Author: Hei

After working for pretty much her entire life, a roughly 50-year-old elephant had no reason to believe anything would change. Gaew Ta, also known as Darling, worked in the logging industry in southern Thailand before retiring to do more work: giving rides to tourists in Phuket. Slowly, over the years, Darling went totally blind. So…

After an elephant family fell into a 14-foot deep construction pit in India, the 3-month-old calf couldn’t understand why his mom wouldn’t wake up, even though he kept nudging her with his little trunk. By the time rescuers arrived to take him away, his mother was unconscious. Even though they tried to revive her, she…

A crater left by a U.S. bomb during the Vietnam War, decades ago in Cambodia, nearly claimed the lives of a whole family of elephants this week. The crater – which has recently been used to store water by local farmers – lies in Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary. When farmers discovered 11 elephants stuck in…

The 40-year-old elephant had gotten stuck in some mud — and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get himself out. “Elephants of all ages will bathe in mud to coat their skin to protect it against the sun and as a form of insect repellent,” Rob Brandford, executive director of the David Sheldrick Wildlife…

In a story that’s touching hearts around the world, a baby elephant rescued from horrifying conditions has found more than just safety—she’s discovered unconditional love. The tiny calf, rescued alongside her mother from a cruel facility where they endured starvation and abuse, arrived at a wildlife sanctuary barely clinging to hope. Frail, nervous, and wary…

A video clip just over a minute long captures the chilling reality of keeping emotional, curious and social animals like elephants in zoos. Guillermina and Pocha, a mother and daughter at the Mendoza Zoological Park in Argentina, are shown reaching their trunks up as far as they can out of the concrete pit where they…

Nosey just went to a sanctuary — and people are fighting to make sure she can stay there. Nosey, an elderly and arthritic elephant, was being carted through Alabama as part of a traveling circus act when something amazing happened. Nosey was shipped to the U.S. from the plains of Africa in the early 1980s…

Guests and staff at a vacation spot in Kenya acted fast when they spotted a baby elephant being swept away in a flooding river — and it meant the difference between life and death for the little animal. A bystander managed to catch the moment on camera. A group of staffers can be seen swimming…

A 23-year-old elephant named Thong Phoon has spent most of her life being forced to give rides to tourists at trekking camps in Thailand, in Thailand, which requires a particularly brutal training called a “crush” that starts at a very young age. Thong Phoon has given birth to two calves, both of whom were taken away…

Spending most of her days in a concrete cell behind steel bars, Sunny is constantly rubbing her trunk along the walls of her enclosure out of boredom. Years of scratch marks riddle each of the barren walls. It has a chilling resemblance to a prison cell. “She stands on concrete for prolonged periods, which is…