animal Activism
Condofire 