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The Biggest Animal Sanctuary in the World with Forrest Galante

Curiosity Weekly

Wed Jan 21 2026

Summary

Curiosity Weekly – “The Biggest Animal Sanctuary in the World with Forrest Galante”

Host: Dr. Samantha Yammine
Guest: Forrest Galante
Release Date: January 21, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode of Curiosity Weekly dives into the world of large-scale animal rescue and rehabilitation, offering a behind-the-scenes look at the Ventara Sanctuary—considered the world's largest and most advanced animal sanctuary for rescued wildlife. Host Dr. Samantha Yammine interviews conservationist and wildlife biologist Forrest Galante, who recently documented Ventara for the series Sanctuary Stories. Together, they explore how Ventara challenges the standard conservation model by implementing a “gold standard” of animal husbandry, made possible by unique cultural values and unlimited private funding. The discussion also touches on the psychological and logistical challenges of rescuing animals at scale, the ethical dilemmas faced, and what sets Ventara apart from traditional zoos.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Sanctuaries Redefined at Scale

(08:22–11:11)

Dr. Yammine sets the stage by contrasting typical notions of animal sanctuaries with the scientific and ethical complexities involved in running a massive operation like Ventara.
Forrest Galante recounts his initial realization of the sanctuary’s scale:
- “I walked around for a day and I was like, wow, that's amazing... And they're like, you've only seen one of the sites. ...There's 50 sites. ...So the scale of it is unbelievable, but it's more the attention to detail at Ventara that is unparalleled.” (Galante, 09:46)
Ventara is a privately funded operation for animal welfare, not profit, and sets a benchmark for animal care rather than serving as a public attraction.

2. Logistics, Ethics, and Decision-Making in Rescue Centers

(11:11–12:38)

The sanctuary often takes in animals in dire need, such as those abused or injured in circuses.
- Unlike zoos, Ventara doesn't select “perfect” animals but rescues the most traumatized and difficult cases.
Private funding allows for extraordinary veterinary interventions and individualized attention, with no concern for financial ROI.

3. Shifting from “Greater Good” to Individual Welfare

(12:57–14:55)

Traditional conservationists typically prioritize populations or ecosystems over individuals, but Ventara operates under the belief—rooted in Hindu philosophy—that every individual life has value.
- “They believe that every life matters to the point... I watched what I would consider to be a $30,000 or $40,000 jaw replacement surgery on an Argentinian tegu, an animal that you can buy ...for probably 40 bucks.” (Galante, 13:35)
The sanctuary provides care for all animals, from pythons to elephants, and never chooses euthanasia as a standard outcome.

4. Supporting Both Animals and Their Human Handlers

(18:27–21:26)

Unique to Ventara is its inclusion of mahouts (elephant handlers) and their families in its rescue mission.
- Maintaining mahout-elephant bonds is seen as essential for animal psychological health.
- The mahouts are reformed from traditional negative reinforcement techniques to positive, well-paid roles.
- “If you rip that elephant away from that mahout, it can easily die of a broken heart... So what does Ventara do? They rescue not just the elephant, but the mahout and his entire family and they bring them to Ventara and they give them a house...” (Galante, 18:47)

5. Policy, Culture, and the Limits of Conservation

(21:26–24:22)

Galante critiques the global conservation system as being hampered by bureaucracy, egos, and infighting.
- “They're too busy infighting and setting a meeting to talk about the meeting, ...that nothing ever effing gets done anymore... So now there's a race to put out sensationalized nonsense that doesn't actually necessarily positively affect conservation.” (Galante, 21:56)
He argues the main barrier to progress is not a lack of interest but a dysfunctional system that prioritizes competition for resources and flashy headlines over real-world action.

6. Why Document and Share Ventara’s Story?

(24:22–26:42)

Galante pushed for a public-facing documentary to spread Ventara’s innovations in animal husbandry.
- Initially, the owner, Anat, was reluctant to publicize the project.
- “I said to him, Anat, that's criminal. ...You've created something here that is so unbelievably spectacular for animal husbandry the world over that the world should see it...” (Galante, 24:35)
- The team eventually agreed, resulting in the hit series Sanctuary Stories.

7. Open Questions & Hopes for the Model's Replication

(26:42–28:03)

Galante’s lingering question: How can Ventara’s model and its philosophy of individual animal welfare be expanded to other places?
- “The place is pure good... And the question that I have is, how do we get those satellite facilities up and off the ground? ...How do we get the world on the same page?” (Galante, 26:49)
Galante hopes publicizing the sanctuary’s methods will inspire global adoption.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On scale and impact:
“What I'm hoping is that people...look at this and go, okay, this is the gold standard of animal husbandry and this is what we can do.” — Forrest Galante (10:20)
On individualized care:
“So whether it's a mouse or an elephant, a tegu or a Burmese python, they give it individualized care to the utmost degree. Nothing is euthanized.” — Forrest Galante (14:30)
On the difference between sanctuaries and zoos:
“Ventara is not designed for viewing animals. It's designed for animal welfare... it's not built for humans. ...It's built for humans to serve animals.” — Forrest Galante (15:30)
On bureaucracy in conservation:
“They're too busy infighting and setting a meeting to talk about the meeting...that nothing ever effing gets done anymore.” — Forrest Galante (21:56)
On publicizing Ventara:
“You've created something here that is so unbelievably spectacular...the world should see it.” — Forrest Galante (24:35)

Important Timestamps for Segments

01:03–05:43: Scientific study on how helping others slows cognitive decline.
08:22–11:11: The complexity and scale of real sanctuaries; Forrest's first impressions of Ventara.
12:57–14:55: Philosophical/cultural shift—Valuing every animal as an individual.
15:30–16:43: Why Ventara is not a zoo and the core difference in design philosophy.
18:27–21:26: Mahout rescue: supporting both elephants and their lifelong handlers.
21:56–24:22: Critique of modern conservation's systemic problems.
24:35–26:42: Documentary’s backstory and Ventara’s decision to go public.
26:49–28:03: Galante’s big question—How can the model propagate globally?

Additional Science News Discussed

Helping Others and Brain Health (02:20–05:43)
- New research shows that regularly helping others, even informally, slows cognitive decline in older adults.
Elite Performers Study (31:15–34:50)
- A recent study challenges the idea that early specialization leads to world-class success; many top performers started late and excelled across multiple domains.

Final Thoughts

Through personal stories and sharp analysis, Galante and Yammine illuminate the untapped possibilities of wildlife rescue when constraints are lifted and compassion is applied at scale. While the “Ventara Model” is extraordinary and perhaps unique in its resources, it offers a working vision—rooted equally in science, culture, and ethics—of what animal welfare could become worldwide.

Listen to Sanctuary Stories for the full look inside Ventara’s groundbreaking sanctuary work, now streaming on HBO Max and Discovery+.

For additional references and more episodes, visit the Curiosity Weekly homepage.

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Transcript

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Dr. Samantha Youmeen (2:20)

It's always great to start off the year with good news and what's more positive than giving animals a safe and loving home? In this episode I'll speak to wildlife conservationist Forrest Galanti about his latest project documenting the inner workings of one of the biggest animal sanctuaries and rehabilitation centers on the planet. The series is called Sanctuary stories, and it's streaming on HBO Max and Discovery. Then we're going to keep the good vibes rolling by getting into a new study that explores how helping others, even in the smallest ways, improves cognitive function. But before that, we'll talk about a recent study that looks into what actually makes an elite performer, be it an athlete, academic or musician. So whether it's pursuing excellence, being kind, or helping animals, we've got the scientific evidence to back up being good. Welcome to Curiosity Weekly from Discovery. I'm your host, Dr. Samantha Youmeen. Let's do it. Researchers found a powerful way to help protect your brain health. Help someone else. The team found that regularly helping others outside your home significantly slows cognitive decline as we age. The researchers are from the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Massachusetts, Boston. They used data from the National Health and Retirement Study, which goes back to 1998, so they could follow people over two decades. They analyzed data from over 31,000 adults in the US over the age of 51. They found that people who spent about two to four hours per week helping others experienced a 15 to 20% slower rate of cognitive decline. They published the study in October 2025. That's a meaningful difference in how quickly things like memory and thinking skills change over time. And helping here doesn't mean anything extreme. In fact, it's one of the few studies to look at both formal volunteering, like organized community work, and and informal helping that includes things like driving someone to a medical appointment, helping with childcare, doing yard work for a neighbor, or even preparing someone's taxes. Informally helping out is often assumed to have fewer health benefits because it doesn't come with the same social recognition or structure as like formal volunteering. But in this study, that assumption didn't hold up. Both forms of helping were beneficial for cognitive health. Those who stayed engaged in either way. Helping others year after year built up accumulated cognitive benefits. And the opposite was true, too. People who withdrew from helping roles had worse cognitive function over time. In other words, this isn't a one and done type thing. The benefits add up, but they can also be lost. And factors like wealth, education, and physical and mental health didn't seem to change the result. This makes it less likely that the results were simply explained by people who were already healthier or had other privileges related to brain health. Now, of course, it'd be great if we could do a ton of volunteering every day. That's not always practical, but there still seems to be value in moderate, regular helping few hours a week and keeping people involved in helping roles even later in life or after some cognitive decline may be protective. In an aging society with growing concerns about loneliness, isolation and cognitive decline, this is a promising low risk approach that may be good for us and those around us.

Forrest Galanti (12:57)

So I'll tell you what surprised me about it. How about that, which is the. I come from a traditional conservation background, as you know. And so what is conservation? At its core, it stands for the greater good, right? The good of the, the good of the species. So what does that mean? That means if the Everglades are in jeopardy from Burmese pythons, kill all the Burmese pythons, right? That's what conservation is. It really is. And I don't care what anybody says, that's the reality of it. You save the Everglades by removing the invasive species. The Hinduism belief is that. And I'm not a religious person, but this is something that really opened my eyes. The Hinduism belief is that every life holds value. And while there are still unbelievable world class conservationists working at and with Ventara, they go, why is there not room in this world for both? So instead of killing the Burmese python, the folks at Ventara would rescue every single eradicated Burmese python and build it a giant Burmese python enclosure. Do you know what I mean? And so they believe that every life matters to the point. And you can do this when you have unlimited resources. To the point of, I watched what I would consider to be a 30 or $40,000 jaw replacement surgery on an Argentinian tegu, an animal that you can buy at your local petco for probably 40 bucks, you know, and that's the level of care that they give to every single individual. So it's not, it's interesting because they very much so care about conservation and the greater good of the species. But when you have unlimited resources, you also have the resources to care about the individual, regardless of its species. So whether it's a mouse or an elephant, a tegu or a Burmese python, they give it individualized care to the utmost degree. Nothing is euthanized. Everything is given the highest form of care you can ever imagine. And that comes from their religious belief, which I found really eye opening because I had, I had always as a traditional conservationist been like, no, no, what's important is the good of the species.

Forrest Galanti (18:47)

Well, so it's different for different creatures, but the mahouts are a perfect example. In India, elephants are still used as service animals. They're used for logging, they're used for road, they're used for riding, they're used for begging, all kinds of things. And so what happens is an elephant is born and it's taken from its mother by a family or a person, an individual, for logging or for any of those other purposes I mentioned. And like a puppy that gets taken from the litter, it forms a bond with the person that that raises it and that person is called its mahout. Now, elephants, I would argue, Sam, have the highest EQ of any creature in the world. I would say more than human beings, more than whales, more than anything. That's my opinion. And if you rip that elephant away from that mahout, it can easily die of a broken heart. And whether if it doesn't die of a broken heart, it will undeniably be traumatized for the rest of its life. As they say, an elephant never forgets. And so what happens at Ventara is they realize that for the psychological well being of the elephant, the mahout has to be there. And even if it's like a guy who's abused his dog, you know, the dog still bonded to it. And same with these mahouts. So what does Ventara do? They, they rescue not just the elephant, but the mahout and his entire family and they bring them to Ventara and they give them a house and they give them a jacket. And many for instances, for many instances, for the first time in their life, they give them shoes and they give them a place to live and they give them health care and they give them everything that a mahout could need. Not just so that the elephant's emotional well being is protected, but, but so that they can reform the mahout. So that maybe because that mahout may be a fourth or fifth or sixth or seventh generation mahout, that might be what his family has done for as long as he can remember, but they reform the mahout so that he's no longer using traditional negative, negative reinforcement. And, and now the mahout goes through like a school and he starts doing positive conditioning. So instead of beating the elephant into, now the elephant has to go here and pick up a log. The mahout goes through a reform as well, where the, the mahout now serves the elephant. And he goes, all right, what do you, Lucky Mooney the elephant want to do today? You want to go for a walk? Let's go for a walk. But he's now making a salary for the first time in his life. He's not begging or logging or anything else. And so he doesn't care. The mahout doesn't go, oh, I need this elephant to perform, I need this elephant to pull a log. He goes, what do you want to do, elephant? That's fine because I'm getting paid to help you. And so, yeah, it changes. It's changing so many things in India. I mean, literally, Ventara itself ended elephants and circuses in the country of India. And this is, these are small examples that add up to a huge change across the nation and I believe eventually across the world.

Forrest Galanti (21:56)

This is a hard topic, Sam, and I'll give you my honest answer, which is that I think egos play the biggest role. I think the scientific model, the conservation model, is very broken. And I'm actually writing and authoring a book on this right now on cowboys of conservation, people who break the mold. But what has happened in the last 20 years in specific, in my opinion, Sam, and I'm very well researched on this for the, for the new book, is we've created so many safeguards and boundaries and bureaucracy in order to, quote, protect wildlife that. What's that? What has happened is it's created a system where scientists, biologists, conservationists, and I'm not pointing any fingers at any individuals, but they're too busy infighting and setting a meeting to talk about the meeting, to discuss the meeting that they had about the meeting about the elephants, that nothing ever effing gets done anymore. And because of that, it's created a system with such limited resources that everybody is fighting. So say there's a pool of $5,000, right? And that's the grant money that's available. Every conservationist is fighting for that 5,000 bucks now. And guess who's going to win it? The guy with the splashiest, craziest title, headline, published paper. So now there's a race to put out sensationalized nonsense that doesn't actually necessarily positively affect conservation. Instead, what that'll do is get his lab funded for another year or six months, or paper, or whatever it happens to be. And so it's created a very broken model. So you ask me, where is the breakdown? I don't think that there's any less enthusiasm for wildlife, for conservation. In fact, I think it's more now than it was 10, 15 years ago. I think kids are getting very sick of these stupid things, these devices, and getting much more interested in the real world again. And I think that's wonderful. But the breakdown for conservation, in my opinion, is the system. And the system is not supportive of somebody like myself. And not to. Not to be. Not. I don't want to point fingers at myself here, but somebody like myself who's just like, I don't care what your laws are, I don't care what your regulations are, I don't care what your opinions are, I have an ethical code of how I think things should be conducted. And how animals need to be saved. And I will do that to save the animal, save the environment, save the ecosystem. And I'm not going to spend five years arguing about it before I can take action. And that is in my opinion, the biggest breakdown in conservation currently.

Forrest Galanti (24:35)

Ventara has created a blueprint for animal husbandry the world over. And I get it. Not everybody has the resources or the space or everything. I get it, I get it, I get it. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not heads in the clouds. But I looked at the way that they treated these animals, the way that they processed a rescue, the way that so much care and compassion through the Hindi religious system, like I mentioned to you, was given towards the every single individual. And I, you see it in one of my YouTube videos where the elephants are throwing their former chains on Ventara. And I had this sort of like emotional enlightenment, if you will. And I said to myself then and there, I was like, I need to meet with Anat, the owner and convince him to share this with the world. And so I was fortunate enough to meet with him I think a couple months later and you know, we sat down and went through all the formalities and then he's like, well, basically, what do you want? And I was like, I want to show the world what you're doing. And he's like, no, you know, we're, we'd be under criticism and scrutiny because it's privately funded and we've had our doors closed since we started and I don't think we should. And I, I sat there with him and I was like, and he already said, you know, to his credit, he's like, anything we publish, any data, any zoo can reach out to us, we'll tell him how we do it, we'll tell him, the experts we've got here, everything, like, we're not, we're not hiding anything. But I'm not like generating media or interest. And I said to him, I said, anat, that's criminal. You've created something that is, I mean, it's not. But I was being very dramatic. But I said to him, that feels criminal because you've created something here that is so unbelievably spectacular for animal husbandry the world over that the world should see it and he was like, okay, do it. And I was like, wait, sorry, what? And he's like, do it. He's like, go out and see what that works. Yeah. And he's like, go out and do it. You know, he's like, go out and do it. If that's like. Because I think he saw my passion in it and he's like, go out and do it. And then I was like, oh, shit, now what? So then I had to go talk to Animal Planet and I started doing some YouTube videos and, you know, steamrolled it into a TV show, which is what I do and have done for many years, about conservation. And it, it wasn't. It didn't come without a lot of hardship, but we got there and now the show's a big hit. So I'm, I'm really glad we did.

Dr. Samantha Youmeen (31:15)

As the new year unfolds, many of us are reflecting on our goals and making resolutions aimed at self improvement. For me, that means more sleep and discovering a new personal scent. I'm on that journey. But whether it's committing to healthier eating, enhancing your career skills, or picking up new hobbies, that desire to better ourselves is really familiar, especially as we step into a new year. But for those that aspire to reach the pinnacle of success, like Olympic athletes or Nobel laureates, what does it really take to be the best of the best in the world? Interestingly, a recent review published in the journal Science dug into the literature, uncovering that many young performers who excel really early in their discipline rarely transition to become top adults in their fields. The report looks at the journey of exceptional performers across various fields including sports, music and academia. Through their analysis of over 34,000 adult world class performers, they find some surprising insights about talent development. And they're contrary to the popular 10,000 hour rule. You know that idea that mastery comes from relentless focused practice? Well, this research, which was published in December of 2025, points out that success is often not about the amount of early specialized training. First, the findings show that young exceptional performers and later world class adults are often not the same individuals. This means that our current youth centric approach in elite training programs might need some rethinking. It also means that even though I only got serious about Muay Thai two years ago, I still have a chance. Look out world, I'm coming. As the study shows, nearly 90% of youth athletes, for example, don't transition into elite adult athletes early. High achievement is generally linked to extensive discipline specific practice. Think countless hours in one sport or a single academic focus. But for those who reach the highest echelons of performance later in life, a different pattern comes out. The authors found that world class performers typically started their disciplines later and practiced multiple skills early on, leading to broader development rather than hyper focus. This means that exploring a range of interests could actually be beneficial, maybe spreading out those thousands of hours. A lot of top athletes peak later in life, rising to elite levels after a longer multidisciplinary path rather than through just like early dominance. So how can we apply all of these insights in our own lives? Perhaps it's worth stepping back from the pressure of immediate success and just letting ourselves engage in a lot of different things rather than trying to excel in just one area from an early age. Dipping our toes into different fields can give us unexpected strengths and interests. And for those of us that are late bloomers, hello, don't give up. The research also sends a strong message to those of us who may not be early achievers. A lot of world class performers didn't follow the so called prodigy path. Your journey can still lead to extraordinary outcomes for Warner Bros. Discovery Curiosity Weekly is produced by the team at Wheelhouse DNA. The senior producer and editorial correspondent is Teresa Carey. Our producer is Chiara Noni, our audio engineer is Nick Kharisimi and Head of Production for Wheelhouse DNA is Cassie Berman. And I'm Dr. Samantha Youen. Thanks for listening.