"One hundred miles is a little stroll to an elephant. You're seeing a tragedy," Sheldrick said.Ī tragedy for what elephants have experienced, such as dominance training sessions in some facilities, and what they have not: the space to roam without boundaries. "When you look at a miserable captive in a zoo, you're not seeing an elephant. Sheldrick said she has seen how the elephants change. Some people can survive, some people cannot," Bradshaw said. "The trauma stays with the elephant when they're in captivity. And they bear grudges," said Daphne Sheldrick, a renowned wild elephant expert and director of The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. You must never, ever be cruel to an elephant because they have an amazing memory. It's that they're on level footing with us," said Bradshaw.īut even as science holds a mirror to our similarities, in recent years researchers have observed a violent change in elephant-human relations after decades of peaceful coexistence. "I think the real shock right now, in terms of the mirror self-recognition tests and their intelligence and their emotions is, they're like us. Happy showed scientists something profound when she passed the test for self-recognition: An understanding that the elephant in the mirror … was her. We respect animal rights only if they use our rights, that is, only if we remain the victors in the end.Īnd we will continue to fight so that animals no longer have to serve as slaves the circus business.Filmmakers have also documented moments of pachyderm heroism, as when a herd of adult females rescued a baby elephant that had fallen into a mud hole, remarkably forming their own team of first responders.Īnd in a poignant demonstration of similarity to humans, an elephant named Happy at New York's Bronx Zoo recently joined the ranks of self-aware species that includes humans, apes and dolphins. …This is the two-class justice that protects the fascist law of the stronger, the ruler, the offender. The price of freedom from the circus was steep. Finally, she fell, very slowly, onto her side. The shooting went on for several more seconds. She was on her knees and could not right herself. She rocked her head violently from side to side. She slowly fell over, then awkwardly stood back up. The police were called out and started shooting at Tyke with rifles. She charged at bystanders and smashed cars as she made her way through several city blocks. She was disoriented and no idea where she was. Circus staff tried to beat her back, but no bullhook or whip could stop the rage that had been building inside her for two decades. At an afternoon performance at the Neal Blaidsell Center in Honolulu, it all came to a head.Īt some point during the show, she veered from the script. She could no longer take the pain and the confinement. She was tired of being beaten, whipped, and kicked. She had been in the circus nearly 20 years. In August of 1994 Tyke reached a breaking point. She vacillated between terror and boredom. Only God knows what punishment she received when brought back to the Circus.įor the next year she performed in the circus and lived in a barren concrete barn, chained, between shows. Hawthorn should have retired her right then and there, as she was an obvious threat to the public. In July she tried to escape again she was unsuccessful. She tried to escape during a circus performance. In 1988, according to USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) documents, Tyke was beaten in public to the point where she was “screaming and bending down on three legs to avoid being hit.” The trainer said he was “disciplining” her…īy April of 1993, she had enough. The day she died she was as usual performing for Hawthorne circus which have a long record of animal cruelty violations. She was deprived of every aspect of normal elephant life. She spent most of her time in chains, doing nothing. They wanted to hurt her and frighten her so she would be obedient. They struck her in her most sensitive areas: behind her ears, on top of her toes, in back of her knees, and around her anus. Circus trainers hit her repeatedly with a sharp metal “bullhook,” which made her cry out in pain. There, she was confined to a concrete room and beaten over and over, to break her spirit. Tykewas trapped and taken away from her family when she was a baby. It took nearly 2 hours for her to die there on the street in terrible pain, lonely and afraid… Tyke was a female Elephant born 1974 and died Augafter being shoot by the police 87 times.