This has been a very hard to read. The sheer horror, mistreatment and murder of elephants in the wild and in captivity has caused me to have to put the book down countless times just to get away from the awfulness of what man does to these poor creatures. It is a well written book. It is assuredly a well researched and documented book. It is a great eye-opener to atrocities carried out against our fellow species, the elephant. Through many examples it is shown and proven that these great creatures have a highly developed society within their own culture, they have strong moral principles among their own kind, and when living in the wild do not pose a threat to man - the scientific studies showing the relationships between humans and elephants ad put forth to the South African government are included but flagrant disregard for any creature unable to speak for themselves allows them no legal representation other than the too few animal rights groups willing to stand up in their defense. But the greed and cruelty shown when we are given a closer look at what is really occurring is damning. Culls are legalized murder of these at risk and endangered creatures. Culls - the brutal rounding up of elephants to kill them in massacres that are the stuff of nightmares and of which is traumatizing any elephant that is lucky enough to escape the cull but who may go on to live in the shrinking wild - man is moving in and corporations are claiming the land so that like the Native Americans these noble beasts are being killed in the thousands and more each year so that governments and private enterprise can claim the land they lived on and use it for their own financial pursuits. Its all about the money. Animals have no rights. Even the so-called institutions that claim to be doing the elephants a service by keeping them in Zoos, Circuses, etc. use such archaic medieval type tools to bend them to their will against the elephants own sense of self to do tricks to please crowds that are behaviors far against their normal behavior - it will make a compassionate person fall to their knees with tears in their eyes and regret in their hearts that mankind has sunk so low as to use such unconscionable tactics to bend a creature to one's will and break their spirit so completely that the poor animals exist in a limbo of pain, suffering and loss of their elephantness to be paraded for man's glory and belittling. I shed a lot of tears reading these horrible accounts of what humans are getting away with doing even within the borders of our own country to captive elephants. Even the reserves here in the United States who offer some comfort and some freedom for these majestic fellow creatures have a hard time reassurring these dear creatures that they are free of their captors and jailers at last. Some of the elephants given the chance to live out the rest of their lives away from chains and being brutalized by maniac zookeepers/handlers/trainers who rip their flesh and do ungodly things with the legalized tools, clamps, and worse they are still legally allowed to use on the elephants, some of the creatures who have endured lives filled with nothing but brutality never come back from that. Their spirits completely broken they are so traumatized they are like a military person coming back with PTDS from a war zone. In the culls baby elephants see their entire families killed before their eyes and some never get over that terror at what they were forced to watch so that the babies can be captured and sold. It is beyond reason the transgressions humans enact upon those they feel the need to dominate and how like the slaves of former times these unfortunates, too, are mistreated, misused and forced to do the bidding of those who have power over them. Sometimes several 'keepers' will brutalize a female elephant so much that often they die from their inhumane torturers. Nearly all captive elephants are females as they are smaller and more easily managed when dishing out punishment disguised as training. Elephants are sentient beings, they perceive, reason, think and they suffer and cain feel pain yet they are treated with unbridled hatred by those who praise themselves for their compassion in "caring" for them. Laws need to be changed to stop the brutality going on under the auspices of the world courts and with the blessing of zoological societies. More people need to come forward on the behalf of these poor fellow creatures on this planet because to date regardless of the death and treatment they are forced to endure no one gets prosecuted for their intolerable treatment and living conditions. They all hide behind terminology allowing them to use force and pain to regulate their behavior. May God protect them - Man sure isn't. Good book, harsh realities laid out so not for the squimish, but, everyone from children on up should be enlightened as to what is really going on behind all of those elephants balancing on top of balls. The movie, "Dumbo," only touched the surface. Learn and stop the wrongs people.
- Shirley J
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