Tippi Hedron Presents...Shambala Preserve...
"A meeting place of Peace and Harmony for all Beings, Animal and Human"
Story of Kura...the "Bad Elephant"
Circus elephants can never walk great distances to stay healthy. Circus elephants are chained front and hind leg 90% of the day, lined side-by-side, bobbing their heads to keep their blood circulating. Many elephants are contracting tuberculosis because of their sedentary life. The pad callouses on their feet are shaved with sharp knives, basically to hobble them. They are beaten into submission in order to do the tricks that are so foreign to their nature: sitting up, standing on their heads, dancing, having people, tigers or lions on their backs. The hairs of the hides of circus elephants are burned off with blow torches, so the dancing girls in their costumes won't be pricked.
They are shipped from town to town in railroad cars with no windows and little ventilation, the trip sometimes taking days. At times, the weather is freezing cold or extremely hot, but at all times they stand in their own excrement the entire trip. No wild animal chooses to be in the circus; the confinement will eventually make them go berserk. We hear about these instances often.
Kura Elephant came to Shambala in 1978 from just such a life with Circus Vargas. An intelligent, independent animal, she did not care for circus life, and when her handlers wanted her to go left, she went right. Finally, she went on a rampage through the tent, and was going to be destroyed as a "bad" elephant. Instead, she found a home at the Shambala Preserve, where she and her companion Timbo take long walks, graze, strip the bark off any trees they can reach, and swim in Shambala's lovely lake. The only "trick" Kura has retained from her circus days is a deeply ingrained habit of bobbing her head back and forth; sadly, this is the only movement that a line of closely chained elephants can manage.
We lost Kura to massive heart failure on August 3, 2000. She passed away in the middle of the night while all were sleeping. She is much missed by us all, and especially Timbo.
Elephants are the largest land mammals on earth, averaging 12 feet tall at the shoulder. Their long, agile trunks average 7 feet long with over 80,000 muscles. Each family of a dozen or more elephants is headed by a matriarch, and the rearing of young is a cooperative responsibility among mothers, aunts, and sisters. The African elephant (Loxodonto africanus) differs from the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) in several ways. They are larger, weighing an average of 12,000 lbs. as opposed to 10,000 lbs. for the Asian. Both the males and the females have ivory tusks which continue to grow throughout their lives, and can reach 100 pounds in weight. Only the male Asian elephant has tusks. The African elephant also has larger ears, which are said to resemble the continent of Africa.
Elephants in the wild walk 25 to 50 miles a day. They search for food, tree bark being of main importance to them. They spend hours submerging themselves in water and mud holes, then spraying water, mud or sand on their backs to irritate annoying flies and to protect their hides from the sun. Their language is sophisticated, ranging from sounds that carry for miles and are used to communicate with other herds, and some tones so low they are not audible to the human ear. The wild elephant sometimes lays down to sleep, and others guard them until they awaken.
These highly intelligent animals live in herds of varying numbers. All are bonded to each other as a family with only the males leaving at puberty to protect the gene pool. The female "aunties" take care of the young, teaching them the way of the elephants much as a human family teaches their children. They are extremely gentle with each other, protective of the herd, the matriarch being the leader and powerful protector.
Kura was probably born around 1958 or 1959. Elephants can live as long as 55 or 60 years. Many in the wild will not live nearly as long due to loss of habitat and poaching. Only a few years ago, the plight of the African elephant seemed doomed to failure, and even extinction. Between 1970 and 1989, the elephants of Kenya alone were being killed by poachers and big game hunters, and encroached upon by human settlement at the astonishing rate of 8,000 a year. Their population in Kenya fell from 167,000 to a mere 16,000.
Thanks to one of the most vigorous and sustained conservation campaigns in history, the African elephant is trying to rebound. With the help of sanctuaries in Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya and South Africa, and international laws forbidding the import and trade of ivory, the elephant thrives once again. Since 1989, the overall African elephant population is estimated to be about 600,000. Although this may seem a lot, their position is still very precarious.
Poachers kill mainly the older elephants for their larger tusks, and the loss of its matriarch may throw a herd into confusion. Orphaned elephants have a poor survival rate, and while elephants reach their prime at about 40 years of age, the average age has dropped to only 24 years old. Threatened both by poachers and by encroaching domestic livestock, some elephants face overcrowding in parks and reserves. A herd of elephants requires an enormous territory to forage for food, since a mature African elephant such as Kura can graze between 300 to 500 pounds of vegetation per day, a varied diet of grass, tree bark and fruits.
Man is the only predator of the elephant, poaching or hunting the animal for trophies or ivory trinkets. Many are brutally captured to live out their lives in circuses or zoos. They run in panic when helicopters hover to machine gun them down to cull the supposed large numbers, many times trampling the young elephants. One of the most important conservation measures taken for the African elephant has been its listing as an Appendix I species under Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), ending almost all trade in ivory. Increased guard protection in national parks and reserves and a forceful policy of shooting poachers on sight are some measures African nations are using to deter poaching.
All of us at Shambala thank you for your kind and generous support.
Would you like to "adopt" one of our "Wild Ones?"
Check out Shambala's exciting "Adopt-a-Wild One" program!
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