← Global Rumblings Podcast
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- [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. Hi, everyone. Welcome back and thank you for tuning in again this week for a new episode of Global Rumblings. I can't actually believe how fast the last two weeks have flown by. So let's head over to Brazil to say hi to Kat and Scott. Hi, YouTube.
- [01:11]
Scott
Hey, Nadia.
- [01:12]
Kat
Hi, Nadja.
- [01:13]
Scott
It's already been two weeks.
- [01:15]
Nadia Mari
Yep. Time flies when you're having fun.
- [01:18]
Scott
Is that what we're doing? That's what they call this.
- [01:24]
Nadia Mari
That's what they call this. When we. We chatted previously, well before we started recording, and you said that you've had a thunderstorm or something, but you're out of power, so I can't hear the generator. I could hear it in our call, but just so that listeners know the noise underneath is the generator, let's see if Bob can get it out. But if he can't, then that's what the underlying noise is in today's recording.
- [01:50]
Scott
Yes, another day, another day without power.
- [01:53]
Kat
That's what happens when you live in the middle of nowhere and apparently somebody blinked the wrong way, so we lost power. So it goes.
- [02:01]
Nadia Mari
But we've got Internet, which is good, so otherwise we would be recording today. Okay, talking about time flying by, let's talk about the inevitable. When this podcast comes out on the 3rd of December, it will only be three weeks until Christmas shock horror. So let's talk about how listeners can support the work of Global Sanctuary for Elephants by shopping in your online store.
- [02:30]
Kat
We have some cute stuff, we have holiday stuff. We have some ornaments and that sort of thing. We have normal T shirts and hats and that kind of thing. We also have our calendar for next year is out. So I think they're actually having a sale for. I think it starts Black Friday or Cyber Monday. I don't know what any of those holidays are. I don't shop Green Thursday. We take care of elephants. I don't generally go shopping, but they are supposed to be having a sale for that, which will extend past, I think it's like a week or 10 days. So should still be going on when this airs. And then fantastic when people are at the shop. You can also buy things for the girls. They have gift baskets for the girls and different items that we need and use everything from medical to Fruit Loops. And then you can always adopt one of the girls. A bunch of ways you can support them, support the organization, get some cute stuff.
- [03:33]
Scott
Through the years, we've had a lot of people when we ask them how you. How did you learn about the organization? There's a fair number that said, because somebody got me a gift, you know, or they. Or they adopted an elephant in their name. And they became hooked once they understood more about what the sanctuary was and the purpose and the mission and the recovery of the elephants, and they became hooked. So it's a great way not only to check off your shopping list and all in one stop, but also help, you know, more people become attached to the work that we do.
- [04:01]
Nadia Mari
Yeah, it's great. I'm actually an Eddy Guardian and I really look forward to the monthly emails that supporters get as an Eddy Guardian and special photos and unique insights to the favorite elephant. So, yeah, and what I. What I enjoy the most. It's not a dust collector.
- [04:18]
Kat
Yeah, there's too many of us.
- [04:22]
Nadia Mari
Well, that's maybe a perfect way to seg from dust collectors because I'm still in the middle of tidying up and giving everything to charity and throwing things out. So let's talk about Pocha and Gijamina and them probably having a fantastic, wonderful dust bath after they managed to unload. It took eight hours. Pocha had played around with the drainpipe, had a lovely bath. You managed to unload Gigi as well. So take us there again. Their first days, weeks, months at the sanctuary. But maybe the first night after everyone had left and everything was calm. How was their first night?
- [04:58]
Kat
I think everybody passed out, or at least everybody that had been on the relocation, because it was. Was it five days?
- [05:05]
Nadia Mari
Yeah.
- [05:06]
Kat
And then as long as they took. I mean, because it was, I don't know what time in the morning by the time that everything wrapped up. And I think everybody who is involved in the relocation was quite done at that point.
- [05:19]
Nadia Mari
Yeah.
- [05:20]
Scott
And I don't remember what happened with them that night. I remember the next morning. And because we had talked about it during their trip saying, you know, we had done a. I think it was a. Live from their first morning on the road and then seeing the sunset sunrise off the side of the crates and just wondering what that would be like, you know, looking out and seeing the sun rising and seeing that horizon from inside the crate, but seeing that for the first time. And I remember coming down to the barn, and they were both looking out to the east, early morning hours, and just wondering what's going through their heads, you know, what. What that must be like to not only not be in the crates, but to not be in that. In that concrete pit and being on lookout and able to see nothing but the natural world around you.
- [06:02]
Nadia Mari
And were they very vocal? Were they very vocal? Squeaking, rumbling, trumpeting, or do you remember?
- [06:10]
Scott
They were always very vocal. There was not a time when they were not vocal, whether it be through anxiety or just reassuring one another or just a moment of, hey, this is really cool, and celebrating life. I mean, they were vocal all the time.
- [06:26]
Kat
They were vocal to a point where the dogs were kind of a little put off by them. And our dogs are great. They've been around, you know, the elephants since the beginning of time. Minnie and Molly lived here before we did, so they've seen every elephant arrival, and they've been around all of them, and they're respectful. They keep their space. They. The elephant space is theirs. Dog space is theirs. But, you know, they do go down to the barn in the morning, and they usually are relatively close. And I remember them giving them, like, sideways glances and, like, walking away and going a little bit further up the hill, because they were like, I don't know what's wrong with these two, but we're gonna go somewhere else.
- [07:02]
Scott
But they also had a pretty big energy, too. I mean, you were still, you know, trying to figure it out, and Gija, with all of that energy that she had and trying to process it all and, you know, trying to decide what's next, and anxiety, you know, definitely nerves and anxiety for those first few days and a little bit of discomfort, I think, especially for Gija.
- [07:20]
Nadia Mari
One thing that supporters do like to know, which is the first elephants that they met, and I remember we did talk about it in, I think it was the podcast on Lady. That lady was actually the first elephant that went up to them, if I remember rightly, because she was quite surprised that they weren't paying attention to her, which is because Pocha and Gizamina were used to. As they were in the pit, looking down and not ahead of them. So maybe you can recall that story.
- [07:46]
Kat
Yeah, I mean, it took them days to leave the barn.
- [07:49]
Nadia Mari
Yeah.
- [07:50]
Kat
You know, they. There's a whole Gigi finally walking out backwards after she was ready, after not letting her mom out, who was ready before she was and, yeah, I mean, Gigi just had that very dominant over her mom. Her mom was only allowed to do what she wanted her to do. And that came from, you know, Mendoza. It's just how she spent the first 23 years of her life. And they had had access to yard two and three, and lady had come in down yard one and clearly knew that somebody was doing something and somebody was somewhere that was different. And she kind of hung out at the back of yard one for a little while, smelling and just looking around. And we think just because there was no response on the side of Pochengiji, that she ended up coming closer. And she went by the divider fence between one and two, and she was probably, I don't know, maybe 10ft from the fence line, you know, smelling in their direction and looking at them, and neither one noticed that she was there at all.
- [08:52]
Nadia Mari
Oh, wow.
- [08:52]
Kat
I mean, they just weren't looking. So for her, she was like, oh, cool. Nice and relaxed. Which, of course, she did learn just a couple of weeks later that that actually wasn't how they were at all. But, you know, she hung out over there for a little while and went to the tree and hung out in the shade and the mud wallow and ended up leaving. But it was that thing of, you know, for her, it was comfortable because they weren't coming over and trying to say hello and trying to do anything with her, but it wasn't because that was who they were. Not even in the moment. They just. They never saw her.
- [09:26]
Scott
Yeah, they hadn't really connected to the world around them yet, you know, And I think part of that is because they had each other. And I think if either one of them would have been there alone, I think they may have responded differently. And also I think they would have adapted a little faster. But because they had such comfort with each other, I think it allowed them more or less to be okay with just hanging out with each other. Even their little explorations outside, you know, the few little steps outside, then back inside, outside, back inside, you know, because they still had each other inside, you know, and. And I think if they had, again, alone, it would have been a different. Different process. Not that it was a bad process, just a little bit different than the others compared to what it's like when an elephant comes on there, makes their first steps of the journey on their own.
- [10:10]
Kat
Yeah, we used to go down at night. You know, we go down with new elephants or sick elephants. We go down at night to check on them, make sure everybody's good, give them a Little bit of food. And we started working with Pocha and Gigi just doing little things, you know, trying to. Because they hadn't had any sort of foot care or anything like that. So trying to get them to do foot presents, getting them used to the restraint shoots before they had gone out and stuff. And their vibe at night was definitely much different. They're much more settled, still vocal, but quieter vocalizations, more rumbles and, you know, not quite as blaring as they were during the day. Definitely just a much more settled energy and separating. Not. We would work separately with each of them. Not always the same, although I tended to have Gigi and you had Pocha for the most part. And just, you know, getting them used to stepping away from each other a little bit and just having a different individual attention to kind of.
- [11:19]
Scott
But even when they had it, we hadn't seen the explore that much outside. There was clear signs that they were outside at night. Those two made a mess of those first three small yards. Especially Yard three was pretty grown up at that point. A lot of brush, a lot of, you know, smallish trees. And if some of the trees, when they first start growing here, you have, you know, five or six trunks growing out of the same area and you come over, they'd be split, split in half and folded down in opposite directions. They just completely ravaged yard three. It used to be that you couldn't see the back of it and it was a relatively small yard. But after poaching, Giza came. You could definitely see a lot more of yard three.
- [12:00]
Nadia Mari
Oh, yeah, I remember you said that they. Yeah, I remember you said about they. Considering they didn't know what an obstacle was, they just barged through it.
- [12:07]
Scott
Yeah, yeah, they just walked right through. So they were clearly exploring on their own and checking things out and doing their thing. And I think for me, if memory serves, which it doesn't always in my brain, the first elephants they came across was the rest of the group. They were all back at the back of yard too, all at the same time. Oh, so everybody came back. I don't remember who was first in that.
- [12:30]
Kat
I know Bambi was the first one to actually try to interact with them. And then Hana was further down the fence line and she ended up dealing more with Pocha Pocha, who is letting Gigi kind of do her thing with everybody and kind of had walked not off a little bit, but just further down. And that's where Hana ended up being further down the fence line.
- [12:53]
Scott
And at that point in their cycle, they were still doing Their little. They do a little route, they do a little circle or they do exploration and just for a few minutes and then they come back to the barn and it's almost like having a touch base, like home base for a minute. They come back to the home base and then you go back again. So just when the other elephants started coming over, they poaching. Gizmina said hi for a second, then they went back to the barn. Then they came back again and then they went back to the barn. They came back again and went back to the barn because they're still in that cycle of, you know, can't. Can't be away from home for too long. And it was interesting to watch because it's like, you see this interaction that is so sweet and tender and really nice and everyone seems really chill and it's like, gotta go boom. Gotta go home, run back to the barn.
- [13:38]
Kat
See you later. Bye.
- [13:39]
Scott
Yeah, it's like, okay, that was weird. Then they come back a few minutes later and pick up where they left off. But I remember Pocha leaning, being sideways to the fence and somebody touching on her. Geisha was a little more insecure at that moment, but. So, yeah, I don't know that it wasn't like a. Like we've seen in the forest before. Whereas one individual elephant comes over and has a solid interaction with them, it was pretty much everybody except for Lady. Yeah.
- [14:05]
Nadia Mari
Yeah. It must have been quite a. Quite a shock for Gigi because apart from her mother and her father, Tammy, she had never really seen. Well, not only she had never seen other elephants, Pocha, we don't know about her, her history, but we can assume that she had met more than other elephants or more than her, more than Tammy. So it must have been a shock for Gigi suddenly to see, well, more of her species.
- [14:31]
Scott
It's a lot. It was a. Clearly it was a lot for her, you know, and, you know, when we talk more people saying that in zoo specifically, you know, they're not going to know how to adapt, it's going to be so stressful. It's going to cause so much anxiety. You know, it's too. Too much on them. It is sometimes a little bit stressful, but would you say it's too much? Not at all, but it is. It's a big change for an elephant that was in a concrete pit for 23 years and never seen another elephant. But it's really remarkable at the same time.
- [15:00]
Kat
I mean, look, everybody has to bring everybody. If your child goes to any sort of public school, there is always that first day of kindergarten. It is. Your child has pretty much spent most of their time at home. They've never been to school before. They're going to meet, you know, 30 different new kids, they're going to have a different schedule, you know, they're going to have a teacher who may want things regimented in a certain way, so on and so forth. So is there a little stress in that? Yes, there's probably more stress for the parent than for the child, but there is a level of stress. But that's not a level of stress that you avoid just because it's a little bit of stress. You know, you don't lock your child away forever because you don't want them to be stressed the first day of school. And it's the same thing. You don't, you know, deny giving them that opportunity and a chance at sanctuary just because you're concerned that they're going to be a little stressed. Yes, they may be a little stressed, although some don't seem to have been stressed at all when they get here. But it's never this huge level of stress where, you know, there's any real negative association with it. It's just that same level of stress that we all go through at multiple points in our life.
- [16:18]
Scott
And geisha certainly had a more extreme background in history than most elephants in terms of confinement, isolation, you know, born in captivity, never saw anybody else aside from mom and dad, you know, to, to have this open up open space and exploration, different sites, different sounds, different bugs, different, different animals and new elephants. But it was really remarkable to see how, how quickly they adapted, given all of that, how much they settled in and, you know, that point forward, it was just kind of the same thing of, you know, going out and exploring, coming back home. Just the explorations took a little longer and going back home was a little bit further away.
- [16:55]
Kat
Yeah, I mean, I remember the first time they stayed out at night because of course we go to check on them expecting to be able to find them. We can't find them. We're like, okay, where'd they go? And they ended up, actually took us a little while to find them. Although you follow the trail of broken trees, they were, oh my God. They were running around in the creek bed in yard four. And we heard them before we saw them because again, follow the sound of breaking trees. And they, they're very funny. You know, they were so curious. You know, there was so much that had been so limited. So it's not like, you know, once they got the Courage to move away. They definitely wanted to see things, but they were very funny because of course, then you have to be concerned. There's a lot of areas that are easy to get out of the creek, but we're like, do you know how to get out? Are you playing in there and happy? Or are you concerned and think you're stuck, you know, trying to analyze it from not being right there and only being able to see and hear so much? So we took the four wheeler on the backside of four to the area that is so easy to cross. We could do it with a four wheeler and a dump wagon, you know, full of poop. So we go over there just so they can see if they don't know which. I mean, they probably did where the easiest place to leave was. And of course, they just left on their own up some steep embankment on the other side, going in the other direction. They were like, we don't need you. See you later. Bye. But they were great that way. You know, it took sometimes it took a little bit to get them going, but once they got going, they're a little ungraceful sometimes.
- [18:43]
Nadia Mari
You said that, you said that Gumina was very dominant of her mother. So did you notice, was she very. I want to go back to the barn now because I'm not feeling well anymore. I want to go back home. And then you realized that, or saw maybe that Pocha wanted to stay with the other elephants. Was she dominant in that sense as well at the beginning, do you remember?
- [19:05]
Scott
I think some of that, for me, if I recall, was that Pocha actually wanted to go back more than sometimes. Giza would do her circles, you know, and that was interesting to watch because, you know, we talk about stereotypical actions. And with Giza, she didn't bob her head or sway. She would do circles or she did figure eights down in Mendoza. And when she explored, like when she explored that the smaller yards, she would actually just do larger and then larger and then larger circles. So she'd leave the barn, do a small circle, walk around again, do a larger circle, and then increase that until it ends up being like three quarters of the size of the yard, but still a circle and coming back home. So there was that comfort pattern that she had developed in this part of how she explored. And we even saw it inside the yard. 4. Sometimes, you know, they'd be by the fence or they'd be doing something, and Geisha would go do a giant circle, you know, and sometimes the circle was relatively close to the fence, and sometimes it was leaving the fence and going all the way around the pound and coming back to that same spot again. But I don't know that, you know, as far as Giza's control in that, I don't think it was as much. Once they had more space, it was when they were still exploring the first stages of it, and she would still dominate her mom sometimes at dinner and sometimes things. She would want to, you know, displace her mom, but not like she was when she first came.
- [20:22]
Kat
No, I mean, when they were in, before they had left the barn, I mean, she would hit her mom, she would kick her mom. She would kick her mom in the face. Like, oh, my God, full on. Kick her mom in the face. And we were like, holy cow. It's like, what are you doing? Your poor mom. She's so sweet. And her mom doesn't do anything after she does it. She just takes it, and it's like, oh, no, no, you can't do that. And Gigi really didn't understand that that was inappropriate behavior. I mean, it's how it had been probably her whole life with her mom once she was big enough to do anything like that, because I know they saw it in Mendoza. You know, Carissa would let us know, Poach tried to go in the crate, and Gigi hit her. But it was something that we had Talked about with Dr. Joyce Poole, who's on our board and is the head of Elephant Voices, who works with wild African elephants, and talking about how that's something that would never happen in the wild with elephants, you know, in the 45 years or whatever it is that she's been studying wild elephants, she said she's never seen it and it would never happen. You know, these are things that are only manifest through the limits of captivity. And people just are like, oh, she's just pushy. Oh, she's just aggressive. Oh, she's just whatever. When the reality is that is that is not anything that would ever be seen outside of the confines of captivity. So we had a lot of interesting conversations about Gigi with her mom and behavior with Joyce, because it was very, very, very strange, but thankfully shifted really quickly, you know, with having more space, with being outside, with being around the other elephants and seeing that, hey, nobody else out here is kicking anybody or hitting anybody when they want something, you know, that everybody else communicates in a different way and becoming part of that. And so her dominance towards her mom decree decreased quickly in many different ways.
- [22:26]
Scott
But that dominance. And I know we're running out of time, but that we can jump into this more next time, because actually, really interesting to observe with her is that dominance was all about her, the one thing she could control in her life. And when you have a life where you can't control anything, you can't fix it, you can't make it any better, you know, so she could control that in her life. And in some ways, maybe it was the only thing that poacher could give her daughter.
- [22:51]
Nadia Mari
Yeah.
- [22:51]
Kat
Yeah. It was a very strange dynamic, but we were happy that the longer they were here, you know, and it was just. It started to shift so quickly that the more that changed and the less we would see her beating up her poem.
- [23:11]
Nadia Mari
But it also draws attention to the fact of what you just said, that these behaviors are only seen in captivity because these small, unnatural spaces just bring out behaviors that, as you said, Dr. Joyce Poole has never seen in 45 years of her observing wild elephants. So it's just the unnatural spaces that this confinement that humans put elephants into, because we want to see them in circuses or we want to see them in zoos, would just bring out these totally abnormal behaviors, this aggressive behavior. But kicking somebody in the face or an elephant in the face, that is quite shocking. Yeah, yeah.
- [23:51]
Kat
And the thing is, the other thing with in the wild is you have not just a mom, but you have a bunch of allomothers. You know, you have a grandmother. You have all of these elephants that have raised babies for generations that all help the mother raise their child.
- [24:08]
Nadia Mari
Yeah.
- [24:09]
Kat
And you bet that they are put in their place so quickly when there is any sort of questionable behavior. And it's not super aggressive. It never has to be, because it doesn't get to the point where that's the response that's needed. You know, it's. With elephants, it's often gentle guidance, but it is her being all alone, you know, not having anybody to support her and how she's raising her calf and the limits of space and stimulation and Gigi essentially being able to do anything except for stand right next to her mom.
- [24:45]
Scott
And in the wildly have very, very complex social groups, which we know. And in captivity, you have one.
- [24:50]
Nadia Mari
Yeah.
- [24:51]
Scott
You know, just. We deprive captivity deprives us of everything of what they're supposed to be, including those very critically important life lessons of what it means to be a social group.
- [25:01]
Nadia Mari
Yeah. Okay. Well, thanks for your time. That was super interesting. We are running out of time, so we've got a lot of topics to. To talk about in our next recording. I hope power comes back that the.
- [25:16]
Scott
Peace and tranquility before two weeks comes, hopefully.
- [25:21]
Nadia Mari
Well, as long as we've got Internet, but yes. So you can enjoy the peace and tranquility of sanctuary and not having the generator right next to your ear all the time. Well, at least in your house.
- [25:32]
Kat
Take a hot, hot shower.
- [25:33]
Scott
Yeah.
- [25:34]
Kat
Because the showers don't really play nice with the generators.
- [25:37]
Nadia Mari
Ah, of course. Yeah. And now that it's rain season, it's a little bit cool. It's not quite as. As hot as it is during the. Yeah. During dry season where a cold shower is quite welcome.
- [25:47]
Kat
Yeah. I don't know if we can do laundry either. I don't think the washing machine likes the generator either.
- [25:54]
Nadia Mari
Oh, dear. Okay, so I definitely hope you get power back. As long as the gas cooker is working and there's a great lunch then and great dinner. That. That's okay, I suppose. Okay, well, thanks again for your time and we'll catch up again for our next recording. Take care until then.
- [26:11]
Scott
Thank you, Nadia. Take care.
- [26:12]
Kat
Bye.
- [26:13]
Nadia Mari
Bye. As we wrap up this week's episode, a reminder that if you'd like to stay up to date with current events at the sanctuary, you can do so by following Global Sanctuary for Elephants on their various social media channels. You'll find all the details in the show notes. Thank you so much. And until we meet up in two weeks time, take care.