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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. Hello, everyone. Welcome back. Thank you for tuning in again this week for a new episode of Global Rumblings. It's lovely to have you with us again. Today we'll be catching up on current events at the sanctuary, talking about Mara and Bambi, Maya, Hana, and of course Gigi, what they've been up to, how they're doing. So let's head over to Brazil to say hi to Kat and Scott. Hi, you two.
- [01:19]
Scott
Hi, Nadja.
- [01:20]
Kat
Hey, Nadia. How are you?
- [01:22]
Nadia Mari
I'm fine. How are you? Still rainy season.
- [01:25]
Kat
It is the heart of rainy season.
- [01:27]
Scott
No weather talk.
- [01:28]
Kat
No, it applies to elephants. It is rainy and cool and cloudy and misty and muddy and wet and saturated and all the girls are exfoliating beautifully and they're turning pink and their noses are almost white and their toes are nice and shiny and they're covered in dirt and mud. And then the rain all washes it off and another layer of skin comes off and they are celebrating every day.
- [01:53]
Nadia Mari
A beauty spa. Sounds like a lovely place to be. Well, it is a lovely place to be. You have had a lot on your plates. That's probably the understatement of the year. Since announcing that Puppi and Kenya, your first two African elephants, are being relocated to the sanctuary. So your workload, which normally is superhuman anyway, must have, like, gone to infinity and beyond. So an information for our listeners that we have actually decided to change the release dates of our podcast. So it will be not bi weekly, but what, three weekly? Tri weekly. I should have looked this up before. Well, I'll say tri weekly if it comes from bi weekly being two weeks. So we will be airing every three weeks. Now to give Kat and Scott and the entire team at the sanctuary yes.
- [02:42]
Scott
Some room to breathe that would require it. Being once every six months would be room to breathe.
- [02:48]
Kat
Impressed that she said it's busy as of late. You know, wait a minute. Last 10 years have been at this.
- [02:54]
Scott
Speed, so they've been even crazier. Initially, we had a couple of years where it was a Little more mellow than this.
- [03:02]
Kat
Okay. The last eight years.
- [03:05]
Scott
That might be accurate.
- [03:07]
Nadia Mari
Well, I was thinking. Was, was I going to say it's just for the next couple of months, but it's like when you move out of your flat after 20 years and then you sort of see, ah, the light bulb that's hamming and hanging in the toilet. I never got around to putting a lampshade on it. So we'll stick to every three weeks if that's tri weekly, if that's correct. Yeah. Send us a, send us an email to podcast global elephants.org but if it, if it's right or if it's a mistake. So yes, let's talk today about your five female Asian elephants. The groups are at the moment, if I remember correctly, Bambi and Maya, Hana and Mara and then Gigi, like a little satellite around the two, around the two herds. I'll say. So, so how are they doing? Let's start with, I don't know, you choose.
- [03:56]
Scott
You can't look at me for this one. I am not with them. Even a tiny fraction of cat needs.
- [04:02]
Kat
To get unlocked from the office and to go spend time with more elephants, which will hopefully happen.
- [04:07]
Scott
Trying to rescue other elephants then hopefully.
- [04:09]
Kat
Happen when Africans come. You'll almost be able to see them from the house. Maybe that'll. Yeah. So everyone's doing exceedingly well. You know, I kind of light heartedly talked about the mud and the rain and the dirt and, you know, happy shiny elephants and. But they really are. There's a video this morning that will be posted sometime soon in social media of Hana calling Mara and then rumbling more and Bambi responding from the other side and then Maya, Mara coming over and Mara started squeaking and touching her with a foot and put her head down. And we just see a lot of vocalization with everybody right now with both groups throughout the night vocalizing a lot. There was something else going on earlier today that I was bringing Mar and Hana back towards the barn so we could do some foot soaks with Hana for a few days and switch the yards that the girls are in. And they were rumbling. And on the other side as they were rumbling, you could hear rumbles from Bambi and Maya from the other side. So there's a lot of vocalization, a lot of communication, a lot of celebrations. Giza. There's another video that'll be posted to social media sometime soon of her going through her little repertoire of vocalizations the other day, which was quite charming.
- [05:29]
Scott
She's definitely, I think, one of them that is shifting the most right now and coming. Although, I mean, everything is always constantly in motion. I think she's definitely shifting a lot over the past few months.
- [05:45]
Kat
Yeah, she's, I want to say maturing a little bit, but it's different than maturing. I think just their relationships are maturing, you know, and even though she still gets hit and kicked by Bambi on a regular basis when she's trying to come over, and even she's trying to come over respectfully, these are gentle. This is not.
- [06:03]
Scott
This is totally. We've mentioned it before, like that little kid sticking their finger, like in your face, that's like, I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you. You know, and she kind of prods Bambi a little bit. Bambi gives her a little whap in response, but it's nothing.
- [06:18]
Kat
But she did it the other day where I was trying to get. I was trying to do Bambi's eye drops and I needed her to turn around. She was leaned in along the fence on her left hand side. I needed her to turn around so I could do her right eye. And instead of turning around, she just walked backwards until she bumped into Geisha and then kicked her belly. Geisha stood there for a second and then she started rumbling. And as soon as she started rumbling, then Bambi started rumbling, and then it turned into a lot of nice play behavior between the two of them and a lot of nice socialization and Bambi being really sweet and silly and light as well. So Geisha is instigating that play a little bit more. The one video of her going through her repertoire, that was her instigating it again. It wasn't the other girls. A lot of times the other girls will start and she'll join in, but we see her starting to initiate it a little bit more. But the yesterday, there was also a time with in the Mud, in the Rain where Maya and Bambi were kind of in the mud hole a little bit. So a little depression. And Giza was kind of queen of the mountain. And then going from one to the next, like pushing on Maya and then pushing on Bambi and pushing on Maya and pushing on Bambi head to head. It was all sweet and soft and light, but it's just charming to see that dynamic. And we've talked about it before. I think Giza has had a huge impact on the levity of the other girls, you know, because she just brings that youthfulness, that youthful spunk and keeps the old ladies on their toes a little bit, keeps them so is she.
- [07:46]
Nadia Mari
Still moving between the two hers or. Or have you seen them all together or five of them, or is. How does that work?
- [07:54]
Kat
We haven't in a while. What we saw for after Mara started getting a little bit more aggressive to Bambi and we started separating them out on a regular basis. When Gija was with Mara and Hana, Mara and Hana were a little bit less settled and Giza also was not as grounded. So more often than not, she's been. Actually the vast majority of time she's been with the other two. We've talked about trying to open up a little bit more and seeing how that goes, but we still see a little bit more insecurity right now with Mara and Hana. And I don't know if that's because of where, you know, Mars. Hana's feet are not that great right now. They're evolving, as we would expect with, you know, some things that we saw several years ago. She's an old girl, but that's going to affect her mobility and her strength and comfort. So we're just trying to watch and see what happens. And right now, as we talked about, there is so much vocalization going on. I think the two groups right now are as light as they've ever been since the transitions happened. You know, initially when the transition happened with Mara being a little bit edgy, with Bambi, you know, everyone's a little bit more quiet. But over the months that followed, as they settled back into this, new patterns and new little routines, new friendships, they all have an increased amount of levity, I think.
- [09:17]
Scott
And, well, I think Mara's energy is really intense during those situations. I mean, she just, you know, you'll see her like, Bambi goes to get her food and Mara's like, really watching her, and it's like you can feel how intensely, you know, she's paying attention to her and that she's contemplating, like, following her. And you're like, what are you doing? And. And most of the time, if you catch it and call it out, and of course it's during feed, she'll go the other way. But she has. She can have a significant intensity to her. And then of course, you have on the other side of it, Bambi, who then had her feelings hurt, you know, and was upset because she does or did she probably still does love Mara, you know, and didn't really seem to understand why Mara didn't really love her anymore. So I think both sides had specifics that were throwing everything off balance. But I think Bami definitely, with having Maya and the relationship she has with Geisha, that's all balanced out for her. You know, she's not looking for Mara the way she used to. And even when they're in the yards right next to each other, she's not generally trying to engage with her or looking for attention from her anymore. So I think that all mellowed out and then Mara's edge came off. So I think everybody's just a little lighter.
- [10:42]
Kat
Yeah, initially Bambi, when they are really close, a lot of times Bambi will have like head up and look over with, you know, like exciting that they're coming over and then she kind of switches that off. And Mara does play into that too. Mars energy. There's been times when they're in a separate yard and Mar starts doing that stalker energy a little bit and Bambi keys off of it right away. You know, she just steps away, but she's in a separate yard. But indications that if we did have them together, Mara just hasn't resolved that yet, you know, and what's it going to take to resolve that internal struggle that we don't understand what the origin was. So, yeah, I mean, that's the nature of captivity, the nature of what we do of, you know, we said it a thousand times over. We're putting a bunch of solitary non related elephants in together and say, here, here's your family, you know, and the beauty about Sanctuary is they have the space to be able to walk away. They have the space builder and we have the space to be able to separate them as needed without them being isolated into a small area. You know, they still have notable space to be able to explore and wander.
- [11:47]
Nadia Mari
You mentioned giving Bambi her eye drops just now. She's got cataracts. For listeners who don't know, they're still slowly progressing.
- [11:55]
Scott
I mean, her left eye, she. We think she only saw light and shadows when she got here, so that's not going to get better. And then her right eye started to slowly develop its own cataract and has been slowly getting worse over time. So we're not 100% sure how much she can actually see. A lot of vision tests that you do at the Doctor are based on your response. Is this clearer or is this clearer? You know, which one of these looks better? You can't do that with them. So, I mean, all the eye exams we do don't really tell us they give us an idea of how progressed things are, but don't allow us to be able to gauge 100% what she can see and what? She can't. And I think sometimes she seems worse than others. Like sometimes when she reaches out, I mean, she's not even close to where she should be. And other times she seems much better with it.
- [12:49]
Kat
There's times that she, you know, you're calling her down the fence line because to get her to move a little bit, and she stops and reaches her trunk out, and you're still six meters away. And she's like, here, I'm ready for my food. It's like, no, no, I'm further up here. You call her again. Then she takes another few steps and reaches her trunk out again. I think she seems to be starting to use her hearing a lot more for that location, you know, because they. Even though that their eyesight is not the most prominent, they are using their eyesight and their vision a lot when we are in close proximity. But I think she's starting to adapt to using sound much more significantly than she used to to gauge where we are. She's not as far off when she reaches her trunk out sometimes. And sometimes she reaches her trunk out thinking that you're further away from the fence, and she touches you and she didn't expect you to be there yet. And she recoils her trunk real quickly and just realizing that you were closer than she thought. I mean, there's a lot of indications that she doesn't see well at all. Almost nothing from left side, right side. It really depends on the time of day, how much sunlight it is. If there's a lot of sunlight, she seems to see less. She seems to gain more comfort towards the end of the day. She seems more relaxed at the end of the day and into evening.
- [14:05]
Scott
Yeah, I remember when she first came, how surprised we were that she. She didn't seem to supplement her vision loss with hearing, especially with the species and how centered around smell and sound that they are. But she really didn't seem super adapted that way when she showed up.
- [14:23]
Kat
But we've talked about that before, especially with their hearing and that type of vocalization that is the, you know, the infrasonic, the rumbles, the, you know, the low frequency that they almost seem not to know how to use it, you know, and we saw it in Tennessee. We've seen it here sometimes where they're rumbling and rumbling, huge, giant rumbles and they're walking the wrong direction, you know.
- [14:43]
Scott
I think the girls in Tennessee were much worse.
- [14:46]
Kat
They were definitely worse.
- [14:48]
Scott
Oh, my God, they were terrible.
- [14:50]
Kat
It was. Yeah, that happened on many occasions with Sissy and Winkin, also with Shirley and Shirley and Jenny, you know, but if you think about what that, what captivity has done to that, I mean, it's, it's like the, the whales in the swimming pool, you know, they're, they're echolocation of bouncing off the walls and reverberating back to them, you know, with elephants, okay, rumbling back and forth. What's that gonna do? You know, who am I gonna call? You know, the train is the closest thing that makes it. That type of rumble, you know, the type of frequency or a big tractor. But that's not communication, that's just noise, you know, so they learn not to rely on that and learn not to tap into that. Especially with the overstimulation of noise in so many zoos and, you know, in the middle of a city with highways and horns and vibrations that, you know, they're just not as adept to listening to the nuance of sound as they would have been if they lived in the wild.
- [15:47]
Nadia Mari
Talking of daily routines and habits for listeners who may be are new to the podcast and new to your work, what is like a typical day and the day of the ladies look like? Do they each have certain routines? Do they like to, I don't know, go for a swim first or go for a mud bath first or do they come to have something, some supplementary snacks?
- [16:14]
Kat
Their routine is a little bit centered around our routine to a certain degree. You know, we try not to influence too much what they do, but we do have a morning and evening feeding, the primary tube, and that is to give them the medication supplementations. You know, first thing in the morning, which is around 8:00, and then around 4, 4:30, you know, we do another supplemental feeding. If they need more throughout the day, we will, depending on the status, status, status of each elephant. And then after the 8 o'clock feeding, we, we normally do treatments, trainings, depending on what is needed. Footwork, foot soaks, Bambi's eye drops three times a day. So Bambi also gets a little lunch right now because of her physical condition. So she also gets lunch. But in between that, it really just depends on the day. Sometimes it's wandering off, sometimes it's hanging out and sleeping by the fence early in the morning. Sometimes they're nowhere to be seen many times. And then they know that we are all starting to come and get active between 7 and 8. So they start coming out of the, out of the woods and out of the shadows and coming over. Sometimes we arrive in the morning and they're already in the mud. Depending on how Sunny and warm it is. Or depending on the rain, they're already laying in the mud wallows. So their routine that surrounds our, you know, feedings, that varies all the time. That varies on their energy level, that varies on how much they partied the night before. We see a lot of hungover elephants here where, you know, mid morning, they're like, okay, we're done, you know, we need a nap. And they're just ready to fall asleep, you know, so that just. That varies. I mean, there's so much that they, they are in control of and where they want to do and what they want. Where they want to go, what they want to do, and environmentally influenced, certainly.
- [18:07]
Nadia Mari
And do any of them react specifically to the wildlife in your, in your sanctuary as well? I don't. Are tapirs, I think, are non nocturnal. Are they nocturnal or is there like an anteater that might sort of go across the habitat? Are they frightened or scared by wildlife or do they just sort of take it in their stride, ignore them? Have you ever seen that?
- [18:28]
Kat
Yeah, I think it depends on how much they've been startled by whatever's coming out of the bushes, if they realized it was coming. You know, I think with. We definitely hear the crazy trumpets at night, which we don't always know what the instigating factor is, but sometimes there's like this, you know, very expressive, very acute, almost, you know, forceful trumpet that comes out of nowhere. And sometimes we think those are because of a wildlife encounter. Is that because they're afraid of it or did they just get startled, you know, coming across a snake, that. I'm fine with snakes, but when you're walking on a path and see a snake, there's that instantaneous little ooh, you know, and I don't trumpet, but, you know, maybe that's what. We don't know what the insecurity factor is sometimes.
- [19:15]
Nadia Mari
You could, you could.
- [19:17]
Scott
We saw Gigi along the fence line that one time on one of the night cameras. There were two foxes that were along the fence and had been in the habitat and they were kind of running around and clearly not fearful of her, which entertained her because they actually seemed.
- [19:34]
Kat
To be instigating the play. I mean, they were provoking her a little bit and they'd go, they'd run in and out of the fence and run into the fence and walk up to her. She'd walk towards them or chase them a little bit. They'd run back out and then come back in.
- [19:46]
Scott
So kicking out her back leg when they were nowhere near her. I Mean, she not going to hurt anything. They're like, you know, 30 yards away and she's kicking and being all spunky.
- [19:54]
Kat
It's like, okay, and they're little fox. I mean, they're what, maybe 20 kilos maximum? I mean, 15 kilos. I mean, they're. They're tiny. They're small little animals can't cause any harm to an elephant. They're clearly not trying to hunt an elephant. So, you know, the only thing that you can extrapolate is they're just being inquisitive, playful, curious fox. We see that with the birds, too. You know, we see the elephants, you know, interacting and listen to interacting, but cohabitating. And birds are really relatively close. They watch them. Haven't seen a taper come by lately.
- [20:31]
Nadia Mari
But a lot of them to renegade, pushy, rehab breakout. Pushy.
- [20:35]
Kat
Yeah, that might be a different scenario, I think. I think Wildf are going to need to learn how to run a little faster. Like, wait a minute. Those Asians are mellow. What are you all about?
- [20:49]
Scott
Yeah, Africans are not slow.
- [20:51]
Kat
Africans are definitely faster than Asians. So it'll be curious to see.
- [20:55]
Nadia Mari
Oh, that's going to be so exciting when they come. Yes, I read that on your social media. That puppy has started her quarantine. So very exciting times. And talking of time, I can't believe we're running out of time time. Well, you are, because you have lots of work to do. So I don't want to keep you longer than necessary. But as always, I could talk with you for ages and Scott can talk forever. And we all could love to listen to Scott, but also to you, Cat. Forever. But I have to let you go. So what have you got planned for this afternoon?
- [21:25]
Kat
Crying as I'm embarrassed again how much I talk. No water systems. The well, the water tanks are wrapped up and it was almost ready to go. We're just putting last touches on the water system in Africa. So I got to go test the two well sources and make sure that everything's pumping up there just fine. Flush out the water pipes. Water. The water troughs are going in place, so we're going to be working on plumbing those. And we're going to do all that while playing in the rain because it's lovely, lovely, lovely rainy afternoon.
- [22:00]
Scott
I have to figure out about research projects.
- [22:03]
Kat
So Cat stuck behind the computer while I go get saturated in the rain.
- [22:09]
Scott
It's not a bad day to not have to be out there. It's a cold rain. Most of the time the rain is nice. But today's the chilly rain, so I'll take my afternoon behind the computer today.
- [22:21]
Nadia Mari
Okay, well, thank you for your time as always, very precious. Much appreciated. So we'll catch up for our next recording and until then, you two take care.
- [22:30]
Kat
Thank you Nadia. It's always a pleasure.
- [22:32]
Nadia Mari
Bye bye. 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. Sa.