Elephants are smart, sensitive, and as you surely have noticed, very large animals. Most people encounter elephants in zoos or, worse, circuses, where they are far from their habitat and forced to live without freedom and perform for the amusement of audiences. That's a cruel and humiliating fate for these magnificent animals.
Yet elephants who live in freedom aren't necessarily blessed. Since an adult elephant needs to consume about 350 pounds of food daily, elephants can quickly deforest an area. In poor countries like Zimbabwe, which has one of the world's largest elephant populations, elephants are culled (killed) to manage herd size. While the ivory trade has diminished in civilized nations thanks to legislation, some are still hunted for their tusks.
At Elephant Whispers, a unique facility in Hazyview, South Africa, unwanted elephants are cared for and trained with kindness to enable humans to engage these gentle giants with respect.
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