← Global Rumblings Podcast
Loading summary
Transcript81 lines
- [00:19]
Nadia Mari
Hello and welcome to Global Sanctuary for Elephants podcast. Global Rumblings. Global Sanctuary for Elephants, or GSE for short, is a non profit organization with a mission to create vast safe spaces for captive elephants where they are able to heal physically and emotionally, often from very traumatic pasts. I'm your host, Nadia Mari and I'll be taking you to the lush jungle of the Mato Grosso region in central Brazil, home of GSE's initial project Elephant Sanctuary. Brazil, currently home to five female Asian elephants, lovingly referred to as the Girls. Hello everyone. Welcome back and thank you for tuning in again this week for a new episode of Global Rumblings. We will hopefully be loading our precious cargo, mum and daughter, Pocha and Guayamina. And so let's head over to Brazil to say hi to Kat and Scott. Hi, you two. How was lunch?
- [01:14]
Scott
It was fine. Hey, Nadia.
- [01:16]
Kat
Hey, Nadia. We're good. How are you doing?
- [01:19]
Nadia Mari
I'm fine. It's before dinner time. So you've eaten. I haven't eaten and so we're a little bit out of sync. But we mustn't go off on a tangent. I want to keep things streamlined for our sanity and because it is a very exciting episode today. Looking forward to talking more about Pocha and Guiamina and yeah, hopefully we will get around to actually loading them and starting the relocation. So we left off last time with the new export permits being issued within 72 hours. So what happened after that?
- [01:52]
Kat
I don't remember. Turned into a blur. I honestly don't remember the time frames and if it was that trip or the trip. It was the trip before that. We couldn't. That they couldn't get to Argentina. Right. I think it was a trip before that. We were trying to get Ingo before the exploration permits, trying to get Ingo and Trish there. And we had multiple canceled flights because of COVID restrictions and everything else. It ended up being. I think we purchased like 12 flights in order to have to actually go through and had to wait for six months for all the reimbursements. I think after the 72, after the permits were reissued, I think it was pretty straightforward. Ingo and Trish went back to within a few days. I remember it being relatively short sequence, but I don't remember the exact time on that. So they got back there. I think Ingo actually Ingo got there first. I got there just a couple of days later and the crates had already been reconfigured. It was actually when Trish and Ingo were there the first time when they were trying to get them loaded before the expiration permits or the expiration of the permits. They had reconfigured the crate so it's one in front of the other. So one elephant had to go in first and then a second elephant would have to come in afterwards. And that was a little bit entertaining because at that point Giza owned the crates. Giza went from when, you know, when they were separate, they. Oh, we also had conflicting information. We kept hearing one thing from the caregivers and then something else from the security guards. That was the other part of it is we, the security guards would tell us what would happen at night and. And the caregivers are seeing what's going on during the day and the security guards are saying at night. They go in almost all the time. The elephant, both elephants are often inside the crates. And what would happen is Giza would go first, but Giza would only go first backwards.
- [03:39]
Scott
Okay.
- [03:40]
Kat
And then she'd go all the way in and then, sorry, then Pocha would go in forward. The problem is, you know, we already talked about it with Geisha's control issues with her mom. If Gizi decided it was time to go, she would just start walking forward quickly. And her mom had to then walk backwards quickly before she got pushed out. Often did not have a lot of respect for her mom. And it was a little bit disconcerting as we were trying to figure out what to do and how that was going to come come into play.
- [04:06]
Scott
But they wouldn't use the crates when they were side by side, which was initially how they were set up, because you couldn't put them right side by side, because as we talked about limitations with walls and so on and so forth, and they wouldn't separate enough to go to the two separate crates, which is why we switched it to one long corridor of two crates, essentially.
- [04:26]
Kat
Yeah, definitely not ideal. But that goes back to again, as kept saying, this whole separation issue. And because they actually had to be in two different rooms to go into the crates, that when one elephant was in one crate, oftentimes it would be Giza being the crate over to the right hand side. And then as they're working with Poacher on the left hand side, Yeja would come running over and then with Geeja running up behind her mom, then Pocha would run out quickly because she didn't want to get trapped in the crate because of Pocha's aggression towards her mom. So all of that was a lot to deal with.
- [04:54]
Scott
But by that trip, they were pretty settled with going in and out and hanging in there and the whole nine.
- [04:59]
Kat
And we had been told they were practicing opening and closing the gates behind them. And when we got there, that was not the case.
- [05:07]
Nadia Mari
Because you do that, don't you, to make noises and just to make them not sort of went in the crate. So they're not, I don't know, nervous when they suddenly hear a door closing.
- [05:15]
Kat
Exactly.
- [05:15]
Nadia Mari
You do that?
- [05:16]
Kat
Yeah. Just get them acclimated to that process of being closed in. Closed in. They open back out and see.
- [05:20]
Scott
No, you don't want the first time you do that to be when they're on the road for five days. You know, that's something you want them to be already comfortable with by the time you put them on the truck.
- [05:30]
Kat
But then you also had accessibility issues, you know, that we really couldn't get to that back door because of all the concrete walls, you know, so it was a little bit convoluted to be able to make that work. And so we ended up, you know, with Ingo and I, it was before Trish got there. We just started making some noise and trying to set things up and trying to figure out what we can do with kind of sliding a temporary bar behind them, you know, and how that would work. And then so we started kind of playing with this idea of making noise behind them and putting the bar behind them, sliding it back in, sliding it back out. Because not only did we have to then close pocha in first once they were both in, we then had this divide between both of them. And the fear was if we tried to close in front of giza to close her in, then pocha may not want to come in. Or because you're closing the front door, because she would go backwards, only you're closing in front of her. Normally you close behind them. And because you're closing in front of her, then you have the trunk issue and her being able to slam the gate back open and all the force that could be asserted there. So it's a little bit convoluted, to say the least. But overall, it went pretty well.
- [06:42]
Scott
The biggest holdup with it was being able to get Gijamina's second blood sample. I mean, she just wasn't super cooperative. I can't say that she was actually super cooperative and would stand there and let the them stick her multiple times, but they just weren't able to get.
- [06:58]
Kat
Samples at different points because that was the other thing. Into logistic mode, the crate moving. I forgot that they had to redo some of the samples. It was once the Results came back. Once we got the approval, then they had to renew some of the medical testing. Forgot about that part.
- [07:16]
Scott
Oh, there's so much to do.
- [07:19]
Nadia Mari
So when you actually loaded on that day, was it like with other rescues that you just sort of, like, looked, how's the day going? How the elephants and then poacher goes in, you close, Gucci goes in, you close, and then you just run around, say to everyone, we're loaded, we're going and everything fits into place. Or why are you on a tight seat?
- [07:35]
Kat
Yeah, we had some flexibility, but what we didn't have was autonomy to speak openly. Normally, we're super transparent with everybody. Everybody in the zoo knows that it's happening and the crane's showing up and all these things are happening. Everybody knows exactly what's going on. You know, we had that issue we talked about with Bambi a couple weeks ago, that the original transport date was postponed because she wasn't ready. But then the final move actually happened pretty quickly and we weren't really ready because, you know, of that scenario. She wasn't quite ready before, but this was a little bit different. We actually had everybody aligned, everybody's good. But we couldn't tell most of the team members in the zoo because, if you remember the last episode, there were some people within the zoo that were still working against the move.
- [08:16]
Nadia Mari
Oh, gosh. Right.
- [08:17]
Kat
So we had to, you know, we were all moving forward, getting things ready, but there's certain preparation that we couldn't do. We couldn't get all the crate accessories and all that stuff sorted out. We couldn't get all the produce ordered before. We couldn't get any of that set. We all had it going in the background, but we couldn't do anything right at the crates. We couldn't even mount the cameras. We couldn't do anything that we normally do before because we couldn't give some of the team members any indication that we were actually taking place that day. There was suspicion, but we kept playing.
- [08:48]
Nadia Mari
With it because you were worried that they might sabotage or do something that the elephants.
- [08:53]
Kat
Sure. Sabotage in whatever way. I mean, when people are working against something, you know, obviously not hurt the elephants, you have no limit when people are emotionally charged to try to stop something from happening.
- [09:03]
Nadia Mari
Yeah, that's true.
- [09:04]
Kat
It's a little bit of a challenge. And we actually didn't know exactly when it was going to happen. We knew we were kind of trying to do it before the end of that day. If I recall, there was a moment where both everyone had walked away because There were more TV crews and there were more film crews. And we're just trying to keep it easy. Oh, this is all part of it. It's going to happen within the next couple of weeks, but we don't know when. And a lot of the crews had actually walked away. Trish had even walked away. And when they came back down the hill, they saw that the elephants had already been closed in the crates. And it just happened to be one of those opportunities of, you know, Ingo was there. And I said, ingo, they're super chill. You know, they're really, really calm right now. Let's go ahead and see if this is going to work. And we went ahead and slid the bar behind Pocha. She backed up against the bar for a minute. We were able to close the gate behind her. And Gija immediately started to push in front of her a little bit, but it was very subtle. And then she chilled back down and she was really, really quiet. And then we used, we did the gate in front of Pocha next. And we did that because if Geisha then pushed towards Pocha, she's actually closing the gate for us. So that actually worked. Yeah, that worked pretty well. So she actually pushed the gate a little bit for us. And then we closed in front of Pocha. And then with just, you know, the last gate to close was in front of Geisha and she was actually super chill as well. So even though there's moments of a little bit of excitement, you know, of Pocha wanted to leave or Giza wanted to leave for a second, you know, it was very, very short lived. And everybody that was around, even in the general area didn't really know what was happening until they saw us moving those front gates. And once the front gates were closed, everyone was like, that was, you know, that happened so fast. It was so easy.
- [10:51]
Nadia Mari
So they were loaded front, head to tail.
- [10:54]
Kat
No, this was. No, this was. They were actually face to face. So the crates were actually inverted. So one crate was facing forward, one crate was facing backwards. And that's because of Geisha' behavior of walking into the crate backwards. So that crate was actually inverted already so that when she walked in backwards, she would actually be in the proper position for the crate because the front.
- [11:14]
Scott
Is different than the back. So you can manage the elephant well. You need to be able to access the front of the crate. And there's a space for caregivers so you can do feeding and watering and all that sort of stuff. It's different from the back side.
- [11:27]
Nadia Mari
Okay.
- [11:27]
Kat
From the outside of the crate, you don't see any difference front to back from right. Because it's just where the elephant is positioned within the crate. And where the access doors are is going to be different. But as far as the shape of the crate being pointed, it's that same shape on both sides that's fully symmetrical. Just the position of where they are and how. I guess Cat's saying the feeding doors and stuff like that. The access door is a little bit different.
- [11:49]
Nadia Mari
Okay, I'll see if we can find some photos and get Bob to put that into the video edition. And then were they. I don't remember, were they loaded onto one lorry or did you have two lorries? I remember that very heartwarming video because they. I think Pocha traveled backwards, didn't she? And they reached their trunks between and were like, you know, touching their trunks while they were driving along. That was lovely. Or being driven.
- [12:12]
Kat
Yeah, so that was actually, that happened during the stop. But for. For this trip, we decided to put them on the same truck and we did Pocha riding backwards, Giza riding forward. So they could still look at each other. You could still touch the front of the grate and they could have if, you know, there's only a few centimeters between each crate. So if they are touching the front of each crate, they can almost be nose to nose and definitely have a visual reference of one another through one.
- [12:40]
Scott
Definitely hear each other. They can communicate that way.
- [12:43]
Kat
And then when we did stop, then you had noses coming out of both doors and reaching towards each other, which was not the easiest. Again, so normally you're having to watch. Behavior is different on the road. You know, you have to anticipate all these different changes, you know, their comfort, their discomfort, and especially the two elephants that we already know were more isolated than most.
- [13:05]
Nadia Mari
And it was a long trip. I checked. It was 3,400 kilometers, which is 2,100 miles. Five days. Five or six days. I don't remember exactly, although I looked at it this afternoon. I think you either arrived on the fifth day or the sixth day, but it doesn't matter. It was a long time. So how did they do?
- [13:24]
Kat
They did pretty well. I feel like I'm the only one talking in this episode. I'm going to be told to be quiet.
- [13:28]
Scott
Well, you were the one who actually went and relocated them as usual. I was here taking care of the other elephants. I can tell you that Pocha did not eat as well initially and there was some concern, but she settled in and started doing really well.
- [13:45]
Kat
Yeah, I think they flipped. Yes and no. Pocha did not. Nagija started off great, and then I think as she got tired, she started getting a little bit in her head, a little bit, a little bit more worried. And Poacher started off a little bit, not so great. And then she ended up finishing strong.
- [13:59]
Scott
But of course she was riding backwards. So there's that added on to everything else.
- [14:04]
Kat
The physical discomfort of that.
- [14:05]
Scott
Yeah. But whether she got used to it or, you know, what have you, she did better later on. And there's always that expectation of them not being quote, unquote, normal on the first day, whether it's food consumption, water consumption, behavior. I mean, it takes a little bit to settle in. Some do great right away. You know, especially your circus elephants that have traveled a bunch. They don't really seem to mind at all. You know, lady ate right away, kept eating, was fine the whole time. Gita was actually great. Maya is the one who got impatient when they finally did arrive. But if anything, you know, drinking is definitely more important. So it's the one thing you get a little bit concerned about. So we have coconut water and Gatorade and we do actually have IV fluids and all sorts of stuff if we need it. But we've never had to use. I mean, we get Gatorade because it's nice. It's a nice little treat. But we've never had to go to a point of concern with lack of eating or lack of food. Rambo was the one who got. And that was heat related.
- [15:14]
Nadia Mari
And then maybe then also for new listeners who haven't joined you on a relocation, the elephants, you don't sedate the elephants. They're not let out of the crates even though it was for five days unless there was an absolute emergency. And then you do have stops set up along the way where you could unload if the worst came to the worse. And you do have the possibility to put straps underneath their tummies if they need to lean in and have a rest. But it sounds like that it all went. Went well.
- [15:43]
Kat
Yeah, it went well. It was cold to start. I think I was maybe as cold as I've ever been on the second night going up through Argentina. As with most trips, you know, the elephants are the rock stars. And we have some human induced issues along the way. One of those that we did not know. And with all the preparation and all the truck drivers and all the political entities involved and all, you know, all these things, we did not realize that as we were getting up close to the border, there's A large stretch of Argentina that had a fuel shortage. So we actually were getting into a little bit of a dire strait with needing to refuel and people were talking about there's no fuel anywhere. And at one point we decided to stop just because the elephants had not been drinking. So great. We made an extra stop at a gas station just to make sure, you know, it was shorter span than we normally would, just to see how, you know, make sure they want to give them one last drink before it got too dark. And we stopped at the gas station. And while we were there, the young couple, who was actually the owners, happened to come by and they started talking to some of the team members. The elephants were having a nice little rest, everything was going really well. And they decided to open up the fuel pumps for us, which they had been had, some reserved for emergency vehicles only. And not only did they make that offer because no one asked them, you know, they just brought it up saying, you know, where are you with fuel? Do you need anything? And we said, sure, this would be great, you know, if you can. So they let us refuel most of the vehicles and some of them pretty substantial in the big trucks also. And when we got all done, they also did not accept payment. Yeah, they said, no, it's on us. So that was brilliant. That was just one of those beautiful moments on those journeys where you have all this generous, you know, with cold and elephants, not 100% and big team members and short on fuel. And then you have something like that happen. And it just is just brilliant. It shows how many people come out of the woodwork everywhere to help where they can in these positive projects. So it was pretty. It was a beautiful moment.
- [17:50]
Nadia Mari
And you had police escorts in Argentina and in Brazil, or only in Brazil because of the COVID issues. I don't remember if there was still any cross border problems or.
- [17:59]
Kat
I don't remember what we did with Police Square. I think we did. I think we had.
- [18:03]
Scott
I know you had it when you left.
- [18:04]
Kat
Yeah, but I don't know if we did the whole way.
- [18:06]
Scott
I don't know either.
- [18:07]
Kat
Yeah, I don't remember if we did the whole way. I think we just in the cities. And then we also had the border crossing there, which was an entertaining night. We arrived at the border, I think at about 2 in the morning. But the border crossing does not open until about 6 in the morning, 6 or 6:30.
- [18:23]
Scott
And for those who might not remember, nothing can go across from Argentina to Brazil. That means hay, produce, poop, all of it. It's all gotta go.
- [18:34]
Nadia Mari
Oh yeah, you have to use it all up and clean it all up.
- [18:36]
Kat
And so everything has to come off. So we spent the next three or four hours cleaning everything out of the containers, getting everything in bags, sorting all that out, putting that off to the side. And it was a cold, rainy night. On top of that, it was actually me, Ingo, Trish, I think maybe one of the truck drivers. I don't remember who else was there. I think that was primarily it. So it was definitely an all nighter waiting for the border to open. It was just perfect timing. I think it was right around just after sunrise. A lovely, lovely woman showed up with her bicycle, with her basket full of goodies and fresh coffee. And it was the most beautiful sight on the whole trip because there were no restaurants around, there were no coffee shops, there were no stores. You're in the border crossing and you can't really get in there and Uber's not going to make any deliveries. So it was.
- [19:29]
Nadia Mari
Had she heard about your trip or was that the service she offered that she just.
- [19:34]
Scott
Yeah, it's super common in Brazil. You have people on bicycle that sell pomonias, that sell ice cream, that sell, you know, coffee and baked goods. It's super common.
- [19:45]
Kat
Yeah. So she showed up and she was just actually going there because several people do work at night there. So she was just doing her normal rounds and she became our friend. So. But then after that, everything went really well. The border crossing was easy. Huge entourage waiting for us on the Brazil side. Yes, that was pretty impressive. The only other one that we had done on the cross was Mares border crossing. We weren't there for. We were only on the Brazil side. But everything was set, everything was lined up for us. We were essentially first in line. Still a long process to go through, still a lot of bureaucracy to process. And then got liberty to go to the Brazil side. And we get there and there's like a whole corridor that is fenced off, you know, for the elephants. And the hay truck is already there and the produce truck is there and the camera crews are there and politicians are there and all of our Brazilian team is already there. Because we had to get rid of everything on the Argentine side. Now we have to restock on the Brazil side. So we spent the next multiple hours, you know, getting everything re situated and dealing with the bureaucracy on the Brazil side, getting all that paperwork processed, conducting a few interviews, making sure everybody's ready to go and then we're able to hit the road again. And I would not be able to tell you what time of day that was or how long we were actually there, start to finish. After two really cold nights and all nighter cleaning at the trailer. There's not a lot of brain function at that point.
- [21:09]
Scott
And it's okay because you get all new drivers because all of the Brazilians are on that side and they start taking shifts and driving, and all you guys get to go back to sleep.
- [21:17]
Nadia Mari
Yeah. So is it a longer trip on the Argentinian side or Brazilian side? It's almost 50.
- [21:21]
Kat
50 from Mendoza. Yeah. And it was also entertaining because I remember. I don't remember which of the Brazilian team it was. I think we were a day and a half in on the Brazil. It's like, this is going so well. It's like, oh, my God. Okay, you're a day and a half in girl, you know.
- [21:39]
Scott
Versus three and a half.
- [21:40]
Kat
This has been several really cold nights of not a lot of sleep. And all night, I was like, this is. No, we're tired. This has been a long. A long haul. So. And then it's always that, you know, even in Mendoza, the day before the actual transfer, you know, there's never a lot of sleep because there's all the anxiety that is inevitable and all that stuff. So it gets a little bit exhausting. But again, that's the human side. Elephants rock trucks are good.
- [22:03]
Scott
They were the ones where the morning you guys were coming home when you left the last pit stop, that was it. Pocha. That was letting out the huge trumpets that you could actually hear from outside of the trucks on the street with all the noise that was going on. You could still hear her.
- [22:18]
Kat
Yeah, you could hear them making noise while driving, actually. And that was the last day. That was that last stop.
- [22:24]
Nadia Mari
So any other fun stories before we wrap up today's episode and the next episode will unload? Because that did take a little while, but that's a totally different story. So any. Yeah, Any other fun stories you remember?
- [22:37]
Kat
We had another one on that one, which was another truck stop. You know, it was right in the middle of the trip. It was on the Brazilian side, and neither elephants were 100% at that point. It was right on the cusp of boat just starting to do better and geezer starting to slide back. So there's a little bit of transition between the two. Another gas station with a bunch of fruit trees around, and then all the gas station attentives getting super excited as we start asking which trees are which, and they start taking their own machetes and going and cutting different Branches. And people are coming from behind the gas station, from the other side of the road, behind the house next to the gas station, with all kinds of fruit trees, you know, and bamboo and mango trees.
- [23:15]
Scott
And in this part of Brazil, it is very common for people to have machetes on them.
- [23:21]
Kat
It's.
- [23:22]
Scott
It's a thing just for those people listening, being like, does everybody carry around the machete off their hip?
- [23:30]
Kat
Yeah. Well, anytime you go into the bushes, you end up having people are using machetes to walk through the bush, you know, and to collect different things or to cut banana leaves or whatever it is that they're cutting and collecting. So, yeah, it's interesting. It's also. It's so much fun for me to see the look on everybody's faces. They're actually more excited about elephants eating the fruit trees than they are to see the elephant, you know, and that they got to cut a tree, you know, cut a branch for the elephant. It's just. It's one of those, for me, really fun times on trips to see the energy that comes out and see the joy that people. People have learning about what's going on.
- [24:04]
Nadia Mari
Yeah.
- [24:04]
Scott
And pocha and gijimita were, for the most part, really good for the trip. You know, there was that concern because they had never been separated, which was why they were set up the way they were. And every time we opened the doors, they stuck their trunks out and found each other and smelled each other and touched each other, but they did really, really well considering, you know, a lifetime of not being separated, essentially geisha's entire lifetime, and having those five days of being able to see each other, but, you know, only really being able to touch trunk to trunk when the doors were opened and everything stopped. But it did really well.
- [24:45]
Nadia Mari
And all the smells as well, maybe, of the journey, I was just thinking as well, the new smells and the wind and the change of air temperature and everything. So.
- [24:54]
Scott
Yeah, and you're talking about such a sterile life to go from that to, you know, they can see through the grates, they can see the sides of the roads. So they're like, literally watching the world go by, you know, compared to staring at a wall all day, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. So that's a lot.
- [25:12]
Kat
I do remember the first morning, you know, and we talked about it when we were in the zoo, that they never really saw the horizon until we popped open the doors, you know, popped open the wall with the crates. But I remember, you know, the truck was actually perpendicular to the sun. And I remember both elephants where their head turns towards the sun, looking out the grates and you just have those questions that go through your head is what are they thinking? You know, what, what must this be like? And seeing the world so completely different than pocha than Giza had ever seen, you know, and there's an element that must be overwhelming. And we have these people that say elephants, you know, they won't survive transport or it's too stressful. And yeah, it may be stressful, but it's not overwhelming stress. You know, there's no panic attacks, there's no high anxiety. You know, it may be a little bit uncomfortable but at the same time here's this highly intelligent animals that get to see all these firsts, you know, the first time for so many things for them and it's got to be intriguing and interesting at the same time is a little bit stressful.
- [26:14]
Scott
I mean I think it would be similar to like the first time you take a really young child on a plane that you know, or baby that you can't explain what's going to happen. And the feeling of ears popping and pressure changing and all the noises and you know, it's again, there is a level of stress that I'm assuming they go through not knowing but you know, it's an acceptable level of stress and what's on the other end makes it worth it.
- [26:40]
Nadia Mari
And so yeah, well, thanks for sharing all that with us. So I'll let you go because I know from my time with you that there's always something to do and after lunch there's still lots of work, elephants to feed cat, paperwork, etc and talking of lunch, I need my dinner so I'll be a bit selfish as well. So yeah, have a great rest of your afternoon. Thanks as always for your time and yeah, until we meet up again in a couple of weeks to record. Take care.
- [27:12]
Kat
Thank you Nadia. We'll talk soon.
- [27:14]
Scott
Take care.
- [27:17]
Nadia Mari
That's all that we have time for this week. We hope you enjoyed the podcast and if you did, don't forget to subscribe so you never miss another episode. Another great zero cost way to support us is by leaving a five star rating or a glowing review as this helps other people discover the podcast. Thank you so much and until we meet up in two weeks time, take care.