PROTECT ALL WILDLIFE

The Thula Thula Land Expansion Project For Elephant Habitat

Lawrence-Anthony-Lawrence-002 — The Late Lawrence Anthony With Two Of The Original ‘Rogue’ Elephants

Elephants had never been part of Lawrence Anthony’s plan for Thula Thula, but in 1999 he was telephoned by a conservation organisation which asked whether he would be willing to take on a herd of nine animals which had escaped from every enclosure they had ever been in, wreaking havoc across KwaZulu-Natal, and were considered highly dangerous. Realising that the Elephants would be shot if he declined, Anthony agreed to give them a home.

But he was the herd’s last chance of survival – notorious escape artists, they would all be killed if Lawrence wouldn’t take them. He agreed, but before arrangements for the move could be completed the animals broke out again and the matriarch and her baby were shot. The remaining Elephants were traumatised and very angry. As soon as they arrived at Thula Thula they started planning their escape.

“They were a difficult bunch, no question about it,” he recalled. “Delinquents every one. But I could see a lot of good in them too. They’d had a tough time and were all scared, and yet they were looking after one another, trying to protect one another.”

Lawrence decided to treat the Elephants as errant children, working to persuade them, through words and gestures, that they should not behave badly and that they could trust him. He concentrated his attention on Nana, the matriarch of the herd: “I’d go down to the fence and I’d plead with Nana not to break it down,” he said. “I knew she didn’t understand English, but I hoped she’d understand by the tone of my voice and my body language what I was saying. And one morning, instead of trying to break the fence down, she just stood there. Then she put her trunk through the fence towards me. I knew she wanted to touch me. That was a turning point.” Soon they were allowed out into the reserve.

As Lawrence battled to create a bond with the Elephants and save them from execution, he came to realise that they had a lot to teach him about love, loyalty and freedom. Set against the background of life on the reserve, with unforgettable characters and exotic wildlife, he wrote The Elephant Whisperer, a book that appealed to animal lovers worldwide.

la-elephant_whisperer — The Elephant Whisper

After his death, Lawrence’s beloved Elephants came to his house to say goodbye.

When Lawrence died at the age of 61 in 2012, two herds of wild South African Elephants slowly made their way through the Zululand bush until they reached the house of late author, the conservationist who saved their lives. The formerly violent, rogue Elephants, destined to be shot a few years ago as pests, were rescued and rehabilitated by Anthony, who had grown up in the bush and was known as the “Elephant Whisperer.” For two days the herds loitered at Lawrence’s rural compound on the vast Thula Thula game reserve in the South African KwaZulu — to say good-bye to the man they loved. But how did they know he had died? Known for his unique ability to calm traumatized Elephants Lawrence had become a legend. He is the author of three books, Babylon Ark, detailing his efforts to rescue the animals at Baghdad Zoo during the Iraqi war, the forthcoming The Last Rhinos, and his bestselling The Elephant Whisperer. There are two Elephant herds at Thula Thula. According to his son Dylan, both arrived at the Anthony family compound shortly after Anthony’s death. “They had not visited the house for a year and a half and it must have taken them about 12 hours to make the journey,” Dylan is quoted in various local news accounts. “The first herd arrived on Sunday and the second herd, a day later. They all hung around for about two days before making their way back into the bush. “Elephants have long been known to mourn their dead. In India, baby Elephants often are raised with a boy who will be their lifelong “mahout.” The pair develop legendary bonds and it is not uncommon for one to waste away without a will to live after the death of the other.

x29vo-elephants-vigil-1 — Elephant’s March To Pay Their Respects To The Man Who Saved Them

What Is The Thula Thula Land Expansion Project For Elephant Habitat?

The original herd of 7 Elephants that Lawrence Anthony rescued in 1999 has now increased to 30 Elephants meaning the maximum sustainable capacity of Thula Thula has been reached!

THULA THULA 3 — The Elephants Of Thula Thula

How Can The Long-Term Future Of The Elephant Whispered Herd Be Secured?

Thanks to the local community, Thula Thula has the opportunity to add a further 3500 hectares of land to increase their habitat. This solution requires 35 km of electric fencing as well as roads, increased security, guard training, security equipment and vehicles, conservation, land management and the list just go on, to keep the wildlife safe. Community projects such as this, not only support the wildlife but also improve local employment and education.

For my part, I am doing a 10,000 feet skydive to help raise funds for this project.

By donating to this cause you are helping to secure the future for the Thula Thula Elephants and local communities.

To help secure the long-term future of the Thula Thula Elephants please DONATE at https://t.co/bdiEDD7ljr

For more information on Thula Thula’s Wildlife and Nature Conservation Projects please visit http://thulathula.com/conservation-fund-2/

Thank you for your support, Paul.

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Dolphinariums Don’t Just Break Dolphins, They Break People Too!

I am very proud that Protect All Wildlife has been chosen to publish a guest blog by the now retired dolphin trainer David Capello, aka The Psychic Trainer, featured in The Perfect Pair Dolphin Trilogy Expose of abuse in UK dolphin training pens.

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Dolphinariums Don’t Just Break Dolphins, They Break People Too!

“Lies, deceit, corruption – to say nothing of cruelty. All facets of the lucrative captive cetacean industry. And I should know, because I was once a big part of it.

So, who am I?

I have several pseudonyms, my most popular being ‘Capello’, the most colourful being ‘The Psychic Trainer’. But there is another handle – one I’d rather remain unwritten, as my whistle-blowing return was never intended as self-promotion. Either way, I am the trainer featured in The Perfect Pair Dolphin Trilogy exposé, three books written under the fiction banner to avoid legal problems. A story now described by one discerning reviewer as ‘… fact stranger and more brutal than fiction!’ Yet, incredibly, all events chronicled are true, facts authenticated by original dolphin logbooks, long since thought destroyed. (A common Company practice on the death of a show dolphin.)

As you can imagine, my emergence with these logs has severely rattled the conglomerate and animal celebs involved in the story, resulting in a national UK media blackout. A cover-up that appears to have infiltrated the USA, after this award-winning exposé was controversially pulled from an over-subscribed summer reading programme by an unnamed US official. Desperate actions that beg the question, ‘Why are so many organisations, people and – now it would appear – governments so afraid of my story? Why are they so anxious to shut me up?’ Questions that can only be answered by reading the exposé itself.

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As for me, my involvement with the aqua circus began at the tender age of 17, when I landed what I believed to be my dream job – a naivety that saw me whisked away from family and friends, and deposited in the harsh confines of the UK dolphin training pens; a facility breaking raw dolphins for the commercial dolphinaria.

Always held in high esteem, trainers graduating from this establishment were known for being ‘hard-nosed’. Not surprising considering the daily horrors they inevitably witnessed – botched transports that left countless dolphins injured and even maimed. I personally witnessed air burns, a blinding and much, much worse, devastating for the dolphins that survived, because – as my pen colleagues always reminded me – many Atlanteans didn’t.

Working the pens was physically and mentally gruelling. Early training was always conducted lying belly down on wet platforms, so we could interact with our dolphin captives eye to eye. Fifteen-hour days were commonplace. Depriving the dolphins of sleep was an important method used to secure the quickfire results that management demanded.

It was here that I witnessed my first suicide dolphin – a phenomenon that the captive industry vehemently denies. It was also here where I learned to hand-catch in preparation for transports, veterinary treatments or force-feeds – the latter, horribly distressing.

The force-feeds consisted of wrapping disinfected towel gags around the upper and lower jaws of the manually pinned-down dolphins, followed by physically pushing lubricated herring down into their throats to activate their swallowing mechanism. This nightmare was normally performed five fish at a time, punctuated by brief rest periods. Even so, this was not always successful, as the dolphins often vomited back their forced feed.

Much worse than the vomiting, however, was the unseen damage inflicted on the dolphins’ psyches, because once they’d undergone this torturous procedure, they were left vulnerable to what many pen trainers refer to as the ‘dolphin mind-set’, a mental condition that, once activated, proves difficult to reverse … suicide by self-starvation.

In fact, my only fond memory of the pens was Duchess and Herb’e (Flippa), my beloved Perfect Pair, for it was their brilliance that allowed the three of us to escape that hellhole and head to our first purpose-built dolphinarium.

dolphin 6 — David with Duchess and Herb’e ~ The Perfect Pair

The rest, as they say, is history. Over the next three years, my two magnificent show dolphins took the aqua circus by storm, achieving the much-revered shadow ballet. Their story has been lovingly chronicled by the Holroyds in The Perfect Pair Dolphin Trilogy book series – a warts-and-all exposé that I pray will help bring down this horrendous industry.

As for me, once I’d made my decision to walk away from the aqua circus, I was never tempted to return, despite a lucrative offer to train Europe’s then only captive orca. My reason? I viewed my achievements not with pride, but with shame. Nevertheless, despite the attempted cover-up, my experiences are now a documented part of UK dolphinarium history – a tool to shine a light into the sinister and murky world of captive cetaceans.

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Thanks for listening and thank you, Paul (Protect All Wildlife), for giving me this platform. For more info, visit www.theperfectpairdolphintrilogy.com.

David Capello

Only together are we strong”

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A review of The Perfect Pair Dolphin Trilogy by Dr Simon JR Adams, Bsc(Hons), BVMS, MRCVS, Independent Zoo & Wildlife Adviser. https://www.theperfectpairdolphintrilogy.com/dr-simon-jr-adams-bsc-hons-bvms-mrcvs.html

Please SHARE to raise much-needed awareness to the cruelty that is dolphinariums. Please SUBSCRIBE for updates and news. Thank you.

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Sudan, The World’s Last Male Northern White Rhino Is Very Sick

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Sudan, the world’s last male Northern White Rhino has fallen gravely ill, driving the subspecies one step closer towards extinction.

The 45-year-old rhino is known, is suffering from two infections on his right back leg. He lives at Kenya’s Ol Pejeta Conservancy, which announced on Twitter late last month that Sudan’s “health has begun deteriorating, and his future is not looking bright.

The Rhino’s troubles began late last year, when Sudan developed an age-related infection on his back leg. He was treated and seemed to be recovering well, but a secondary, deeper infection was recently discovered behind the original one.

“This has been treated, but worryingly, the infection is taking longer to recover, despite the best efforts of his team of vets who are giving him 24-hour care,” Ol Pejeta wrote on Twitter. “We are very concerned about him—he’s extremely old for a rhino and we do not want him to suffer unnecessarily.”

Elodie A. Sampere, a spokesperson for the conservancy, tells Faith Karimi of CNN that Sudan is still feeding and walking about, “albeit very little.”

“Euthanasia will be explored if we feel he is suffering too much and won’t recover,” Sampere says.

Sudan is one of the world’s last three Northern White Rhinos, and the only male. Two females—Najin and her daughter Fatu—also live at Ol Pejeta. Recent efforts to breed the rhinos have not been successful; Sudan has a low sperm count, Najin’s knees are too weak to endure breeding attempts and Fatu is infertile. Last year, Sudan was given a Tinder profile as part of a campaign to raise funds to develop reproductive technology for the rhinos.

Northern White Rhinos have already been classified as extinct, since none exist in the wild, according to Ann M. Simmons of the Los Angeles Times. And all species of rhino are facing grave threats. While millions of the animals once roamed across Africa and Asia, only 30,000 now survive in the wild, according to Save the Rhino. Poachers, who illegally hunt Rhinos for their horns, are the main threat to the animals’ survival. At the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, Sudan is constantly flanked by armed guards.

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Scientists are exploring various options for reintroducing the northern white rhino subspecies, among them in-vitro fertilization. Barbara Durrant, director of reproductive sciences at San Diego Zoo Global, tells Simmons that other possibilities include using stem cell technology to create a northern white rhino embryo (which could then be implanted in a surrogate), creating a hybrid between Northern and Southern White Rhinos, or even cloning the animal.

But, Durrant notes, scientist “have lot of work to do to develop those technologies.” More urgent is the need to stamp out the demand for Rhino horn and bring an end to the poaching of these magnificent creatures.
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