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- [00:18]
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 fish physically and emotionally, often from very traumatic pasts. I'm your host Nadia Mazzarati and I'll be taking you to the lush jungle of the Mato Grosso region in central Brazil, home of GEC's initial project, Elephant Sanctuary Brazil, where four Mizuan circus elephants from across South America live their best lives. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the Global Rumblings podcast and thank you for joining us again this week during these very exciting times. In case you've missed it, the sanctuary, a new elephant called Baby, a 34 year old female Asian elephant from a zoo in Brazil. So let's say hi to Scott and Cat and find out more about Baby. Hi you two.
- [01:16]
B
Hello.
- [01:17]
C
Hi Nadia, how are you?
- [01:19]
A
I'm good. Very excited. Congratulations on your new elephant. How wonderful.
- [01:24]
C
Very exciting. We are still coming down from the whirlwind tour than husband.
- [01:29]
A
Yeah, it was a whirlwind tour so I thought today we'll do. I'm not quite sure if we can fit it all into our 35 minutes, but if not we'll split the the podcast and do another recording to learn more about Baby. But I thought today we can just start off with me giving some information about Baby and her story because it ties in unfortunately very well into all that we've been talking about in our previous podcasts on our Rethinking Elephant series. So Baby was born in called the Roman Schmitz Busch Garden elephant breeding facility in Tampa, Florida in April 1992 at the age of only 11 months. She was sold in 1993 March to the Tiani Circus in Mexico. And then roughly mid-90s, she was roughly, well, three, four years old. It's always difficult, the records aren't always complete. She was then moved to Brazil to the Beto Cajero, is that correct? Got.
- [02:34]
C
Yep, that works.
- [02:36]
A
Amusement park, SL Zoo in Brazil where she lived I think with two elephants. But you can tell us that. So that really does tie into everything we've talked about and just, just hearing these, these figures, these dates and her, her timeline. What stands out for you most when you, when you hear her story?
- [02:58]
B
Unfortunately we, I mean it's, it's just a stupid common story. You know, people talk about how long babies stay with their mothers in the wild, yet so many of these facilities pull them away from their moms when they're so young. I mean the typical age of wild caught elephants was generally thought to be around three or four years old when they snatched them away from their mothers. 11 months is so easy. Young.
- [03:27]
C
I didn't realize, I knew she was young but I didn't realize. Just 11 months. That's really young.
- [03:32]
B
Yes, that's really tiny because she didn't get to Brazil until she was three. And that's the part of the story we kept hearing. But you know, like we've been talking about, if you think about the level
- [03:46]
A
of
- [03:49]
B
emotional issues it causes emotional growth that is stunted by being taken away from, you know, their mother at, at 11 months is pretty substantial. I mean they'd be nursing for years after that, you know, so you're not, you know, they didn't even give her a chance really. But that's what happens at baby making facilities. You know, the priority isn't nurturing the calves, the priority is making more babies and selling them off to places that are going to pay good money for them. And you know, their well being isn't a concern.
- [04:29]
A
Yeah, I was quite surprised. This, this, this is actually a German, Roman Schmidt. His father was a well known German, Hugo Schmidt, an elephant trainer and he actually, I think in the year, if I remember rightly, if I've got the facts in my head, the year that baby was born, three other calves were born. The father Vance slash Matt according to elephant database actually fathered 20 and the mother Mala. So baby's mother actually gave birth to six calves. So it really was in the late 80s and 90s. Yeah, a small private breeding facility. And then also as you say Kat, elephants are nursed until they're five years old. So being taken away at 11 months. Yeah unfortunately is a good and inverted commas but in the bad sense, summary of what has been baby has, has been through and also we haven't talked about that yet but also what the mother must have been gone through, you know, having her calf taken away. Such a young age. And then she arrived at the zoo in Brazil. It was actually amusement park that is owned by the Tiani Circus in Mexico. So what do you know about her life at the zoo, the 30 years that she spent there? There were two other elephants there. Can you tell us more about her life at the zoo there? Scott, you said in one of the videos during her location that the zoo wasn't that bad in inverted commas, did have a small pool and I think you said a fair amount of space. So what was her life like in these 30 years, I think.
- [06:04]
C
You know, there's, as we're already unfolding here, there's going to be a lot of missing pieces. You know, there's going to be a lot of data that's not in the database. There's a lot of question marks in the database. There's as good as they can get many times, but there's still a lot of tremendous amount of data that doesn't exist or is in somebody's brain somewhere. And we keep hearing little bits and pieces of stories, but she, I heard, is that she actually traveled in the circus here in Brazil for some time before it actually became the permanent amusement park.
- [06:30]
B
She did. There's video of it, so she used it. Danny shared it. Okay, so we have gross circus video. It's always gross to see an elephant performing. But there are videos of her performing with the Brazilian zoo. She has to be. I would think she would be under 10 years old by the size that she is in the video. But, yeah, she did travel with the. The circus in Brazil before she was shifted to the amusement park.
- [06:58]
A
Oh, okay.
- [06:59]
C
I mean, she's 34 years old now. I mean, let's say it's 20 years ago. She's 14 years old. I mean, 20 years ago, that was everywhere. Fifteen years ago, that was everywhere. This is not like this, some weird anomaly. You know, this was captive elephant life. We know this. This is. This is. This is what was happening again until the last 10 years, you know, and even in some parts of Europe, as I understand, there's still a lot of traveling circuses, If I, If, If I'm. If I'm. My information is correct. But it was so common. So it's not like anything out of the ordinary to elephants be chained. And, you know, the diet being horrible. And we heard that substantial part of her diet was bread. I don't know why they raised them on bread and yogurt, but this is one of the things we heard also. Is that true? Is it not true? We don't know. The reality is captivity, you know, we can take the bits and pieces of the detail and try to point a finger in one direction or another, but this is captive elephant livelihood, and this is what they been enduring for years and decades and, you know, generations at this point, you know, looking at the Schmidt babies, you know, Hugo had a. He had his large group of elephants at Circus World, which is a permanent circus. And they had started breeding, and then they moved to the circus world, closed down Busch Gardens, created a space for this breeding center for. With Roman Schmidt at some point, Roman Schmidt, they closed that down. He moved. The only place that was available to take all those elephants was actually ring brothers. They were building a new facility. They took all of his elephants, except for an elephant named Barbara, who was the second elephant that came to the elephant sanctuary in Tennessee getting bones. And they did not want her because of bad publicity, new facilities, skinning the elephant. So he actually kept her in his backyard until we were already in Tennessee, because we were still very new at that point. We moved there in 1995. She came in 1996. You know, so there's just a lot of pieces of all of this. Fast forward a little bit, you know, and I think I was going to touch on this later, but I'll interject now. We actually work with baby's half brother, Ned. Same father, different mother. Back in Tennessee, he was confiscated from a circus in Florida. Another baby sold at a young age, castrated at a young age, traveling circus, was skin and bones, and was eventually confiscated and sent to the sanctuary in Tennessee.
- [09:19]
B
Yeah, he was actually supposed to be going to the sanctuary in California. They didn't have a space ready. And so Tess was supposed to be kind of the halfway home while they finished up getting ready. But he was so skinny, and we worked with dietitians and tried all these different things, and he would be good for, like, three or four days, and then he would have really bad diarrhea again. And he just. He would. He put on a little bit of weight, but, like, he couldn't get to a healthy place as far as his weight went. And his GI system was just a mess. And he ended up passing away before he was sent to California because he. I don't remember the exact time, but he wasn't there for very long. And of course, we do need about six months. Okay. We do necropsies on all of the elephants, and he was. Of all the necropsies I have been a part of, which unfortunately have been more than I would like to. Um, he had the most diffuse issues in his abdominal cavity. Every single organ had something wrong with it, whether it was an abscess, whether it was a mass, whether it was just a lack of blood supply, everything from kidney, liver, to bladder. And with him, he had 99% of his jejunum, which is part of his intestines, were covered in ulcers. And that is the part of your intestines that's responsible for absorbing nutrition, which is why he was so skinny, and which is why no matter what was tried, he just could not. He could not absorb the nutrition, but he also could not have normal dung because everything was just not functioning properly. So we know genetically again, same father, different mother, but we know the significance of problems that he had and that a lot of Vance's offspring have died at an early age. So there is a bit of caution we're using with looking at things like, you know, discovering that she has blood in her stool and that she probably has ulcers. And instead of just assuming it's stress related and because of her lifestyle or because of lack of food between, you know, certain times because she was closed in from four in the afternoon until they came in in the morning. And you can give her food when you close her in, but it's not going to last. You know, she's going to eat it all within a short period of time. And then she has all those hours where she's not eating. And of course their bodies are built to graze for 18 to 22 hours a day. So, you know, that is also another cause. But we're keeping in mind the. The issue of her genetics and that she could be predisposed to those things being worse than they might be in another elephant.
- [12:19]
A
Are those the reasons then why baby became a case from. For the sanctuary? Or how come then if she was at the zoo, there were two other elephants there. They've obviously passed away. Did then I don't know. Brazilian advocates say, okay, this elephant here is solitary. Or were there actually medical concerns that then caused her to be a case for. Then yes, a judge ordered relocation to you.
- [12:44]
B
None of that.
- [12:45]
C
No matter if I had nothing to do with it. We'll go back a minute. So the amusement park had actually was a zoo slash amusement park. And they had decided they were going to remove all of the zoo components. They were going to remove all of the animals out. And that was in combination with what we understand as an investor. There was an investor involved which I think is actually connected back to Busch Gardens, if the information is correct. And they said they will not support the. Will not come in as an investor if the animals stay in the park. So there was motivation to move all the animals out, which has been great. They went to many other zoos. There was actually a plan to move her to another zoo. And that's when an animal welfare group got involved and said, wait a minute, there's a better place. Should she go to the sanctuary instead? By law, I don't know how the judge how a lot. I don't know how this would. Looking at it from the Beginning, how is it going to work that they're not permitted to send their own elephant to a facility that actually meets the standard of requirements in Brazil, even though that standard requirement is minimal.
- [13:58]
B
It would never happen in the US like, as most people know that follow elephants, it's impossible to get elephants to sanctuary. Almost impossible. And these, it takes 10 years, 15 years. A case like this would never even make it to trial. You know, it's a facility who's going to sell their elephant to another facility that has probably the best enclosure of anywhere else aside from us in Brazil. So for us looking at it as Americans, there's no legal standing to say that she shouldn't be going there, except for the moral and ethical. But somehow in Brazil that actually works. And I still don't understand it, but I think it's fantastic.
- [14:48]
C
With that case, the judge actually ordered several additional investigations of all three facilities. He actually ordered the Federal Veterinary Council to visit all three facilities. I think we actually talked about this.
- [15:00]
A
Yes, you did, but I didn't realize it was because of that. Oh, of course. You can't, you can't tell us everything, can you? So, yeah, they're connecting the dots today in podcast, definitely.
- [15:09]
C
Right. So the, the final decision from the, from the, the Federal Council was that both facilities are viable options for her. So the judge actually said, actually went a step further and said what is in her absolute best interest. It wasn't about which ones meet the legal standards. That not didn't matter to him that there's already a contract for them to transfer to another zoo and has a purchase to be somebody else to purchase her. He said, irrelevant. All of that. The best facility that has the greatest level of experience and the greatest capacity to provide the highest level of care or baby or an elephant is elephant Central Brazil. Fantastic with that, you know, because of the court system, you know, there's always different ways that people can continue to combat it. And we actually anticipated that they were going to try to combat that on some level. They didn't have a lot of options, but there are still some legal options that they could have pursued. But the next day or that afternoon, the lawyer for Beta Cajero called our lawyer and said, how quickly can we send her or how quickly can you come get her? With that, there were questions. The judge had made some requirements, some additional recommendations. But one of the requirements is additional testing before just to, you know. So we decided based on how things are going, the zoo, the, the, the, the amusement park wanted a center. Us being able to write a Receiver change of temperatures is going to get colder there and hotter here in the next little while. Had a little bit of a window of an opportunity. So we kind of jumped at it and things fell into place. The betoke was amazing of opening the door. She was already crate trained for the other crate that was supposed to go to the zoo. So she was already accustomed to a small space. We ended up using our crate, but she was already accustomed, accommodated to that. They were able to get blood collection and to do additional testing. We were able to do additional fecal testing. Her past showed some issues. And our veterinary team asked for additional tests to actually help us eliminate some of the things that may be going on or ease our mind or actually pointing us in the direction of something that may be happening with her. So those were all done there. However, because of all this happening quickly, we decided to move her into the male space so we can get a little bit more testing to make sure everything's truly okay before she goes in with the females.
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A
Okay. So the zoo itself wasn't then opposed to sending them to you, which is good, even though they were great training her to go to a different zoo.
- [17:52]
C
Let's connect the dots. The zoo is a third party to this. The zoo is attached to the lawsuit. So the lawsuit has four components, but it started with two. It started with the NMO effort, organization against the amusement park. It's no longer zoo, just an amusement park. They shut the zoo part down. So because there was a contract with the amusement park and the other zoo and Amalia, they are connected to that lawsuit automatically. And because the animal welfare group wanted to send her to the sanctuary, the elephant sanctuary, Brazil, we became attached to the lawsuit, but we are both secondary to that. So one of the things that the judge said was he put guardianship immediately in the hands of three people, three groups. The amusement park, because she still lives there. The sanctuary, because she's going to be coming here, and the animal welfare group, because they're the ones that started this petition of where they were going to send her. So we actually have three basically parental figures, if you will, that were in place. And so the zoo is actually not included in that. So that was. So they can still. They still had avenues. They could have tried, but they didn't have a lot of weight. They actually did try to cause problems. But we were able to. Our lawyer was able to go to the judge and say, look, this is what we're doing. Contrary to what they're saying, this is actually the protective measures. We're putting into place because they said, look, they're moving forward too fast without the proper testing. And we said, no, we're going to get testing because they can. But in addition to that, we're going to take additional safety measures to be able to do this. And these are the tests that our team have already asked for, which are different than what the amusement park or the zoo had asked for. So we're already digging deeper. We're like three days into this, and we're already digging deeper than anybody has to ensure her welfare.
- [19:46]
B
And this was the thing that didn't get approval from the judge until the day before she moved. So I know a lot of people had heard before that the ruling was that she would come to Sanctuary, but that doesn't mean she's definitively going to come to Sanctuary. I mean, as we've seen in Sandro's case, he's been ruled to come to sanctuary for a while now, but they can appeal and appeal and appeal and appeal and drag it out for years. So the zoo she was supposed to go to immediately started some things. They started a judicial procedure, and it could have been that. That would have been enough to stop her relocation. So we didn't announce anything because we already knew that this was going on, and there was a possibility that I could screw up everything. So it was only the day before we moved her. And of course, behind the scenes, everybody's moving forward with getting ready to be able to move her if everything ends up being fine. But publicly, we can't say she's going to come to sanctuary because the judge could turn around the day before she was moved and say, okay, let's put a hold on it and figure out the best way to move forward. And then it wouldn't have happened. So it seemed like it was really quick to everybody. And in general, it was, you know, it was very.
- [20:58]
A
Well, it was very quick. And especially, especially you normally fundraise before for the rescue. At the same time, your Trunks and Treasures online auction was sort of at its peak, and we're sort of jumping all over the place. My. My perfectly written note is out of the window. Forget it. And she actually arrived on the Saturday that your. That your auction closed. So this is a. This is a call to action for everybody. You can adopt baby. I just checked. You can do a virtual adoption of baby. $75 a year, which is 6.25. I did the maths. A month or even 21 cent a day. You can adopt baby. And you'll get monthly updates and a personal Update with photos on Baby and all that will go towards her care and. Or just a general donation towards a relocation. Because that was like. I was like, what? Yeah, it was like two. Two exciting events competing. I mean, a rescue always be. Beats. Hopefully it didn't. But a rescue just like, you know, the whole community is just like, out there and mad, you know, Then the football as well. They were you in the. In the. In the truck watching Brazil play football as well. So, yeah, we are running out of time. We've got about. Yeah, we've got about eight more minutes. So. Very exciting times. I think you caught everyone off guard, really. And you're. And yourselves as well, I think.
- [22:16]
B
Yeah. I actually felt bad for our development team because they spend so much time working on the auction. And then the auction ended, essentially when Baby arrived. Like, I think it was the same hour. So, like, the last hour is usually when you get the most bidding and no one was on the auction page. And I felt really bad because they do work on it a lot, but it just.
- [22:40]
A
It was fantastic.
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B
I mean, it just didn't work out timing wise. And then, like you said. Yeah, we usually do fundraising beforehand. And so I'm sure, as everybody is well aware of the cost of fuel and stuff, the truck and the transport were more expensive than any of the other relocations we've done because of that. So, yes, donations are always appreciated, aside from the fact that care costs money and we have a bunch of medical tests to run and so on and so on. So, yes, support is lovely.
- [23:10]
A
Yeah, you decide. Do we want to talk about the. In the last sort of five minutes about the relocation, the journey itself and how it went? Or shall we talk about Baby's first few days at the sanctuary, how she's settling in? Because I think that we can't really fit in much, especially what you've just mentioned before, Kat, regarding her half brother, Ned, and passing away from GI issues. So obviously, genetically they are connected. She does have kidney and liver issues, which you also mentioned and also in a video. And there's blood in her stool. So how is she settling in?
- [23:48]
C
And I think we have a lot to unpack. I mean, this has been a whirlwind for all of us. It's been a whirlwind for Baby. It's. There's so many layers of this. We can talk about, you know, briefly on the transport side, I will say it was just amazing because when you have a lawsuit, there's always these complicated elements and then, you know, pointing the fingers on all sides. And trying to win your case. But when Beto Gero said, no, we accept the judge decision, everybody that was part of that team at the amusement park was incredible. They received their open arms. We had a chance to talk a lot about more about Seb. They immediately went and saw the transport crate. When they talked to the team, one of the vendors at the end said, we've never seen such a cohesive team and people that are so dedicated to a singular cause and with a team that is very well versed in our field. And they felt much better going into it because they did not understand sanctuary before. And they started understand because of all the details and even asking for test, you know, and even like the smell of her feces when I walked up and they said, you know, something's wrong here. And then the next day, you know, two days later, that shows up with blood in her feces. So, you know, there's different. We just offer a lot and it's hard for people to imagine that are from the other side and not really looking in, in that full open window that does exist. But it's hard to kind of open your mind to how different it is until you experience it firsthand. But on our side, how different they were until he experienced firsthand. It's easier people to point the finger at the amusement park. But they were amazing and they were so dedicated to making this as positive as possible for baby.
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A
That's good.
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C
Next layer of all that medical baby transition, transport. There's a lot to unfold, so I'm going to pin that over to Kat to summarize as best she can.
- [25:38]
B
Yeah, I don't think. I don't think we should even start that talking about the transport and how she is now. I think another quick thing to touch on is out of all of the elephants we've relocated from Brazil, she is the only one who came with past blood work. She is the only one who they did target training with. So I know there is like this ingrained angst in people because she was in a circus and then she shifted to an amusement park. And no, life in captivity in general isn't great for elephants. We all know that. But again, of all the elephants we've received from Brazil, she did receive the most care. You know, we don't have 10 years of blood work on any elephant that's come from Brazil. We don't have any trends. When we do blood work, we don't know, are these kidney values off? Because they're just starting. Has this been going on for six Years, you know, with baby, one of the things that popped up is one of her values in her CBC is way off.
- [26:47]
A
And what's cbc?
- [26:49]
B
It's a complete blood count. You do CBC chemistry. So your CBC is red count, white count, it's the breakdown of your white cells, blah, blah, blah, while your chemistries are essentially looking at organs in general. So one of her values was so off in the blood test before. We just took the most recent one. But because we have, you know, five others before that, we're able to tell, is this something new, you know, is this trending, so on and so forth. So they were not only gracious when we were there and super helpful with getting blood again and so on and so forth, but the care they took of her previously allows us a much bigger picture of her health than we've had pretty much on anybody. Because even the elephants in Argentina, you know, a lot wasn't done with them until we started getting involved in their cases, you know, and then you had pocha and Gijamina and Kenya weren't good with blood until the very end. So we have a lot for her that we didn't get from anybody else. Does that give us 100 picture of her health? No. As we've always said, can't do ultrasound, can't do MRIs, CAT scans, blah, blah, blah. When you talk about kidney, if you have elevated kidney values, the first thing your doctor does, usually because you've already done a urinalysis, I would assume, is schedule an ultrasound. They want to do an ultrasound. They want to look at the parts of your kidney. They want to see if there's sludge. They want to see the consistency of the organ and the skin and so on and so on and so on. And you can't do any of that, that with an elephant. So all you get are these clues that something's wrong, but you don't know exactly what. And with a human, depending upon what the issue is, determines how to proceed. Exactly. And of course, we can't even use 90% of the medications that would be used in humans because they have no values for elephants and they've never been used. So I know people, although it's helpful being able to actually treat the way you would a smaller animal or a human. It just can't happen the same way. So, of course we do dietary adjustments. And she is on medication already. We brought medication with us, suspect of the fact that she may have ulcers. So we already brought a medication and started her on one thing before she even left we are adding additional medications. We are adjusting her diet according to knowing that she may have ulcers. We can now track it to see if that seems to resolve as far as seeing blood in her feces. But again, can't do an ultrasound, can't do a colonoscopy. I mean, there's so much we can't do that people just kind of have in their head that, oh, well, you know, that you can treat it because of how we deal with humans or other animals, but we just don't have those options in elephants. So we are doing things about it. It's just very different.
- [29:50]
A
So any technicians listening? Can you please create an MRI and an ultrasound?
- [29:54]
B
Oh, my God, that would be my dream. Please. I would like a portable elephant CAT scan would be awesome.
- [30:01]
C
I'm going to add just a minute to that because I think one thing that happens in so many facilities, because they do blood work and it seems okay, you know, it's not extraordinarily bad, but you have to take any little change, any little thing that you see as a potential of exacerbating quickly because of the negative impact that captiv. Because they're compromised. Because we now have an elephant that was pulled away from her mom at 11 months old. You know, this is going to have a long term catastrophic impact potentially. And so any little thing, you have to take it as more extreme. And I think that's one of the things that, you know, our team is doing here, and I think that's one of the things that may have even surprised the vets there, is how deep we're already digging, even with a little bit of information that we had and trying to connect those dots in a way that they weren't even considering, because we know how these things work with elephants and we just have to do as much as we. We can, as quickly as we can. And let's go back to fundraising and what it takes. You know, it's a huge undertaking. You know, it's not a small number of tests, it's not a small number of supplementation, it's not a small number of medications. You know, we have a long way to go and with this beautiful young elephant, a youngish elephant, 34 years old. And, you know, stay tuned because next two weeks we will talk about her first days and what we're seeing and also, you know, where we hope she's going to go, because she has a lot of potential.
- [31:18]
A
Yeah, fantastic. So all the links I will put into the show notes where you can become an elephant guardian or you can also buy goods in the store. All the proceeds go towards a global sanctuary for elephants. But of course a direct donation or a virtual adoption of Baby would be fantastic to support her in her first few days, weeks, months at the sanctuary. So thanks for your time. Thanks for sharing this exciting news and giving us more information. Joining the dots and as you said also in one of your videos, Scott, you are and the whole care team are observing Baby to put together the dots as well to find out what who is she, who what is her personality does observing and taking a step back and just looking at her and not sort of jumping to conclusions, but just observing. And yeah, look forward to catching up in a couple of weeks and finding out more about Baby. And everyone can of course the links are in the show notes. Follow Global Sanctuary Fair elephants with their daily videos on Baby at the moment there was a beautiful video of her lying, her getting a hose bath and then she just like lay down and was like rubbing her head on the fence and then she stood up and then she lay down and then she was just being hosed down with water. It was really, really lovely. So I'll find that video and link up to that as well in the show notes. Okay, you two take care. Thank you for all your time and yeah, until we meet up next time.
- [32:37]
B
Bye, Nadia.
- [32:38]
C
We'll talk soon.
- [32:39]
A
Bye. 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.