Ned, Formerly of The Circus!, Now of The Elephant Sanctuary

In this spot was a photo of Ned's trainer looking decidedly sinister which I've since removed because although I thought it was funny BEFORE I found out Ned was underweight, now it's not so much.

The trainer has been vilified in the press and had it mentioned that he's expressed no remorse and I don't think it's because he's bad or evil. Maybe he's a bastard, I dunno, but he didn't SEEM to be one, but, I mean, I don't believe a guy is going to take an elephant he is abusing and malnourish with malice of forethought and then parade it in front of hundreds of people.

So rightly or wrongly, I think the guy did what elephant trainers DO, which isn't allow elephants to walk 30 to 50 miles per day but keep them relatively penned up and confined, transport them around and give them hay to eat. I've seen farmers and horsemen be MUCH rougher and seemingly cruel to their animals. So that being said, it felt better to take the sinister looking image down.

My only other reservation is that a paragraph at the Elephants.com website mentions the mistreatment of another elephant named Kenya which 'attacked and killed a woman' which due to the lack of specificity make a horrible situation sounds worse and according to press reports the woman killed was the trainer's sister who was ALSO an elephant trainer and the trainer of Kenya. 'Attacked and killed it's trainer" is equally tragic but more accurate.' Tomato, ToMAHto, but I feel it should be noted. Further noted: Kenya died 11 days after the attack of unknown causes.

As many Gentle Viewers will recall, this spring I did a series called People at Work®: The Circus!, a monumental and majestic blah blah blah...which I put here and on flickr.

Several weeks ago I get a nice letter from a nice lady working for a nice zoo in Oakland California asking if I have any information about this elephant and of course I don't because my greatest failing as a photographer is not asking the names of my subjects, leaving elephant names WAY down the list....

So I tell her as much as I know and don't hear anything back until I start to clean out my flick account (yes, CLEANING IT!) and the same nice woman, Colleen Kinzley, General Curator of the Oakland Zoo writes asking where they went. Then she explains how Ned is malnourished. I just thought he was 'narrow.'

Then I get a comment which I deleted on flickr from Sherle Raite, a very...ummm...STRONG and PASSIONATE elephant advocate if you know what I'm saying. She does volunteer graphics design and web stuff for The Elephant Sanctuary.

They both very nicely notified me of the press release: USDA confiscates Emaciated Elephant: Now in Route to the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennesee.

Now as many of you also know. No animal lover, I. We have a peaceful coexistence of benign neglect and I'm not going to even pretend I was at the circus for some undercover Elephant shoot. I wasn't. In fact, I was surprised to even see one there. I teased an animal loving friend WHO OWNS A DOG AND WEARS LEATHER by asking her if she wanted to see a photo of an elephant chained to a dumpster. She replied that she'd rather die. So I said..Well they can't chain it to a PILLOW! Or a BIKE!

I left there thinking the elephant had a better gig that *I* do. However, I'm not 3 for 4 thousand pounds underweight, either, although my Doctor suggests from time to time that I'd be healthier if I were. I also didn't know elephants in the wild walk 30 to 50 milesper day or something. So if THAT'S the case. I get the point.

You can see more photos of Ned here.

Ned's Bio Page at Elephants.com

Attention backslapping USDA dudes who are Googling and emailing this post. Thanks a LOT for the Photo Credit on the photos handed out as 'Courtesy USDA' I saw ya! This won't happen under the OBAMA Administration! :)