The Home For Gentle Giants

The land, shaded by lush pine branches, stretches for hundreds of acres. Chattering birds are the only sounds punctuating the quiet—that is, until a herd of Asian elephants lumbers through the foliage, snapping twigs like toothpicks.

The elephants are quite at ease in their natural habitat —only that’s not exactly what this is. For these giant beasts make their home not in Asia where they came from, but at the Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tenn.

Seven female Asian elephants—Barbara, Sissy, Tarra, Jenny, Bunny, Winkie, and Shirley—roam freely through the sanctuary’s 800 acres of hills, trees, ponds, and abundant vegetation, doing exactly what they please. No tricks. No demands.

“We want to reverse the role they’ve had in captivity,” says Carol Buckley, sanctuary co-founder and director.

“The girls,” as Buckley affectionately calls them, spent most of their long lives in circuses and zoos, except for Tarra, who traveled the country for two decades with owner Buckley, performing in circuses and for television shows and commercials.

Show business, while generally very careful to take care of its animal stars these days, took its toll on most of the sanctuary’s growing herd. Isolation, cramped quarters, and inappropriate handling—more common years ago — left their mark. At the sanctuary, however, they’ve found the love and attention required to heal, and even flourish.

Bunny, 48, is healing from prolonged periods of standing on concrete for most of her life in a zoo. Most of Shirley’s 52 years were in a traveling circus, until an attacking elephant broke her leg. She then retired to a zoo where officials there decided she needed to socialize with other elephants.

Jenny, 32, also a circus performer, was injured by another elephant but never properly treated. Sissy, 38, is shy and slightly anti-social after a life of being transferred from zoo to zoo, with no interaction with other elephants. Barbara, 28, at one time was severely underweight by 2,000 pounds. And Winkie, 33, the newest arrival, spent nearly her whole life in foot chains and cramped quarters at a zoo.

Now, protected by Buckley, and Scott Blais, the sanctuary’s other co-founder, these gentle giants are living out their lives — as long as 60 to 70 years — doing what elephants do: living in a natural herd, eating, sleeping, resting, exploring, playing, and socializing.

The Perfect Place

Both Buckley and Blais had worked with captive elephants for many years before a shift in attitude, fueled by a deep love for Asian elephants, led them to create this haven.

“I entered the world of performing elephants straight out of college. As a direct result of my experiences over the past 26 years, my philosophy changed to what it is today,” Buckley says.

Blais formerly was an elephant caretaker at a Canada animal park, where the animals were treated well, but with dominance rather than compassion, he says. When Buckley arrived there to help breed two elephants, Tarra and Rasha, she and Blais discussed their differing care methods. Buckley persuaded Blais to try her way.

So he gave Rasha a bath, gently talking to her in a calm and reassuring manner. Afterward, Rasha put her head over his shoulder and caressed him with her trunk.

“The appreciation I felt from Rasha was quite special,” he says.

And it changed his life. He and Buckley created a partnership that took them on a search eventually leading to the small, southern Tennessee community of nearly 4,500.

“We were searching for a facility like this and realized it wasn’t out there,” Buckley says, “So I thought, ‘Okay, what are you going to do about it?’”

Get busy and build it, that’s what.

First, they had to find the perfect setting. A crucial list of criteria ruled the search: climate, rainfall, growing season, vegetation, human population, distance from feed stores, and location of emergency facilities.

They found what they needed in Hohenwald. “The lay of the land was perfect for what they’re used to,” Buckley says.

So in the early 1990s, Buckley and Blais, along with a 50-member steering committee and other boards, began the fund raising necessary to create the nation’s first natural habitat refuge developed specifically for endangered Asian elephants. Money came in from across the country from caring citizens and corporations and funded a heated barn as well as appropriate fencing.

It’s taken hard work to create the sanctuary, but a glance at Buckley’s face as she watches Jenny, Shirley, and Bunny lumber side-by-side toward the pond for their daily splash shows that it’s worth every bead of sweat and every donation request.

Just the fact that she knows which elephants she’s viewing from a half-mile distance speaks volumes. “The way they stand, move—their faces are completely different,” she says, watching them through binoculars from her office above the barn.

Elephant Education

The sanctuary does more than provide a haven for old, sick, or needy Asian elephants; it educates the world about the crisis facing these endangered creatures. (Only about 30,000 Asian elephants remain in the wild.) To that end, the sanctuary employs several educational tools used by the public and schools.

Since it began, the sanctuary’s outreach programs have taught more than 45,000 students about the Asian elephant and about respecting wildlife.

Perhaps the most innovative of these is their involvement in Project DIANE (Diversified Information and Assistance Network). This interactive Internet teleconferencing program allows students to take a “field trip” to the sanctuary, where they can view natural elephant behavior in a nonintrusive way, listen to one of the five staff members describe each elephant’s distinct personality and history, and even ask questions.

It’s operable from anywhere in the world and available year-round. And anyone can view the elephants at any time by way of the sanctuary’s live video feed, the “ELECAM,” accessible at www.elephants.com.

Two curriculum guides, one each for grades kindergarten-third and fourth-eighth, are available as free Internet downloads. The guides combine literature, math, social studies, and science with basic elephant knowledge.

Elephants are a keystone species, meaning their existence is important to the prosperity of other species. For instance, elephants are adept at finding underground water sources, which they will dig up, providing water for other animals as well. And because of their size—8 to 10 tons and about 10 feet tall—they open up patches of dense woods, allowing passage by other animals.

No Crowds Allowed

Buckley and staff practice what they preach—the facility is closed to the public.

“We believe that as a true sanctuary it’s important there’s no pressure for the elephants to entertain or perform,” Buckley explains.

In front of an audience, Buckley says, the elephants would exhibit neurotic behavior. Instead, everything they do comes naturally. Barbara uses her trunk to dust her back with grass and dirt to ward off insects and sunburn. Sissy and Tarra romp around with their dogs, which they consider their babies. And all of the girls chirp and entwine their trunks, as elephants do.

It’s fairly simple for staff to monitor the whereabouts of these creatures of habit through a daily log, so if an elephant is not where she normally would be, they can find her. So far, strange behavior is at a minimum, except during stormy weather.

“During a storm, they’ll go to a low-lying area. Tarra is the only one who screams and heads toward the barn,” Buckley says with a chuckle.

Looking Ahead

Now that the sanctuary is moving along at a good pace, Buckley says it’s time to branch out. So they’re adding land to the grounds, anticipating more elephants and more herds (12 elephants per herd, with a total goal of 100 elephants). African elephants aren’t included; the two species wouldn’t co-exist in the wild. And no boys (or bulls) are allowed, either. A natural herd doesn’t include adult males.

The sanctuary also is expanding cross-continent with the Asian Elephant Habitat Program, which identifies land in Asia to preserve and protect for wild elephants.

And as always, the staff continues to raise money for their current annual operating costs of $250,000. After all, with 150 pounds of food and 30 gallons of water daily, these are pretty big mouths to feed.

Laura Sewell is Southeast editor for American Profile.

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