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- [00:17]
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 savings 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, where Asian and African elephants, lovingly referred to as the girls, live their best lives. Dear listeners, we've always believed that time is of essence and that their lives depend on it. This statement holds true especially in the wake of the sudden passing of Tammy, the male Asian elephant, at Mendoza Eco park in Argentina. Though this is a shocking development, it's also a heartbreaking reminder of what captivity can do to elephants, especially over the course of decades. Please note that this podcast was recorded before Tammy's passing.
- [01:21]
Kat
Foreign.
- [01:26]
Nadia Mari
Welcome back to Global Rumblings. Or if you're new to the podcast, welcome to Global Rumblings. If you've ever wondered what a typical day at the sanctuary looks like from the human perspective, then this is your episode. So let's head over to Brazil to say hi to Kat and Scott. Hi, YouTube.
- [01:41]
Scott
Hey, Nadia, how are you?
- [01:42]
Kat
Hi, Nadia.
- [01:44]
Nadia Mari
I'm fine. A little, a little bit cold sitting down in my cellar office with a hot water bottle because, yeah, the summer is waiting in Germany. It's gone on hold. It's 14 degrees. So what's the weather like with you?
- [01:59]
Scott
Beautiful, sunny, warm.
- [02:00]
Nadia Mari
Ah, great. Okay, send some over to me. So a typical day at the sanctuary from a human perspective. What time do you start work? What time do you get up? What time does the team arrive? How big is the team? Yeah, take us there. What was it? What does a good day look like?
- [02:22]
Scott
Before we go there, Kat, how would you sum this up on a humorous perspective? A day in the life of sanctuary, in three words or less.
- [02:30]
Kat
A good day is Sunday.
- [02:34]
Scott
A day in the life of sanctuary from a humorous perspective is crazy. It's busy, it's a lot of directions, it's balancing a lot of different things, juggling a lot of different items, whether that be here on site or, you know, from Kat's perspective, the, you know, balancing and juggling the, the demands of the US team, whether that be PR and social media or financing or, you know, the, the auction that's just finished. I mean, there's just so much going on and I think it's hard to imagine how many different pieces except when people are here, they always say, we knew you guys were busy, but we just had no idea.
- [03:12]
Kat
I mean, essentially we're running two organizations. It's not just GSE in the US It's SCB is a completely separate organization here in Brazil who has to do their own, you know, fundraising and has their own staff and so on and so on. So it's a lot.
- [03:33]
Scott
Yeah, it's a lot of directions and there's always different things that are pulling you and you know, it's, it's amplified multitasking on steroids. I mean, it's really, it's, it's, it's intense. We. I suck down a lot of coffee. Cats. Coffee comes up in the afternoon to keep us going. But if you want to go back and get on track a little bit more, my day starts right a little before 5:30, get up, check messages right away. A lot of times in the morning, right now, before much happens, I converse a little bit with Pangea, who is a. We're consulting for them in their project in Portugal, which is. They're getting ready to start building right now, putting some fence posts in the ground. So there's a lot of details they want to run past us. So I normally get that done first thing in the morning, start organizing the day, meet the guys at 7, which is a team of. At about 10 right now. And then we have. Normally by 8 o' clock or so, they are mostly going in the directions they need to.
- [04:36]
Kat
It depends how many cups of coffee they have or how long they stop to chat. It's very.
- [04:41]
Scott
How many different directions they're working in. Because sometimes, yeah, sometimes that team of 10 is. It's six different projects, you know, and right now all those projects are coming through us. So it's, it's a lot of, a lot of balancing. And we have another group of about four, and they're currently working on the crate for male Asian elephants, or male elephants, I should say, can be used for females as well. But right now that crate is in progress and they're moving forward quite well with that. But there's a lot of details there as well.
- [05:10]
Kat
It's just gonna make the other crate look ugly, though. It's gonna look really fancy.
- [05:16]
Nadia Mari
So you're building that crate at the sanctuary?
- [05:18]
Scott
We build everything at the sanctuary. You don't send anything away. If you want it done well, you do it at home.
- [05:26]
Kat
Buenos Aires initially was going to. Well, they did hire somebody to build an elephant crate for them. The cost was 120,000 US, which is very expensive. And partway through the build, the people, the company building it sent a video and somebody happened to tap on one of the metal pipes, and it sounded like a tin can. So we were like, oh, you have a problem. That is not an elephant.
- [05:55]
Scott
It's a live video. It actually was not halfway through. They had completed construction on it. They took our design. We spent the specifications. We spent the specifications to it. And they were. It was a live video conference and video call. And they, you know, I heard somebody shut the door. It's like, oh, wait a minute. That doesn't sound right. You know, and they started looking at the materials and they sent a spec list afterwards and. And everything they did was the wrong size.
- [06:23]
Kat
Yeah. And it's. I mean, these are elephants. You can't go for thinner walls on your metal and think that that's not going to be a problem. I mean, ridiculously, our crates are like, when we build them, they cost us 40, 50,000. So to charge 120,000 and then not even use the appropriate metal is just absurd. So. So clearly they said, please, no, thank you, and ended up using our crates.
- [06:50]
Scott
But, yeah, I getting a little off topic again, but to that company that built that actually offered to pay for Kat and I both to fly to Ben. They'll be all expensive weekend in Buenos Aires so they can talk about what they can do to fix the crate.
- [07:06]
Kat
They wanted to convince us that it was fine and that, you know, they didn't want to lose the money, clearly. But, yeah, we like elephants to stay inside of the crates when they're traveling down the road.
- [07:18]
Nadia Mari
So that is helpful. That is helpful.
- [07:20]
Kat
Yeah.
- [07:20]
Nadia Mari
Okay, so like homemade cakes. Homemade cakes are mostly better than store bought. Not all the time, but mostly. Unless maybe your grandma's running the cake shop and baking herself. So the crate and the maintenance team, they are also in charge of extending the yard. So can you give us updates on that? You said last time when we talked about Pupi destroying the trees and saying that, you know, leave some for Kenya when she comes, and then you said that the yard will be extended. So how is that getting along?
- [07:51]
Scott
A little slow. We had a couple other projects that needed to get back to. There were some. Some things going on in the mail yard that needed to be wrapped up. We were waiting for some more materials to arrive. So when that material arrived, which actually was the same time the material arrived before the transport crate, we sent a team back down there to. We're also waiting for some wheels and a couple other little things to come for to finishing down there. So they've been down there for the better part of two weeks. So hopefully this week everything is wrapped up within the next few days and they get back on the elephant. The African elephant expansion.
- [08:25]
Nadia Mari
Great.
- [08:26]
Scott
We also did a test this week with our new pump system. Two stages of water distribution and irrigation. Irrigation is primarily for fired containment. And we did a test which was actually really successful this week, which was exciting. There's always the question that comes up, you know, even though you talk to different people about it and you do the installation, until you flip the switch and do the test, you never really know. But that worked out quite well. So we're going to continue with that, expanding that system as well.
- [08:56]
Nadia Mari
Okay, so the maintenance team, 10 people. Then you also have caregivers, apart from yourself, who look after the elephants. Maybe you can tell us.
- [09:05]
Scott
Also, we have two to three people, depending on the week, depending on the day, I should say, of people who come and do general, general care. They do diet preparations for elephants, they do diet preparations for small animals, they do chicken care, feeding. Our team, I was going to say.
- [09:26]
Kat
Diet preparation for humans.
- [09:29]
Scott
On any given day we have, I guess, up to 20 people, normally between 14 and 18 people, I guess, on an average day. And we feed everybody here on site, so there's a lot of food and items to be taken care of to help look after them. And then about 8 o' clock in the afternoon, in the morning, that's when the caregivers arrive and then we start updates, see what's going on. Distributing the team to be different things that need to be done. Not only elephant care, animal care, but also auxiliary projects so that all gets aligned and then we jump into helping wherever. Sometimes that's helping with animal care and sometimes it's helping with projects and sometimes it's running back home for a quick shot of coffee before having to juggle more people.
- [10:17]
Nadia Mari
So I remember in one episode you said, we need to unlock or you need to unlock Kat from the office, because as you mentioned at the beginning as well, she does do all of the office work. So, Kat, want to share a little bit on what you do? I mean, when I was there, I saw you jumping around as well, you know, looking after elephants. So you do that as well. But mainly you are in the office.
- [10:43]
Kat
I am our house. That is the office.
- [10:49]
Nadia Mari
Spectacular view.
- [10:50]
Kat
So, yes, it's lovely. I do not get up at 5:30 in the morning, although I don't get up much later than that, or sometimes I'm up earlier. I don't sleep But I definitely start on the computer around 7 usually so. And our team is in the US and they get up at all different times because they're in different time zones. So Nicole's usually up first with Christine and then Sarah, and then I think Haley's already been up taking care of her kids, but doesn't get back to us until later. And Cara's usually last in as far as she's in Arizona. So everybody kind of shows up throughout the day. And we have some interns and some volunteers helping with things like grants and website. We're doing a new website and we have Peggy, who is our accountant, and I help wrangle everybody. Cara's great. She manages the team in the US and she's really. She's lovely. She gets a lot done. But she's also very good with people and very respectful. And that's always a concern you have with managing people, is making sure you have somebody who treats people well because that's important to us. And she's great. So we do a lot of that. And then there's back and forth with the team in Brazil as well with their social media. This week has been working on a document for Mason, the elephant that was with Bambi. She's in a legal procedure, so their side just sent over two different documents that were included in the judicial process. And now we have to respond to all of their. I don't even know how to say it. All of their inaccuracies and all of these random things that they put in.
- [12:52]
Scott
There that have not only have no fact, they're completely flawed in every direction, but somehow they still have traction.
- [13:05]
Kat
Yeah, I don't know.
- [13:07]
Scott
So it's really crazy that way.
- [13:09]
Kat
It's the way the world works. So, like an easy example, they have a quote unquote expert who testified to Mason's body condition, and they attached a body condition score sheet and said she got a five. And they were so proud because she got a five because that's the best score. First thing that was wrong is they used an African elephant score sheet. She's an Asian elephant. So different species, very different body confirmation, as everybody now knows, from looking at poopy compared to, you know, looking at Hana. You know, they have a sway back. Everything is just different. So their body score sheets are very different. So they use the wrong elephant. But five is actually obese. Five isn't. It's one out of five. Five isn't the best. Five is too fat. But there's all sorts of stuff like that in this from these quote unquote experts that they use. And some of it's infuriating because they talk about her mental well being and how stable it is and she never stereotypes. But we have people that go to the zoo to take photos and record how she's doing, you know, trying to get photos of her feed. It's how we know that she went blind in her one eye. Although they say she can still see, but at the same time they say she has a detached retina and blah blah. Anyway, and every time somebody goes there, she's stereotyping. The last visit I was sent, I think it's 26 minutes of her stereotyping. So it's just obnoxious and it's total fabrications. And I mean, like Scott said, it'll still get traction and a judge will still believe a bunch of what they say. So we have to spend, it's an 86 page Portuguese document that we have to go through, which clearly is a little more difficult for somebody who doesn't speak Portuguese as their native language. And then taking notes the whole way through to see what we can counter, you know, where those arguments are going to come from, so on and so forth, and then working through each one of those counter arguments, finding the information, the studies, writing stuff up, putting together the whole draft, having it translated, having it formatted, having the lawyers look at it, blah, blah, blah, blah. So it's process and a half.
- [15:27]
Scott
So if you guys haven't gathered by now, your vision of what you thought life was like in the sanctuary is probably a little bit different than the reality. You know, it's not a lot of playing with elephants actually with elephants it's, you know, for me, two days a week primarily I do poopy a little bit, but even on those days it's minimal. And you know, yesterday and today I. Matthias isn't here, so I do treatments with Hana and Mara and helping out with Bambi. But some of that is with, you know, mainly training other people or helping to train other people to do it. It's not a lot of animal time. Yeah, I mean, I get much more than cat does, but cat does, but cat does not get a lot of elephant time at all right now.
- [16:07]
Kat
No. When we have new arrivals, I'm there, I'm there while they get settled all the time. Which was harder this time around because we had Stella and our young new puppy. New dog, yes. I mean, she's not a puppy puppy, she's about a year old. But holy puppy energy. So at that point she still wasn't good enough with boundaries and recall and all of that to have her around elephants. So she was having to stay inside and we were having to go back and forth to let her out and give her some time that she could run around and burn off puppy energy. But so for that I'm always there when it comes to significant medical care, harder things, blood draw, bed feet, feet trimming, all of that sort of stuff, I show up. But for the day to day, for the most part, until everybody leaves, meaning when they go to pick up another elephant and then I become a full time caregiver again.
- [17:06]
Scott
It's one of the great things, is that we don't have to be there. Although it's great to be with elephants, it's always a joy. It's also really nice to not be needed, you know, to, for them to have their daily needs met. It allows us to do other things that people aren't trained to do, whether it be some of the facility layout or working with those teams or talking with other consultants or you know, what all those different things that need to be done. It's really nice to not have to spend that time and know that everything that animal care depends on us because it shouldn't be that way. You know, the way this should work is we have less and less obligation and, and less and less need for us to be present to elephants because the team is being trained and has the capacity to do it themselves.
- [17:48]
Nadia Mari
Yeah. Picking up on two things that you just said, Kat. A new website, when is that planned to be launched?
- [17:55]
Kat
Late this year probably. There's so much work that has to happen on the back end before you can switch everything over. So right now it's a lot of website cleanup going through, you know, content that's live now, going through stuff on the back end, all the photos that were once used, that aren't used anymore, so on and so forth, picking out a layout, blah, blah, blah, blah. So we have Gretchen who did our last website, who's great, she's working with us on this new one. So Cara's helping for sure. Everybody's pitching in. You know, Sarah's doing a lot of to text editing and figuring out what works, what doesn't work, so on and so forth. So hopefully later this year it won't be, you know, we're not trying to reinvent the wheel. You know, it will still have the same, same general feel as our old website, just a little bit more updated and definitely on the back end a lot cleaner, which makes me happy.
- [19:02]
Scott
I Think a lot of what they're doing right now is just making it more functional. You know, it's not just, you know, it's not trying to, as Kat just said, reinvent the wheel. It's just trying to make it much more functional on the, on the backside.
- [19:14]
Kat
Yeah, the.
- [19:15]
Nadia Mari
Yeah.
- [19:16]
Kat
What we use right now to build the pages isn't optimal. It was at the time. But that's the thing about websites. I mean, honestly, you have to do something with them every few years, like.
- [19:26]
Scott
Five or six years now.
- [19:27]
Nadia Mari
Well, yeah, they're always changing, especially as I think over 80 or 85% of people do actually look at websites over their mobile and the mobile phones, they change, you know, the Android updates and iOS for Apple. So a lot to do. I know that. Yeah. From elephants in Japan, we, that is one big thing on our to do list is to rehaul our website. So talking of elephants in Japan, because you have consulted or with us and helped us because your knowledge spans decades. So you mentioned just now looking through, looking through texts, looking through elephant welfare reports and you mentioned, Scott, a new sanctuary in Portugal. So are there other facilities, sanctuaries, vets, other experts that you consult as well who need and yes, require your decades of elephant experience?
- [20:26]
Scott
We get calls on a regular basis, not really from organizations from trying to start a sanctuary, but from individuals working to help different animals.
- [20:35]
Kat
Although we do get an email every couple of weeks. I want to start an elephant sanctuary and it's somebody who has zero experience but clearly we don't do those.
- [20:46]
Scott
Yes, I'm retiring next year and I would like to start a sanctuary, seek medical help immediately. But we do get phone calls, you know, videos to assess. You know, we had something from Thailand a few days ago about different foot health issue that somebody asked us about and that happens on a regular basis.
- [21:10]
Kat
Sure. And different groups like Non Human Rights Project and blah, blah, blah.
- [21:15]
Scott
Yeah, different things come up periodically. But as far as the more, you know, the. With Pangea, we're definitely more involved. The group that's working in, in Portugal definitely much more involved there with the facility design. Right now, going back to the crate design that Kat talked about, you know, and you send the specs to somebody and, and their engineers were convinced that it is strong enough for an elephant. We have the same thing a little bit in Pangeas. The all that, all the numbers say this is going to be strong enough, you know, and I don't have the engineering background to say it's not going to be strong enough. We can just say I'VE seen elephants break that before, you know, so I've.
- [21:52]
Kat
Seen more than one elephant break that before.
- [21:54]
Scott
So we get. That's where a lot of our feedback comes back in right now. Layout functionality for the design, you know, and then just a little bit of that. This is what we know elephants are capable of. So while they're doing their design, they kind of bounce ideas back and forth.
- [22:08]
Kat
Across us and then people and what the team needs to look like, who needs to be in place, what you're necessarily looking for. There's a lot.
- [22:20]
Scott
Yeah.
- [22:20]
Kat
Did we mention that already? There's a lot to running a sanctuary and I think it's just nice for. For people to have that sounding board, you know, Kate said, I don't know how many times that makes sense. So much sense. We just never thought about it that way. And it's a different approach when you've actually experienced it with elephants, you know, a lot of things work on paper, but when you have a being who at times they're smarter than humans, you know, you are giving space and choice and all of those good things too, you know, things don't go to script a lot of times and you just, you can't think that way and you can't have those expectations.
- [23:05]
Scott
And sometimes it's overprotectiveness. We saw that the other day of there's something. It's like, you know, there's some now on their property to help manage the property. They have cows and horses. I think it's a very specific project they're working with, associated with the rewilding project. And their comment was something about not making sure their first elephants, that the cows and horses are not in their line of sight. It's like why they're allowed to see other animals. They'll be okay. They're not going to freak out. They'll actually probably do better than the cows and the horses do. But sometimes little things like that and trying to do too much and trying to be overprotective and kind of rein that back and bring it back to what their real life balance is. For these elephants, it can go a long way. Save a lot of money, save a lot of time, facilitate a lot of their development at the same time. So for me, it's kind of fun. It does occupy time, but it is kind of fun to be able to share that as well and know that it's being put to good use because it is a unique set of experience that we have.
- [24:09]
Kat
And because of their ethos behind the sanctuary, you know, we've helped other people and other groups with sanctuaries that haven't exactly had the same view on what sanctuary should be or how it should be run. But they are very much on the same page of trying to give them the most autonomy possible and, you know, treating them as individuals and the emotional aspect of what we do. So it makes it easier knowing that they're actually taking in the whole picture versus just the little pieces that they need.
- [24:48]
Nadia Mari
So you've, you sort of demystified the romantic notion of running a sanctuary. And as you said, it's not, as you said, playing around with elephants all day, which you don't do anyway because it's only you and your care team who care for the elephants. And if they don't want to come to the fence, they don't. So it's their life, it's their sanctuary and but still it must be very rewarding. We you look out onto your property, your lovely view and just see what you are doing for these elephants in South America. But I remember from other podcasts as well, Scott, you said it's a lot of people management and Cat obviously as well has a lot of virtual people management, but also people management on site. So, yeah, very, very interesting.
- [25:38]
Scott
I'm going to burst the bubble again. When I look out over the sanctuary, I was like, oh shit, shoot, I have another project I forgot about. That's what happens when I look at all the beautiful part of the sanctuary. Oh man, I forgot to do. I forgot to turn the pump off. You know, that's the reality of our life. It is amazing. It is beautiful. It is rewarding, you know, to go spend a little bit of time with Poopy at the end of the night with her feeding and see her growth and her, you know, her covered in charcoal from, you know, playing on the. The old burn burned up trees or whatever it is. It's incredibly rewarding. It's also incredibly rewarding to see the evolution of people. You know, we had that yesterday of somebody who wasn't really comfortable with something. And the difference between the morning treatment and the afternoon treatment was night and day. And it's to me that is as.
- [26:25]
Kat
Somebody who's totally capable, it's their own insecurity. Like we don't clearly, if something's not safe and something's not vibing, we don't push people. You know, everybody's got to develop their relationships at the speed. But you know, it is very much just a personal insecurity that was holding them back. And it's like no you can do this. Look, we're going to make you do it. Do it.
- [26:47]
Scott
She did awesome and she did so well. And it's just beautiful to watch that evolution in people as well. You know, we had a little sanctuary school yesterday and had a pop quiz for some of our caregivers, mainly just to get them to think differently and try to get them to think about things in a really much more dynamic way, the way we have to our responsibilities and stuff. And again, that's, that's part of. It's really rewarding. It's not just looking out and seeing the development of the sanctuary. It's watching the evolution of the team. This week. Also a really fun thing with. We had somebody coming consulting with a control system for some of the water, the, the well pumps and the, the pressure pump. And he spent the day with one of our maintenance guys and watching that conversation and watching our, one of our team members just beaming at the end of the day because how much you learn just by talking to this consultant and starting to put all these different pieces together and understanding more about the sanctuary and what it takes to run it and not just plug it in and walk away. You know, there's a lot of responsibility to all of it and to watch them take that evolutionary step too, for their growth, whether they stay here forever or they take that information with them. It's all, it's all part of the joy.
- [28:00]
Nadia Mari
Well, thanks for that insight and that will definitely be something for the lucky person. Plus guest who has then won the sweepstake when this podcast comes out will be then can look. Can look forward to three crazy, beautiful, rewarding, lovely, tasty food days with you and yeah, then I'll let you go to spend your afternoon. What are you. What are you doing, Scott? What. Which project did you forget when you look over?
- [28:33]
Scott
I have a human management project. Not a fun one.
- [28:38]
Nadia Mari
Okay. And Cat. Yeah.
- [28:41]
Kat
I have to go through past judicial processes from two other elephants trying to keep everything super organized. That was not my responsibility in the past and has now become my responsibility. So trying to get. I'm a little OCD and there is no central place for all things that should have a central place. And so I am going through. This should be my last afternoon maybe of going through all of that and putting them in appropriate folders and getting all of that organized so we can easily pull things from where we need them.
- [29:19]
Scott
Five years of legal documents that were not associated directly with the sanctuary. So having to pick up through other people's literature to see how different processes.
- [29:27]
Nadia Mari
Evolved Sounds like not so fun times, but at the end of the day, you'll have some time with Pupi and you can watch, drink a glass of wine on your patio and look at the sun down and, yeah, enjoy your sanctuary evening and thanks for your time and, yeah, until next time. Take care. We'll catch up then for our next recording.
- [29:50]
Scott
Thanks, Nadia. Sorry to burst a beautiful bubble that everyone thinks is the life of sanctuary.
- [29:57]
Kat
It's actually more that version in the beginning, when we don't have anything and we don't have people and we're carrying wood on our shoulders up the hill because we have no shelves in the kitchen. But we spend the most time with elephants because there's no one else to take care of them. So the very beginning is a little more of that romantic picture. But of course, we're broke and we only have enough steel to build a barn, two transport crates, and one yard before we can rescue Maya and Gita. So, yeah, it's a little. A little of that in the early days, but I think the bigger you get, the further from that.
- [30:36]
Scott
Thanks for joining us for another episode of Real Life Happenings at Elephants.
- [30:44]
Kat
Okay, bye.
- [30:45]
Scott
Take care, Nata.
- [30:46]
Kat
Bye.
- [30:47]
Nadia Mari
As we wrap up this week's episode, a reminder that you can stay up to date with current events at the sanctuary by following GSE on their various social media channels. You'll find all the details in the show notes or directly on their website, globalelephants.org thank you so much for your support. And until we meet up for our next episode, take care.
- [31:14]
Kat
Sa.