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- [00:17]
A
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, 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. Hello everyone. Happy New Year 2026. I hope you all are well and thank you for tuning in. In today's podcast, we're talking about current developments at Elephant Sanctuary Brazil following the deaths of Kenya and Pupi, including the temporary suspension of their license and the wider impact this has on their work. But we'll also be looking into why, despite this moment being very troubling, it may actually offer an opportunity for clarity, for fairness, and a deeper understanding of good evidence based sanctuary care. So without further ado, let's head over to Brazil just to say Happy New Year to Kat and Scott. Hello you two. Happy New Year.
- [01:35]
B
Hey Nadja.
- [01:36]
C
Happy New Year. That intro doesn't sound like such a happy New Year, but Happy New Year.
- [01:40]
A
No, it doesn't. Yeah, the year really has kicked off with full force and such developments that probably none of you or none of us would have ever imagined. We left off on a much happier note. In our last recording, Kenya was still alive. She was coming out of her shell following Pupi's death and. And since then she has passed and the proverbial shit has hit the fan. So before we do, dive into today's podcast and yes, the worrying and troubling, to say the least, developments, there are some positive things to talk about because as you once said in a podcast, Scott, there is always hope. So, Kat, maybe you can give us an update on your final figures for the 2025 year end fundraiser for the expansion of the Female Asian habitat.
- [02:30]
B
So the ultimate goal for giving Tuesday end of year fundraising was 300,000 and we ended up raising, as of now, $296,490, which is very close to our goal. So we may still have checks that have yet to be picked up at the PO Box and to add it to that total. So it may be in reality that we just make our goal, which is lovely.
- [02:58]
C
It's a brilliant, brilliant sum, it's a brilliant response and you know, just goes to show how people are coming out of everywhere to help support positive change and try to help give back to these girls after so many years of what they didn't have. Which ties into the bigger picture.
- [03:18]
A
Yeah, most definitely. So I did say in the introduction, we are talking about current developments at Elephant Sanctuary Brazil following the deaths of Pupi. She arrived in April last year and passed away in October. And then also Kenya, who arrived in July last year and passed away in December, just shortly after we had recorded the last podcast. So following these deaths, I'll quote you from a post. The anti sanctuary machinery has kicked into place. Your license has temporarily been suspended. So maybe you can tell us more about this and also possibly reassure supporters and listeners that this does not affect the elephants that are currently at the sanctuary.
- [04:04]
C
Yeah, let's, let's start there. I mean, nothing changes basically, you know, here on site. Absolutely nothing has changed, nothing has evolved. The sanctuary is still up and running, fully functional. The elephants are great caregivers, doing great. Everybody's moving forward exceedingly well. Actually. We've had a lot of celebration over the last few weeks. They, they definitely brought the new year in for sure. You know, there's been a lot of vocalizations, a lot of nighttime parties and mud baths and Mara was king of the mountain the other day. A lot of really cool things. And that's all, that's the heart and soul of sanctuary. I know that what we're dealing with is this bureaucratic chaos. You know, the reality is that we are being negatively affected by a very sad state of our social world where the false negative narrative is believed full heartedly in comparison to the positive truth. And we see it across the board, we see politicians using it, we see it everywhere. There's a manipulation of the facts and to a negative slant, some of them outright lies. It also falls into this anti sanctuary, pro zoo narrative of elephants should not go to sanctuary, they can't get proper care. Completely dismissing the fact that elephants are dying in zoos all the time. We've talked about it before during this time that we've been trying to get elephants out of Argentina. 6 Elephants in Argentina died. Some of them were in their 20s, some of them had no medical care. If you look at the records of all these elephants, almost none of them had medical care coming here, especially those coming from Brazil. But this anti sanctuary movement is really loud and very immoral. They were willing to say anything at all. Cost doesn't matter if it's based in fact.
- [06:03]
B
I mean, we have the group that most of the people who listen to this already know. They said Mara was dead. I think it was two years ago at this point. They said it repeatedly. They doctored a photo of an elephant who had been electrocuted in India and had a mahout standing next to them. They doctored that photo to say that was Mara. So they're still hanging around and trying to push their influence on people and now just spewing different lies. She was saying Mara was dead for like six months, eight months. We had someone come here multiple times.
- [06:35]
C
Andy Bama and India and the veterinary board all had to come here on.
- [06:39]
B
Multiple occasions, sometimes just counting elephants, because she would say it again, she's dead. So they come and they're like, how many elephants do you have? So we're like, let's go see. So you have that. There is this, I will say, quote, unquote, biologist, because he doesn't follow any ethics of what a biologist is supposed to have and certainly doesn't seem to have the education of a biologist, but who just sits on the soapbox and rants endlessly about how terrible sanctuaries are and blah, blah, blah. And he's just absurd. But he actually has a really large following. So people listen to him and they believe him. And then some of the most significant impact was a case that is in litigation right now that an elephant is essentially on hold. She hasn't been allowed to move to the zoo they want to send her to because an animal rights org petitioned the move and asked for her to be sent to sanctuary instead. And unfortunately, they have a lot of connections and a lot of money and a lot of friends in high places, and they have tried to damage sanctuary as much as possible. Even in the last meeting that they asked for, outside of the judge, saying they wanted to talk about sending her here, then turned around and said, no, we just want you to stop. And if you don't stop, we're gonna keep doing bad things and saying bad things and blah, blah, blah.
- [08:10]
C
We're gonna attack you more if you don't back away.
- [08:12]
B
I mean, there's nothing we can do about that sort of thing. If somebody has a good friend that is high up in SEMA and says, I need you to do this, I mean, sometimes it just happens. So you deal with it and give them the paperwork they're asking for and move on.
- [08:28]
C
Because you talked about our operation be suspended, it just is that we cannot receive new animals. We don't have any new elephants. And it's only temporary. It's. It's 60 days while they gather the information. You know, this is not at the end of the day, it's not that big a deal. And actually, in some ways it's good. We just wish they did it across the board, which we'll get to in a minute, you know, but, you know, this is just a temporary suspension just while they do the investigation. Because two elephants died in a relatively close, short period of time. They need to look at it. You know, part of the frustration is with our relationship with sema. You know, we're dealing with them all the time. They were supposed to bring a fox to us a couple of days before. And we wish they would have said we need to do an investigation without canceling the license, without suspending the license of receiving new animals. So that has a negative compromise on new animals possibly coming in. But again, operation stays strong. And, you know, they could have done this in a different way. And we're just going to use this as a platform to, you know, try to promote more positive good.
- [09:26]
A
Also, it's not only elephants that the license affects. It's also your wildlife rehab program. So when you say animals, that's. You literally mean not only generally all animals, so elephants, of course, but also your wildlife. That's. That's a shame. So it is political pressure, the anti sanctuary machinery. But we have talked about this in, in other podcasts of. I mean, the root cause and the accountability is that elephants come to you after decades of inadequate care. And you mentioned once in a podcast, you said that sanctuaries are often deemed as dumping grounds. And I mean, it's all sanctuaries, whether it's farm animal sanctuaries, whether it's cats and dogs, they all come in a bad state of health. Mostly they are aged elephants or aged animals. I mean, Gigi is the youngest in your group. So the accountability, that is also something that you are actually now pushing back against because esb Elephant Sanctuary Brazil, is being measured by standards which the other facilities holding elephants, zoos, are not being accounted for. So can you tell us more about that?
- [10:34]
B
I mean, honestly, it's all ridiculous. As people know who follow any sort of sanctuary. Animals come to sanctuary and they die. And that is, we could literally walk out tomorrow. And I don't even want to say it out loud. We could be down another elephant. That is what happens. We are essentially, aside from Gigi, it is a retirement home for elephants that have received zero care essentially for their entire lives. Now, you've had a test, we had Ned and Bunny died, what, within 24 hours of each other? You know, you've had plenty of Sanctuaries, including them Paws, where you've had elephants that die shortly after relocation. You've had other different animal sanctuaries that have had the same thing happen. It happens. We don't get young, healthy, you know, animals at sanctuaries. And it's so funny because they're. One of the lines they use here is, well, they were fine for, you know, 40 years until they went there. And it's like, but they weren't fine. One, you don't have any medical tests to say that they were okay. Two, you're not seeing what's wrong with them. I mean, with Sandro, they say he walks fine, he doesn't. He shows so many signs of having arthritis and they don't give him any sort of supplementation, but they don't see it. Paisa, who used to live with him, she used to stand, lean back in her enclosure. And we asked them, we're like, is that chronic? Is that. Because it can mean a couple of different things. And they're like, oh, we don't know, we never noticed it. She just does that. And it's like, what are you talking about? So for them to say they're fine again, we've talked about it before. It's like having your 70 year old's father, who grandfather, who has eaten Frosted Flakes as two out of three of their meals for his entire life, was totally obese, wearing like wooden shoes, not seeing a doctor ever. You know, you send them to an old age home and you're like, here's my grandpa, take care of him. And they tell you after he gets there, he's not going to live for long. And they're like, why? He was fine this whole time? It's like, no, he wasn't fine. The poor diet has a significant impact on their body. If you have obese elephants, like Cookie and Poupi were the most obese African elephants we've ever, ever seen. Even when they lose weight, that doesn't go away. You know, if you have a human who's 500 pounds for 30 years and they lose weight, they're not all of a sudden healthy. You know, there is a significant impact that that has on their body, that some of it is completely irreversible, you know, so to say that these elephants are healthy when they have no records and they receive no foot care and they have improper diets. And to us, some of them look awful and they're like, they're fine. It's like, well, no, none of them are fine.
- [13:20]
C
And the other Thing with wild animals, it is ignorance, but it's. It's willful ignorance. Absolutely. They know they are. They are intentionally not educating themselves, but they're. With wild animals. They are designed to mask their problems. That's what they do. It's survival, you know, and elephants do this all the time. Most wild animals will do the same thing, you know, and they don't let on what's going on with them, you know, and looking at Kenya, I mean, she had, you know, some mostly decent gait, but she had a few little issues with her gait, but her elbows, you know, and her legs just started popping like this, you know, I don't know, it sounded like hitting a piece of wood with a sledgehammer. Almost even louder. I mean, it's really, really loud. Popping in her joint. Atypical, but that's because it went from an elf. Healthy joint, unhealthy joint, to a rapidly degrading joint. It wasn't healthy, unhealthy. It was already unhealthy and then actually rapidly degraded because of whatever the cause was, whether because of how she moved, because of something that she did wrong, but it was a rapid degradation based on an unhealthy environment that already existed inside that joint. You know, that didn't happen in two months. It didn't happen in six months. That is the impact of years in captivity. Kat talked about it before that there are studies with arthritis in elephants, and there are elephants that are in their 20s that are showing signs of advanced arthritis, you know, in their 20s in these environments, but they mask it. We had it in Tennessee. An elephant who could, you know, should have not been walking at all. You know, she walked slowly, but she still walked. But the pathologist said this joint degeneration in a human would have had the person bedridden for years, but they just push through. They just mask that pain, you know, and until they no longer can. And with Kenya, that was part of it.
- [15:07]
A
So what was quite unusual when Kenya passed away is that you actually went forward, and I don't want to go into huge details of the necropsy because it might be maybe unsettling for some people, but you did actually, I can link up to that in the show notes. You did do a very extensive post explaining what the necropsy was, because as you just said, Kat, it would be. It's just ridiculous. Would be like, as you said, blaming a care facility for an aged relative who is sick, dying in their care. Because that's what it is. It's hospice. It's Palliative care. But you did actually lean on in your post say Kenya had osteomyelitis, which she had suspected. She was missing digits and Pupi's lungs were infected. So there was a plethora of problems, of illnesses and issues. And the fact that the zoos just say, well, they were fine before, it's all sanctuary. It's your fault. I mean, how does one fight against such ignorance and such stupidity?
- [16:10]
C
I think you, you know, honestly part of that is you just keep pushing forward knowing that you're trying to do as best you can in a really, really difficult scenario with these elephants.
- [16:19]
B
I mean it's going to happen over and over again. It happens with every sanctuary. I mean it's just at least in the Americas and, well, United States, US in the Americas and Europe, you know, there just is that anti sanctuary movement and we've talked about it before that we had the comment of it starts with elephants and then primates and big cats and then where does it go? You guys just want to destroy the zoos and we have to protect ourselves. It's like, wow, okay, one, that's not what we're about at all. Two, if you have a facility that cannot meet the most basic needs of the species. Let's take elephants. They generally eat for 15 to 20 hours a day. And it's how their bodies are made, nature made. You know, it is what is required for them to wear their teeth properly. Bunny went through what, four sets of teeth, three sets of teeth in post 48. Yeah, after she was 48 years old where she should have already not had that many sets to even go through. But that's what happens with improper diets. You get had an elephant at test whose teeth were essentially almost growing fully over her soft palate. That is what happens when they eat twice a day and don't chew very well. You have kidney and liver issues because their body can't break down. Concentrate concentrated small amounts of food. They're made to be eating little amounts all day. You have the walking, you have the substrates. I mean this is just basic, basic need in order for their body to function normally. Not even touching on the mental stimulation that is needed for species that science repeatedly says over and over again how intelligent they are. Yet you think some treat ball that they get once a day is enough to keep them mentally stimulated. It's absurd. So if you can't provide these species with the most basic of needs, you should actually be happy that there is somewhere that they could go that they can have their needs met. If you truly cared for these animals the way you say they do, they're not our elephants. They're not your elephants. There are elephants that were unfortunately put in this situation because people like to see what they want to see, when they want to see it. So all of these elephants have ended up in captivity because of human desires. And if you can't care for them, you should be happy that somebody else can. But that's not it. It's ego, it's possession. It's, there are elephants, it's, you know, they belong in zoos. It's, you can't hurt zoos. And that's not what we're trying to do. We're just trying to give them a decent life.
- [18:56]
A
In one of your posts as well, you said exactly that. When you talked to the association of Zoos and Aquariums, Brazil, you said, we are not about taking elephants away. If there is a zoo that is possibly able to care for an elephant a decent way, you are there to help and consult and advise. And you are not about taking away elephants from zoos, full stop. But yes, no.
- [19:18]
B
We initially worked with the Brasilia Zoo because they were having issues and wanted to train one of their elephants. And we had somebody come here and we talked with them and, you know, it wasn't like we marched in and we're like, we're going to take your elephant. You know, if somebody wants help, considering these places don't do foot care, these places don't do training, they haven't been able to get blood samples. Mason. They can't get eye drops in her eyes, even though she also now has cataracts. You know, we are willing to help in some way if that way is not receiving their elephants. But they don't see it that way.
- [19:54]
C
No. And going back to the regulatory aspect of it, because I think that's, you know, those, to, to put that into better context, you know, yes, there's a suspension while an investigation is done. And we're saying, yeah, absolutely, come investigate. Let's actually, let's learn again, because you've already been here, we've already talked about, you've already seen it, but let's re educate what is actually going on here. But if you do this, let's look at the other side, also do the same investigation where these elephants are coming from. Because many of those facilities don't even meet the minimum standards that are established by Brazilian law. They don't have spatial constraints. I mean, they don't meet the spatial constraint. The, the requirement. They don't have proper facilities for training. There are many people that are free contact, which is against Brazilian law. They're in with those enclosures. There's any of the elephants that don't get even the most minimal veterinary care, unless you consider that a veterinary looks at the elephant periodically. But that doesn't equal veterinary care. They're not doing foot treatment, they're not doing blood collection. They're not doing anything for these elephants. Literally no physical veterinary care at all, aside from potentially a supplement once in a while.
- [21:04]
B
And it's not just us that's saying this. There are two studies out that we're going to share on the SCB social media pages because it is more of an issue in Brazil and Argentina than it is with our followers. Because our followers are educated and they understand how captivity works and the impact that it has and the care that we give and so on and so on. But there is a study done in conjunction with Brazilian zoos about appropriate diets. And all of the zoos that they looked at had grossly inappropriate diets, some receiving as much as 49 kilos of sugarcane, which is absurd. So it went through this whole thing of dietary adjustments that should be made, so on and so forth. I think three of the zoos that were involved changed diets. One did so successfully, according to their own report. Nothing we had anything to do. There's a different report that was also done in conjunction with the Brazilian Zoo association, that it wasn't just within Brazil. They looked at several countries in the zoos to see how their elephant programs were. And moral of the story, they're not very good. You know, it is in this report the different shortcomings that these facilities have when it comes to being able to take care of elephants and provide them for what they need. We're not the ones, the only ones saying that, you know, they can't provide what elephants need as a species. But again, it comes back to that. You said, he said, she said, you guys are bad. You can't do anything. Go away. It's so immature. It's actually crazy. I don't even know how to process it sometimes.
- [22:48]
C
Going back to the standards, when we're talking to the zoo association in Brazil, they were so excited because now we have a welfare group. Well, so what? What are your standards? What are your standards? What classifies a proper welfare of an elephant when they're living alone, living in a space that doesn't need minimal standards.
- [23:05]
B
Which are lower than American aza, you know, standards which are already super low.
- [23:11]
C
In one of the biggest zoos, one of the most, you know, well funded zoos in Brazil still don't meet minimum standards. You know, they're not getting what they need. And you know, let's throw the light on elephant central Brazil. Oh my God. Two elephants died. Well, what's, what's really going on? Let's get the and soul of it. Let's dig into this. So yes, come on out. But let's do the same thing across the board. And that's what we're focusing on right now is let's educate what's happening. Let's educate, you know, the, the authorities of what's really happening across the board.
- [23:42]
A
So that is unusual for you because you are now speaking out. You have in the past, you know, sort of kept back from all this political.
- [23:51]
B
Oh, there are so many things we have held our tongue on that we haven't shared with anybody because it doesn't really serve.
- [23:59]
A
Yeah. And also you didn't want to jeopardize possible future elephant transfers. But now it has come this far. And I think it's also very important that this is not about opposing regulation because you already have regulation. You know, Obama and Sema come, but it is about equal scrutiny for both sides. So why is ESB now being measured by standards and having to issue and provide documentation which obviously, as I understand the other facilities which holds elephant zoos are not being. So that is what your petition is about. There is a petition out which I will also be linking up to in the show notes to. Yes, to ask for this, to this fair clarity and as I said in the introduction, evidence based sanctuary care, what it actually is. And obviously also what you've just explained as well, that these laws actually already exist in Brazil, but are not being adhered to.
- [24:54]
C
Not even close in some cases, not even close. And that's the thing. And you know, when you talk about unfair level of scrutiny, I mean, there is no comparison to what we can provide considering where they came from.
- [25:06]
B
Oh my God. It's different planets.
- [25:08]
C
It's not even close. Not even remotely close. And why is this not justifiable? But that is. And why is that so protected? Why is that model still okay? Why is it still, you know, everyone fully accepts it. A Zeus says an elephant dies, everyone says, okay, no problem. Or why did that elephant die at 26 years old?
- [25:28]
B
They have at least two elephants in Brazil that died from poisoning. And then they pointed us one supposedly from while on exhibit. So don't change anything about the exhibit. Let people get just as close and Possibly poison your other elephant, no big deal. But the whole thing of, you know, you guys are the ones killing your elephants, it's like. And it was part of releasing the initial response from Kenya's knee crop from the pathology team. It's something we don't do because it takes a long time to go through a full necropsy and to send samples out. And I know people are like. We had somebody be like, culture samples only take seven to 10 days. It's like, no. A TB culture sample has to go a full 12 weeks before it's considered negative. So I know people think they know a lot, but they don't know. TB is very tricky, but it is why we talked about Kenya having tb, because one poupy didn't have it. So she clearly didn't get it from an elephant here because that's the only elephant she was ever exposed to. But by the condition of her lungs, she's had it for a long time. And it's like, they're not. We're not doing this to any of the elephants. It's like pocha. Holy cow. Poacher was a mess internally. None of that happened here. She came with that rhomba. We had said when we got there, we weren't even sure if we were going to move her because she was possibly going to die in transport. There was no ignorance to the fact that she was not going to live here for a long time. We talked about, again, the possibility of her dying in transport, but she started to look better. We gave her some supplements and medications, and everybody there was on the same page. Judges, prosecutors, care team. Let's try and move her. If she dies during transport, at least she didn't die here and she made it here, which was amazing considering she was supposed to die in a year and it was seven years later. Somehow she pushed forward, and that was part of people wanting her to come and try at least, because she clearly tried to stay alive. So, I mean, so then they talk about, you know, but you guys killed these elephants, and they rattle off those names and it's like, you know, that's not remotely what happened.
- [27:38]
C
No, but they're going so far as saying that we killed the elephants in Argentina, too, that we had no control over. You know, you know, there's things that, you know, there's one thing of we killed Palosa because all we did was homeopathy. All we allowed was homeopathic, homeopathic care. It's like, wait a minute. We had no, zero control, you know, over her bed. Care. We could barely. You know, we were there to help influence, and we had somebody there watching to make sure she got proper diet, but that was making sure the diet wasn't moldy because the caregiver said, as soon as you guys turn, you know, leave. She gets her moldy, decrepit food again. And. But if somebody's there, they're going to provide better quality food. But even with that, Suze was there for a long time and she had to sort through all the food for hours.
- [28:20]
B
That's what she did.
- [28:22]
C
Discard the hay. That was not good. And she wasn't responsible. She couldn't do anything with poopy. And we certainly couldn't demand. Palosa, sorry. She certainly could not demand what kind of veterinary care was provided. You know, even looking at Kenya, and we're told that we were responsible for Tammy's death. We had been trying to change the diet of those elephants for eight years. You know, all those African elephants, even the Asian elephants, had chronic diarrhea. Their stools were never in good condition. We talked about trying to change diet for years and nothing.
- [28:54]
B
We begged them to put Tammy on medication. We gave them. We wrote out a whole protocol for anti inflammatories, pain meds. You know, if this doesn't work, you can switch to this. We specifically said, how long? You know, you have to give her meprazole beforehand. It has to be at least 20 minutes. I mean, step by step, multiple suggestions for different price tiers in case they didn't want to spend money on something, but not completely ignored.
- [29:20]
C
Well, we would get the response saying, we're on it, we're going to do it. We're going to make sure it happens, and we find out later. We said, you know, what actually happened with it? Oh, he didn't eat it.
- [29:27]
B
Well, no, they never tried any of that. The only thing they tried was a joint supplement. And they said, he didn't eat it. And we asked, how did you try to give it? And they said, we gave it in a piece of lettuce. It's like, are you absurd? Would you break up an aspirin, roll it in a piece of lettuce and eat it? No. Well, either will he. It's like, that's not. And they know we give apples with peanut butter because we've done it in front of them, and they know there's better ways to try. But there was no effort put into his care. So to turn around and say we had some negative effect on his veterinary care. Again, we had no say. In his veterinary care. We requested multiple times to have that changed. Dr. Trish wrote up documents when we initially started going. Dr. Gohane wrote up documents and recommend nations. None of them were ever followed. So saying we had anything to do with any of that is just. I mean, it's all so absurd. And there's like. And everything that was said, there's maybe like 5% that of truth that is laced in. In statements somewhere that somehow for them, that gives them all the credibility. Sure.
- [30:30]
C
You know, the truth is Kenya and Poopy died, and that's where. That's the end of the truth of their statements. Because they'll say, you know, there's rampant disease in the sanctuary and everybody's inf and everyone's going to die. There's somebody else that already said the elephants are already dead.
- [30:44]
B
Yeah, they've been dead for a while. We're just pretending to bring in donation. Well, that's what I was like. We are skilled.
- [30:50]
C
We are really good with AI and yeah, it's amazing. But the other thing on that, for me, that is the most frustrating part of all of this is as absurd as that is, these arguments are getting credibility among the authorities. This is what they're listening to. If you look at our list of questions, a lot of them are based on the accusations that are being made in these social media platforms. You know, and even one of them was they wanted to make sure we had clean water available. SEMA has been here. They've seen our clean water, our stainless steel waters that everybody I visit say, these are amazing. Those are great. They're easy to clean. It's super sterile.
- [31:32]
B
We have to send them our results from our water testing that we have to do on a regular basis. I mean, they know our water is clean. They know we have waterers everywhere.
- [31:42]
C
But one of the claims was made that the elephants are dying because they're not accustomed to drinking dirty water. It's like, wait a minute, did you know what water Tammy had access to there or what Kenya had access to and how infrequently her water trough was never cleaned there. Maybe we should have continued with unsanitary water. You know, the problem was clean water. It just does for me. It's just that frustration and the lack of. And again, the excessive level of scrutiny against sanctuary when we are the only ones that are actually trying to make something things truly positive. We're trying to correct the damage that is done as best as we can for as long as we can. Again, you know, these elephants come if they Just have four or five months. We're thrilled that they had four or five months. Better than nothing. Better than dying where they're at. Better than never having a really true friend. Better than Kendra never having a social experience with somebody else. You know, there's so many positives for these elephants that, you know, it is frustrating, but at the same time, okay, let's get through this. Let's embrace it. Let's show them what the reality is and let's find this fairness of not accountability, but education across the board of what is being done and what these elephants are going through.
- [32:45]
A
So that's a good last call to action. I will put the petition in the show Notes. Please sign and share this petition to get this clarity, this fairness, this equal scrutiny, and also possibly force the hand of the authorities in Brazil to actually implement the laws that are obviously there but are not being adhered to by zoos and other facilities and who are just throwing out and slandering the sanctuary. And so wishing you both lots of strength because obviously these are, these are troubling times, you know, having accusations, doing your job, also to your team, great support and your whole organization. So, yes, we both had hoped, or we all had hoped to catch up on positive and maybe happier moments for the first episode of the new year. Actually, season four of our podcast, this is the fourth year. But as you said, Scott, there is always hope. And I've learned a little Brazilian sentence. All will be good again.
- [33:54]
B
And the reality is it will. I mean, this is going to come and go just like everything else. Just like the struggle with Mara when everybody said she was dead and we had to have a whole group of Argentinians come and blah, blah, this happens. And we know this happens. And it is part of, part of creating a sanctuary where those who are in fear of people realizing that species like elephants do actually need something like a sanctuary have. So they will kick and scream and throw dirt, and that's the way it is. And we know we have to deal with it sometimes worse every now and again, but we still get to go down the hill and look at the beautiful elephants that we have and see just how amazingly they're doing right now and how much the caregivers are growing. And, you know, it's easy to push it aside, at least for a little while.
- [34:51]
A
Okay, then, thanks for your time and we'll catch up again for our next recording. And until then, stay strong and you have the support of a huge community around you. So take care. Thank you.
- [35:06]
C
Thank you, Nadia, so much. And we appreciate it all.
- [35:09]
B
Thank you.
- [35:09]
A
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. Hit the notification bell so you never miss an episode. Another great zero cost way to support the podcast is by leaving a five star rating or a glowing review as this helps other people discover the podcast. Thank you so much for your support and until we meet up for our next episode. Take care.
- [35:36]
B
Sam.