Lucy: The Stolen Lives of Elephants (2025) Movie Script
1
WOMAN: Okay. I'm going to go
and talk to her.
I want to do one more interview.
How many elephants
do you have here?
- So, we have 17 in total.
- Wow.
WORKER: They just alternate
who's in the display area.
(Spectators applauding)
MAN: If people saw even 10%
of what these elephants endure,
most people in our world
would say,
"My heart can't take it."
WOMAN:
Her name was Skanik.
She was captured in Sri Lanka
in 1975.
At two years old, she was sold
to the Edmonton Valley Zoo
and has lived alone
almost exclusively
for the whole time.
We are calling
on the Edmonton Valley Zoo...
Elephants need room to roam!
Lucy needs a bigger home!
PROTEST LEADER:
People have believed the lies!
PROTESTERS:
Open up your blinded eyes!
This is
how we're going to play it,
'cause we're going undercover.
LEADER:
24 years is long enough!
Let Lucy go.
LEADER:
Elephants should not be alone!
PROTESTERS: It's time
to find her a warmer home!
WOMAN: As long as you're
breathing
and I'm still breathing,
I'll never give up fighting
for you.
(People chattering)
MAN: I've been coming here
to study elephants
for over 20 years,
more so
after leaving the Calgary Zoo.
Lucy was born in Sri Lanka.
I really had this romantic
feeling that I wanted to work
in close proximity with animals.
Zoos often talk about the
conservation work that they do
and the research...
and I bought into that.
I got hired on shortly after
I was volunteering there,
and there was
an internal apprenticeship
that you entered to become
a fully qualified zookeeper.
You know, it was exciting
at first, and it was difficult.
Physical punishment was
an acceptable training method.
You demand that they comply,
and if they don't comply,
then you force them to comply.
I was very naive,
and I put my trust
into the people
who I thought were
the experts...
but it always made me sick.
I really wanted to make change.
I just didn't really know
how to do it.
Just heading to the rear gate,
to the elephant orphanage.
(Engines revving)
And I see we have quite
the entourage waiting for us.
When I was here the last time,
I was actually quite naive.
I hoped to learn
what elephant conservation
might mean
in the countries of origin,
but that's not what I learned.
I learned about
animal exploitation
in the countries of origin.
Pinnawala is
a zoological facility
in south central Sri Lanka,
and they've been around
since the early, mid-'70s,
where they were taking in
orphaned elephants.
What I was doing
was eerily similar
to what I was doing in a zoo
at the time.
And we're seeing
several elephants here
that are chained up.
Anytime an elephant is fettered,
nothing good comes of it.
All these elephants
are exhibiting signs of stress.
Now, we have an elephant
directly in front of us
that's swaying.
Just trauma.
WOMAN: Brochures.
Yeah. We want to bring this one.
Those...
Everybody got their buttons?
Everybody got their bracelets?
(Group chattering)
Looks like everyone's good
for signs.
I actually got involved
with Lucy way back in 2011.
Over the years, there's been
numerous other activist groups.
PETA, In Defense of Animals,
Voice for Animals,
and then us: Lucy's
Edmonton Advocates Project.
REPORTER: So, can you tell us
what's going on here today?
We want to bring attention
to Lucy's plight.
Uh, we are calling on
the Edmonton Valley Zoo
to allow a sanctuary vet in
to examine Lucy.
The only person that can make
the real call
as to whether Lucy can be safely
transported to a sanctuary
are those that safely transport
older ailing elephants
routinely.
Elephants should not be alone!
It's time to find her
a warmer home!
MARY-ANN: We've never said,
"Put Lucy's life at risk."
Our main goal has always been
to bring in an independent team
of experts to examine Lucy.
Back in 2019,
when I met face to face
with the zoo director
at the time,
he promised to bring in
fresh eyes to examine Lucy...
Every year,
the Edmonton Valley Zoo
has brought in their vets.
Vets that are part of
the circus and zoo industry,
and certainly not considered
independent.
And says,
"Due to Lucy's poor health,
there is no choice
but to leave Lucy alone."
GARY DEWAR: She does have
a severe breathing issue.
It's something that has caused
previous experts
that have examined her
to warn against moving her
from our zoo.
The stress
associated with that travel
could be life-threatening.
MARY-ANN:
So, the main vet
that they brought in
for many years
was Dr. James Oosterhuis.
He reports the same findings
every year.
That state that Lucy is too sick
to be safely moved to sanctuary.
He has claimed this
about other elephants
and been wrong.
Veterinarians are beholden
to animals
and the animal use industries,
and only one of those pays
their bills.
- LEADER: What do we want?
- PROTESTERS: Retire Lucy!
- When do we want it?
- Now!
LES: One of the things
I used to do here,
I do around the world,
is that I work on elephant feet.
So, is there the possibility
I could see some later?
MAN:
Yeah.
These animals were exposed to
a lot of physical punishment
as a method
of training elephants.
LES:
To start from the beginning,
there's the idea and the concept
of free contact as a method,
where you work without
any protective barriers.
The only thing that you have
as protection is a hook.
You hook behind their leg.
It draws them forward.
That is the part
that you can't escape from,
is the damage that a hook can do
to an elephant.
Those elephants
don't have a choice
whether to follow those commands
or not.
And if they don't,
you use that hook.
(Trumpeting)
You know what?
We're not going to do it.
(Trumpeting)
The training that I started with
was the exact same,
and that was the industry
standard
for zoos pretty much across
the world.
I smacked those elephants.
I beat those elephants.
I didn't recognize the failure
for what it was,
which was within me.
I blamed the elephants for it.
If she's not good for it,
we're not going to do it. No.
No. That's okay. Thank you.
That's okay.
INTERVIEWER: Here you are,
fighting to bring the truth
about what goes on
behind the scenes,
and you can't forgive yourself
for what you did
all those years. Why?
Just guilt.
I was part of a problem.
I know I was part of a problem.
I was just, clearly,
wilfully blind to it.
BOB JACOBS:
When tourists go to zoos,
you'll hear parents tell
their children,
"Oh, the elephant is dancing,"
or "The elephant is happy."
What the elephant is doing
is a reflection of brain damage.
There's a disruption
in parts of the brain
that control movement
that has been caused by
an impoverished environment.
And what's happened is
the environment
has messed with
these finely tuned systems
in such a way that you start
to see excessive movements
come through the system
that are normally suppressed:
repetitive,
unnecessary movements
that serve no apparent function.
What is clear, though,
that it represents brain damage
at some level.
DEBI ZIMMERMAN:
Her elephant barn,
it is a squat concrete building.
Her outdoor space
is also desperately small.
There's nothing there
that is of key importance
to elephants.
What's meaningful to elephants
is other elephants...
(Trumpeting)
space to roam,
and a very diverse environment.
They need warm climates,
and they need the ability
to make their own choices.
None of that is provided
for her.
The first time I recall
I had a visit with her,
she had a lot of sores
on her face.
One of my pictures
has her laying on the ground.
The whites of her eyes
are showing.
The sign of a terrified animal.
MARY-ANN: I have a really rare
autoimmune disease,
and I've managed
until COVID came.
And ever since then,
I've been on oxygen.
(Machine beeping)
As far as Lucy goes,
I faced quite a bit of pressure
from my family to let this go.
There isn't anybody that willing
to sit up
till 4:00 in the morning
writing e-mails
to city councillors.
It's actually good,
because it gives me something
to focus on
aside from not being able
to breathe.
(Cheering and applause)
We feel that they didn't want to
let Lucy go
because she was the big
attraction at the Valley Zoo.
What's the... Stop.
Let it go. Release.
WOMAN:
Make it pretty.
MAN:
Pretty.
WOMAN:
Oh, good girl!
MARY-ANN: And ego, I believe,
is a big part of it.
Admitting that maybe zoos
aren't the best place
for these exotic animals.
WOMAN: So, her trunk is
an extension of her nose.
JOYCE POOLE:
We know better now.
Science has shown
that they have feelings.
They think about things.
In a zoo, they're plunked down,
living completely alone
so that we get pleasure
to behold them.
There was an elephant in Alaska
named Maggie.
Maggie was getting sicker
and sicker,
and we parallel Maggie's story
with Lucy's.
She, too, was a lone elephant
that was kept in
a completely wrong climate.
Well, Maggie was here when
I started working at the zoo.
She came in the early-'80s.
A female elephant
should not be by herself.
MARY-ANN:
So, they brought in a panel.
PATRICK: And most of them said
she should go.
MARY-ANN:
The only one that said Maggie
wouldn't survive transport
was James Oosterhuis.
PATRICK: The committee voted
to keep Maggie,
and I was upset.
I almost quit over it.
MARY-ANN: Interestingly,
from that day forward,
James Oosterhuis
was the Valley Zoo's
go-to consultant every year.
One of the issues
that has come up each time
is whether or not that Lucy
should be moved.
And that, to me,
with her respiratory problem,
I think would be
very, very problematic.
ROB LAIDLAW: When advocates
want to move animals,
all the time,
zoos put forward the idea
that the animals
are going to die en route.
It's too stressful.
This is sort of a go-to,
this idea that no,
you can't move animals
because it's too dangerous,
we've seen it many, many times.
When the board decided that they
were going to keep the elephant,
there was kind of a checklist
of a number of different items
that would be done.
MARY-ANN:
And James Oosterhuis suggested
that Maggie needed
more exercise.
They could build
a treadmill for Maggie.
JOYCE: They spent $200,000,
I believe it was,
to get her a treadmill,
because she could barely walk
and she's stuck in Alaska
in the wintertime.
But she didn't like
the treadmill.
(Laughing) Why would an elephant
like a treadmill?
Nope. Didn't work out.
I questioned it to begin with,
because elephants
are so sensitive
about what's under their feet,
and it cost a lot of money.
MARY-ANN: Then Maggie started
to go downhill.
PATRICK:
She went down with colic twice.
Extremely scary times
when an elephant goes down,
'cause if they don't get up,
you know,
they're going to pass away.
I went back to the board.
The people were finally able
to agree that
finding another home for her
was the best thing for her.
JOYCE: Finally,
they were
convinced to send her to PAWS.
And my goodness!
The transformation.
MAN:
The ailments or diseases
or problems
that an animal experiences
are often because of
the conditions they're in.
You move that animal
to different conditions
that are more enhanced, their
health is going to improve.
I don't think anyone thought
she would live for 14 years,
but she did.
PATRICK: She just always
looked great there,
roaming the grassy hills
and browsing.
I do regret not being able
to get it sooner.
(Trumpeting)
MARY-ANN: This was the last time
I filmed Lucy.
MARY-ANN (On recording):
Oh, that looks bad.
She had just finished playing
the drums
and playing a recorder
and doing silly tricks,
and they were cleaning up
all of that.
And so, I just looked at her
and I told her,
"As long as you're breathing
and I'm still breathing,
I'll never give up fighting
for you."
(Sombre piano music playing)
(Trumpeting)
SCOTT BLAIS: For us,
sanctuary is about giving back.
It's about giving them control
of their life in their space,
in their time.
And you can't do that in a zoo.
You don't have the space.
By nature, I mean,
these are migratory animals.
They're always on the move.
(Elephants trumpeting)
The more space
that they were given,
the more they morphed into
who they always should have been
if they would've been left in
their natural habitat.
(Trumpeting)
We didn't realize
the depth of damage
until we saw
the profound recovery.
When you see the transformation,
there's no way to turn back.
(Trumpeting)
(Engine puttering)
(Trumpeting)
(Shirlei speaking Portuguese)
SHIRLEI DE SOUZA CIORUCI:
They have their own
elephant things to do.
Most of the people say to me,
"Oh, I would like to see
elephants all day.
Do you hug them?
Do you pat them?"
(Chuckling, speaking Portuguese)
I say,
"No. This is not important."
I feel so happy
when they are together,
having little parties, doing
their elephant things.
It's not about me.
It's not about Scott.
It's not about sanctuary.
To love,
it's an important thing,
but there's no meaning
without respect.
(Foliage rustling)
(Trumpeting)
SCOTT: It's the first time
in their life
from the time they were captured
as infants
where they could be within
a space that is their space.
(Trumpeting)
(Trumpeting)
(Trumpeting)
These elephants go through
horrific experiences in life,
and then they come to
the sanctuary.
They seem to turn a new leaf.
That doesn't mean their
trajectory to recovery
is upward.
It's a journey.
There's highs and there's lows.
MAN:
Hey, Marba. It's Maia.
I'll take Bambi.
MAN: So, many of them come sick,
and with stuff
that we know
that we're not going to fix.
But they don't give up.
They keep trying.
I think that's what really
shocked me at first,
because
they've been through much more
than many people have been
through in life.
Lady is one of
the great examples that I see.
She has so many stuff going on
on her feet
that we look in and see,
how is she walking?
But it's, like, "I'm going to go
across the creek.
I'm going to walk.
I'm going to graze."
We put so much boundaries
in our lives,
and we can see that
we just got to have the will
to overcome them.
SCOTT: You know, nobody loses
with this project.
This is a project that
gives back to the elephants.
It allows them a chance
for a rediscovery of life.
But it's also one
that people can be proud of.
(Trumpeting)
(Trumpeting continues)
(Birds chirping)
LES: This is the road that the
elephants will be walking down.
(Chains jingling)
Here they come.
(Man speaking local language)
(Chain rattling)
(Trumpeting)
LES: There's nothing new about
the anthropocentric viewpoint
of a lot of people,
who think that they're
the centre of everything
and that their experience
with this animal
is more important than
what the animal's side
of the experience is.
So, they're going to do
a wash time, right?
So, the tourists pay for that?
- MAN: Yeah.
- LES: Okay. I see. Okay.
Very happy elephants? Okay.
There's nothing natural
about elephants
having people
that close to them...
dragging them over
to tourists
with a hook and a chain
to have these fake interactions.
Do it, or be forced to do it.
That's it.
Those are their options.
I want people to know that
every time you have
a close interaction
with an animal like that,
you do a great deal
of damage to them.
Whether you see it or not,
the cost on the other side
is huge.
(Trumpeting)
In a country
that's so beautiful,
that has so much natural wonder,
you can come and enjoy Sri Lanka
without all the animal
exploitation tourism
that's attached to it.
(Man shouting in local language)
There's nothing good about
this anthropocentric bias
we have towards elephants.
(Man shouting)
(Chains jingling)
(Birds chirping)
RON MAGILL:
You know, as a small kid,
I grew up in a small apartment
in New York City.
My only connection to animals
was really watching a show
on television,
or I got a chance to go to
the Bronx Zoo.
And there's something
that happened
when I went to the zoo.
When I looked at an animal
eye to eye,
there was a connection
that happened there.
Something...
It was almost magical.
The zoo was what planted
that seed in me.
It just grew and grew and grew
to this tree of passion
that I have for wildlife,
for animals in general,
that I've carried now
all of my life.
When I first came to zoos,
they were basically geared
towards entertaining people
to come see animals.
There really was little
or no attention
given to the well-being
of the animal.
We are now spending millions
of dollars
creating habitats for animals
that not only reflect
the animal,
but the habitat
and the environment
in which that animal lives.
We live in a place
that has a climate
that is very similar to
what they would experience
in Africa.
It's all natural terrain.
Grasses and rocks and sand
and clay and stuff.
RON: Elephants walk many miles
a day to get to food,
and if you give them space
to walk over a decent terrain,
it doesn't have to be
many different miles.
It can be somewhat of
the same miles,
as long as you provide
the enrichment
that is going to keep them
mentally active.
JOYCE: So much bullshit
that comes out of zoos
about how elephants walk
just as much in captivity
as in the wild.
Even if they were to take
the same number of steps,
it's not the same.
Elephants are active
most of 24 hours.
They're on the move, looking
for food, looking for mates,
looking for water.
It has no purpose in captivity.
RON: Because elephants
are so incredibly intelligent,
they cannot be bored.
We have to mentally
stimulate them.
We fill that up with
different types of treats.
They take the bucket
and they shake it,
and they can then retrieve it
off the ground.
The same thing with the tire.
It makes them stretch up
and stretch up their trunks.
There's a bunch of mud
over there.
We fill that with water
and that's clay,
and they use that to throw it
on their backs
and they roll in the mud.
They are having fun.
They're good elephants.
They're good elephants,
and I don't... I'm always
hesitant to use emotional words,
but they appear to be happy
here.
They appear to thrive here.
INTERVIEWER: But in the wild,
they don't need to be stimulated
'cause the wild
is stimulating them.
Exactly.
INTERVIEWER:
So, isn't that then
show us the failure of the zoo,
because we have to make
this artificial stimulation?
RON: There is no question that
zoos cannot replicate
everything that's in the wild.
I think it's a compromise
that we make
to help stimulate and inspire
especially
this young generation.
That connection to people
to get them to care,
to want to protect them
in the wild.
That's a zoo's obligation.
To be great storytellers,
to get them engaged,
to get them inspired,
to make them want to
take it further.
I want every kid to leave
this zoo
the way I left the Bronx Zoo,
and say, "I want to learn more."
But I don't want
to sugar-coat this.
I don't want to say,
"No, this is why
we keep elephants in zoos.
It's a great thing."
It's not a great thing!
It's not a great thing.
It's the better of two worlds
in the sense that
we can have these animals that,
for the wrong or right reasons,
were taken out of the wild
in the first place.
BOB: Zoos like to claim that
these animals in captivity
serve as ambassadors
for their species.
I think
it's only partially true.
What I think is more true
is that they serve
as sacrificial lambs
for their species.
(Zoo attendees chattering)
Our goal is for every person
here to go home with
a trunk full of elephant's
wisdom.
Thank you, thank you.
We're going to start with
the beautiful Kitty.
TOURIST:
Oh, my God.
PRESENTER:
Kitty is 56 years old.
She has been with our family
for 33 years.
TOURIST: Wow.
PRESENTER: Now, joining Kitty,
up next is Rosie.
Rosie is 39 years old.
She's been with our family
for 29 years.
Now, last
but certainly not least,
down on the end,
little Miss Becky.
Becky is the youngest member
of our herd at 36 years old.
She's been with our family
for 29 years.
Katie's goal with this task
is to keep the colour on Rosie
and not get too much on Joanne.
We're going to take that
and press onto the canvas,
and that is how you get
a beautiful elephant smooch.
PRESENTER:
Oh, my goodness.
How did she do, everyone?
TOURIST:
Aw.
PRESENTER:
Absolutely gorgeous.
(Tourists applauding)
Even got the nose hair action.
I love it.
(Crowd chattering)
You can hand us
your phones and cameras,
and we will be happy
to take pictures for you.
If you did still want a chance
to visit the gift shop,
purchase any elephant artwork,
now would be a great time
to head that way
to make sure
you have plenty of time
for all of your photos.
INTERVIEWER:
So, how did you get into this?
INTERVIEWER:
GARY JOHNSON:
PRESENTER: We get a lot
of questions about training.
How do you train an elephant?
Well, operant conditioning.
That's the fancy-pants
terminology for training,
and part of that
is positive reinforcement.
You can help us today
by providing the ladies
with a round of applause
whenever you see something
awesome.
(Applauding)
GARY JOHNSON: You know, if...
The better trained your animal,
it doesn't matter if
it's elephant, dog, even kids,
the better trained they are,
the better care you can
give them
and the more freedom
you can give them...
PRESENTER:
Elephant yoga studio.
GARY: People don't
understand that.
MAN: It seems like the elephant
really knows you, eh?
TRAINER:
Oh, yes.
I've worked with her
for 28 years.
MAN:
Wow.
Sit.
Sit!
Move up.
(Hook clanking)
MAN: Where do they live
at nighttime?
TRAINER:
We have a barn for them.
MAN:
Ah, okay, okay.
- PRESENTER: And Rosie...
- (Elephant squeals)
Yep.
As I was about to say,
she's known for being
our resident chatterbox.
- (Imitating chicken clucking)
- Now, stop!
(Imitating chicken clucking)
(Cheering and applause)
High up. High!
High up! And I'm going to get
out of the way.
TOURISTS:
Oh!
Oh, my God.
Dixie up. Dixie up.
Lay down.
(Trumpeting in distress)
On the front foot,
we've got one, two, three, four,
five.
Steady. Come on. Come on.
Hold your foot steady.
One, two, three, four.
It's a little bit tricky,
isn't it?
We've got five on the front,
only four on the back.
Becky is the youngest member
of our herd.
Becky!
MAN:
Becky, steady.
- (Hook clanging)
- (Trumpeting)
Steady.
You are supposed to support
your friends!
Oh, my. We're going to talk
about this later.
Okay. So, that's
some fancy footwork there.
(Cheering and applause)
Yeah! There we go.
I would like to know
if any of you
have ever had two elephants
play Happy Birthday for you
on the harmonica.
TOURIST:
Wow.
(Playing harmonica)
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday
to you
Happy Birthday
dear elephant song
Happy Birthday to you
(Applauding)
PRESENTER:
That was beautiful!
- PRESENTER: Inhale...
- (Lucy plays flute)
- Wow.
- (Crowd reacting)
PRESENTER: You can clap...
(Cheering and applause)
(Sombre piano music playing)
LEADER:
Elephants should not be alone!
PROTESTERS: It's time to
find her a warmer home!
LEADER:
Elephants should not be alone!
ANIKA SLEEM:
I could not believe,
the images of seeing
this elephant in snow
was so bizarre.
She's housed half a year
inside a barn.
I mean,
elephants don't live like that.
I look at Lucy and, you know,
I feel for her.
And she's always on my mind now.
Like, what can we do?
MARY-ANN:
Even when it's not snowing,
people need to keep in mind
that Lucy is still indoors...
I ended up interacting with
the trustee
from Free the Wild, Anika Sleem.
She was a Pakistani-Canadian.
She said, you know,
"We worked hard to rescue Kaavan
from Pakistan."
She said,
"It would only be fitting
that I would want to help
an elephant in my own country."
ANIKA SLEEM: Kaavan, his story
came across social media.
I saw pictures of him chained,
his deficiencies in food.
Any human
with an ounce of compassion
could see that that was wrong.
I started tweeting.
I tweeted Cher.
Cher tweeted me back,
and I didn't...
I was like, is this Cher?
(Laughing)
Like, Cher had formulated
a charity called Free the Wild,
and her exact words were,
"Trying to get
the right Pakistani people
together to fix this."
And everyone tried for Kaavan
and no one was successful.
We were successful.
If we can do something
for Kaavan
and see the outcome
of his best life,
why can't we try to help Lucy
and give her her best life?
If we could free an elephant
in Pakistan,
why can't we help one in Canada?
MARY-ANN:
We were absolutely ecstatic
and felt hope for Lucy,
just sheerly by Cher's
celebrity status.
ANIKA:
Free the Wild has offered
a medical assessment
by elephant experts
to assess what is going on
with her health
to see if she would survive
going to sanctuary.
Our offer is still on the table,
and we are going to still try
to communicate with the zoo
and the city officials.
I'll check in with you
maybe in a couple of weeks.
Okay. That sounds good.
Okay, Mary-Ann.
Thanks so much.
WOMAN 1:
Okay. Here.
MAN:
Do we have everything?
WOMAN 1: I didn't know what
they had even read,
so, I'm going to
put one right here...
WOMAN 2: So, I think
there's just a few more.
- Okay.
- Yeah.
Hey, guys.
- Woo-hoo! High-five.
- High five.
All right, girl.
Look at this, hey?
Almost 150,000 signatures.
MARY-ANN: Today, we are
dropping off a petition
asking city council
to accept the offer
from Free the Wild.
Cher's foundation,
Free the Wild,
has offered to bring in
a team of international experts
to do a full examination
of Lucy.
Well, hopefully, this will help.
MARY-ANN: If it should turn out
that the examination shows
that Lucy would be safe
to be transported,
Cher's organization
has offered to cover all costs
associated with moving Lucy.
We'll have to do, yeah,
a few trips up in the elevator,
and we'll just wait at the top.
We are very peaceful.
We promise.
DEBI: I don't think
there's a question of
would her life in a sanctuary
be better than life in Edmonton.
Should she be able
to make that trip,
it would be a thousand
percent improvement.
She would have
all those key things
that are important to elephants.
Above all, freedom.
She would never have to be told
what to do,
when to do and how to do it.
- We got her done.
- Woo-hoo!
150,000 signatures.
Time to hashtag Retire Lucy.
WOMAN:
Retire Lucy, please.
Good job, guys. Excellent job.
JAKE DAVIS: I think there's been
a societal shift going on.
People are starting to recognize
that highly intelligent species
of animals like your elephants,
they have a reason
for being here
separate and apart from
human interest.
REPORTER 1:
In a historic court hearing
Monday in Bronx Supreme Court,
Happy became
the first elephant ever
to have a hearing ordered
on her behalf.
REPORTER 2: An animal rights
group is suing the zoo,
claiming 48-year-old Happy
is anything but,
living an isolated existence.
The Nonhuman Rights Project
argues elephants
are not meant to live alone.
They say Happy should be
in a private sanctuary.
LAWYER:
Good afternoon, Your Honors,
and may it please the court.
Madam Chief Judge,
I represent the petitioner,
the Nonhuman Rights Project,
and Happy,
a solitary female elephant.
How can the court apply habeas
when we're not talking about
a human?
Using species membership
is arbitrary.
JAKE:
Habeas corpus is a mechanism
for challenging
arbitrary imprisonments.
We believe that habeas corpus
should be extended to elephants.
ATTORNEY: There's no question,
at least based on
the five unrebutted scientific
expert reports,
that this is no place
for an elephant,
and these two sanctuaries
would be
as close to freeing her
as possible.
Maybe a hundred years ago,
we didn't know what, you know...
That elephants
could think and talk,
but now, we do, and you have
a duty under the common law
to update it.
The court has the authority
and the power to grant Happy
the freedom that she really
deserves.
JUDGE:
Thank you, counsel.
ATTORNEY: Thank you very much.
REPORTER 3:
A New York court has ruled
that an elephant
at the Bronx Zoo
must remain there, as she's not
legally considered a person.
JAKE:
We didn't win Happy's case,
but we view the case overall
as a win already.
Two of the seven judges
issued lengthy dissents.
After getting those dissents,
we know that we have the law
on our side.
We know
our arguments are sufficient.
We know that there is a shift
in society,
and we now know
that it's undeniable.
As long as we're able to
continue to bring these cases,
at some point in
the not-too-distant future,
we're going to win,
and an elephant's going to be
taken out of a zoo
and it's going to be sent
to a sanctuary,
and it's going to live a life
that's as close to what
nature intended as possible.
SCOTT:
Pocha and Guillermina,
seeing them in that space,
have nothing but rock
and concrete.
Four hundred square metres.
There's no grass.
There's no dirt.
There's no leaves.
There's no anything.
Pocha arrived in that facility
when she was young.
She came from a zoo in Germany,
and I believe she lived
more than 55 years there.
Guillermina was born
into that concrete pit.
When I say these are two
of the most isolated,
confined elephants
I'd ever seen,
it's not an overstatement.
Getting Pocha and
Guillermina out of the zoo
was actually a
huge joint effort,
starting with the voice within
that community that said,
"This is not right.
We cannot justify this."
The zoo and the government,
they created the model
to transform the zoo
into an eco-park,
to try to relocate
as many animals as possible to
sanctuaries internationally.
It's people making a choice
to make a positive difference
and no longer justifying what we
all know is not justifiable.
(Vocalizing)
The training for the medical
tests that were required,
it was all very
extensive and very slow.
By far, the biggest challenge
was the separation of mother
and daughter.
Two crates, two elephants.
For the first time in
their life, they're going
to have to be separated
for the journey.
(Vocalizing)
The fear that these two had...
But eventually, we ended up
having to reorganize
and put the crates one
in front of the next
so they could both still
be in contact with each other.
There was never going to be
a perfect scenario to do this.
But the perfect scenario
is giving them
a chance at sanctuary.
My past was dark and ugly.
I started working at
a safari park.
African Lion Safari.
Doing elephant rides,
helping out in shows more.
WOMAN: Here we go!
Clap a little bit...
SCOTT: So, we had a lot of
people come and say,
"You're learning from some of
the best of the best."
(People applauding)
At that point in my life,
I had no comparison.
WOMAN: We're going to slip this
harness over George's head,
and he's going to pull
this enormous log
around the arena for us.
SCOTT: They had
been living a life
of smoke and mirrors
for decades.
If people saw even 10 percent
of what these elephants endure,
most people in our
world would say,
"My heart can't take it."
I was 15 years old
when I beat my first elephant,
and when I got done listening
to my mentor telling me
how I needed to do
what I needed to do,
he said, "You cannot
let anybody else see this."
It's vicious.
I've seen electric prods used
in the anus and vulva and ears,
gang beatings where
people, you know,
grab multiple instruments
and beat them on the bony parts
of their body.
I've seen skin
slough off body parts
because they've
been beaten so severely,
and these people
that are doing this
feel like they are
on the top of the world.
It's a huge ego boost.
I can control an elephant.
MAN: Up in the air.
(People applauding)
WOMAN: There
you have them, folks,
our safari elephants.
To thank you for coming today,
they would like to give
you a final safari salute.
(People applauding)
SCOTT: People are
intrigued by elephants.
People want to get close.
They want to be able to ride.
They want to be entertained.
As a visitor,
you have the ability
to open up your eyes
and see the truth.
But many times, it's easier
to keep our eyes closed,
so you end up seeing
just that big elephant.
You don't see that being within.
INTERVIEWER: When people go
to the African Lion Safari,
the optics look like
all these animals are free.
SCOTT:
It's a beautiful facade.
Let's walk the elephant
through the trees.
Let's bring him to the lake.
The elephants didn't like going
in the lake most of the time,
but they would use a BB gun,
hit them with little pellets
so they would back up
into the water.
This is swimming on demand.
This is still dominance.
And then when
the cold weather hit,
it was hours and hours
and hours inside the barn.
It is chained up at night,
physical dominance, abuse.
A beautiful picture to
a harsh reality.
At African Lion Safari,
you know,
being the largest breeding
centre in North America,
there's a lot of pride
that goes over that.
INTERVIEWER: How many elephants
do you have here?
WORKER: So, we
have 17 in total.
And they have had such
successful breeding programs.
The gold standard
of elephant management
is producing baby elephants.
SCOTT: If you want to
bring money to the zoo,
have a baby elephant.
DEBI: The zoo will say
that they're contributing
to conservation of elephants,
but the breeding programs are
more for them than for the wild.
They needed to keep that
supply, internal supply going,
so they have breeding programs
to replenish their populations.
The populace was
not accepting them
for having animals
for entertainment purposes,
so they came up with
a rebranding strategy...
WORKER: Once the elephants are
done enjoying their snack...
DEBI: as agents for
conservation.
WORKER: And a
couple of our elephants
have gone to Denver Zoo.
Chuck and Jake, they went to
a bachelor herd there.
INTERVIEWER: So, you would send
them to other zoos
to mate with
other elephants as well?
WORKER: Yeah. So, we do
have a breeding...
SCOTT: Most captive
breeding programs
are separating these families.
These are animals
that are so maternal.
Their family bonds are
incredibly strong.
It's wrong on every level.
DEBI: Animals can breed just
fine in the wild.
They don't need breeding
programs domestically
to help them out in
any way that way.
(Vocalizing)
WOMAN 1:
Yes! Yes! Yes!
WOMAN 2:
Oh, my God! It's coming.
(Elephants vocalizing,
squealing)
(Trumpeting)
(Vocalizing continuing)
(Trumpeting)
JOYCE: In the wild,
an elephant birth
is just such a celebration.
(Elephants vocalizing,
trumpeting)
Trumpeting and rumbling.
(Roaring)
DEBI:
And they help the new mom.
They help her with nurturing
and protecting the baby.
(Elephants vocalizing)
(Vocalizing continuing)
JOYCE: But in captivity, it's
the complete opposite.
(Elephants vocalizing)
Most zoos have got females
who have been taken from
the wild at a very young age,
females who just
don't know what to do
when they suddenly
produce a baby elephant,
and so there is a
lot of infanticide.
MAN:
Get ready over there.
WOMAN: Good,
Shawnee. Good girl.
MAN:
Good girl.
LES: That's why zoos then chain
their elephants to the floor
and take their babies from them
without allowing them to bond.
MAN: Good girl. Steady, steady,
steady, steady, steady,
Shawnee. Shawnee.
SCOTT: You know, this baby
is too valuable.
We have to make sure she's okay.
WOMAN:
Shawnee, no.
SCOTT: She just wanted
to hold the baby.
She's getting the shit beat
out of her.
MAN:
Get on back.
(Elephant screaming)
WOMAN: Get it back. Get
it back. Get it back. Come on.
(Elephant screaming, rumbling)
(Elephants vocalizing)
(Vocalizing continuing)
MAN: It's crawling on
the baby's head.
LES: They have no choice even
who their breeding partners are.
They put a bull onto a truck,
ship this bull to this zoo.
Hopefully, this bull will
breed with these cows,
and many cows don't reproduce.
Zoos continue
to import elephants,
because their
captive populations
are not self-sustaining.
A lot of these zoos are trying
to still source to this very day
elephants from
their countries of origin.
When you have to
replenish your stock,
your captive stock,
with animals,
that's not conservation, is it?
(Elephants vocalizing)
You're mining precious resources
from the countries of origin,
is what it is.
(Elephants vocalizing)
Heavy-duty airlift
involving wild elephants,
more than a dozen of them.
American zoo officials
pulling off a secret rescue.
And now, the debate over
their transfer intensifying.
(People shouting indistinctly)
WOMAN: Police
escorting them safely
to zoos in Dallas, Wichita,
and Omaha.
But it almost didn't happen.
Animal rights groups saying they
had a safe location and money
ready to care for
the elephants in the wild.
Instead, the zoos secretly
shipped them to the US,
robbing them of their freedom.
MAN: Three US zoos applied
to import 18 elephants
from Swaziland.
(Elephants vocalizing)
BOB: I think what
surprised us the most
was the sheer number.
I mean, 18 elephants.
(Elephants vocalizing)
And when they got the permit,
Michael wouldn't let it go,
and he said, "I'm going
to file a lawsuit."
We needed to show that
the law was inadequate,
that what was going to
happen to these elephants
needed to be addressed
and made illegal.
(Elephants vocalizing)
CHARLES: You know,
the zoos know.
You know, they think, "Where
can we go to get elephants?"
And they go,
"Swaziland. Ted Reilly."
MAN: There, there.
You beautiful bull.
MICHAEL:
Ted Reilly is the head
of Swaziland's parks and
conservation programs.
In the last 15 to 20 years,
he's become known as
an animal wildlife broker.
Sells to zoos,
entertainment industries,
cosmetic industries.
TED: All of these animals
have been poached.
You know, whether
Reilly approached them
because he knew of their need
or whether they approached him
because they knew
he would be the guy
that could find it
for them, it's not clear.
But they came together.
(Chuckling)
And by 2015,
they were developing plans
and entering into
contractual arrangements
to sell these animals off.
(Elephants vocalizing)
MAN: There was no
overpopulation problem
with Swaziland
viewed as a whole.
(Elephants vocalizing)
In order for this to take place,
Reilly had to create
an overpopulation crisis,
and he did that by
restricting the area
that the elephants had to roam.
(Elephants vocalizing)
CHARLES: He said, "They're
overrunning the land,
and if no one takes
these elephants,
I'm going to shoot them."
So, in other words, it had
the imprimatur of a rescue.
(Elephants vocalizing)
JONATHAN: In certain
cases in South Africa,
we've been involved in
moving elephants
that would otherwise
have been culled
from one area to another just
to save their lives.
We were willing to just
give them the money
that they would
otherwise have lost.
That was the first thing.
The second thing
is, we were willing
to premium that by 10 percent.
We would have done
anything within reason
to show them that we were
willing to do this.
It was never necessary,
because they weren't
interested in it.
There was another deal going on,
and the deal was that the zoos
wanted the elephants.
We're not buying the elephants.
What we are doing is
transferring money to Swaziland,
to a trust that's
placed in trust
to support rhino conservation.
(Elephant vocalizing)
So, we file our lawsuit just
days after the permit's issued.
We have a call with the judge,
and the lawyer for
the zoos makes it clear:
"Well, we do need
to go get them,
but we can agree to a schedule
to have this hearing,
this injunction motion heard."
And we walked away from that
phone call with the judge
with the schedule,
with the zoos in agreement.
I felt like we had
a really strong case.
Frankly, I think the zoos think
we had a really strong case,
which is why they stole them.
CHARLES: One week before
the planned court date,
a plane lands in Swaziland.
MICHAEL: There was
a plane that arrived
and was coming to take
the elephants away.
Of course, I'm astonished.
We're in the middle of
this court case
and this agreed-upon schedule.
We were blindsided by this.
(Elephants vocalizing)
JONATHAN: They were captured,
taken out of there,
and put in enclosures
and prepared
for what we believe
was a commercial sale.
(Elephants vocalizing)
(Tranquilizer gun firing)
(Elephants vocalizing)
(Tranquilizer gun firing)
MICHAEL: My next move was
to call the court.
So, the judge, who's
now getting a little annoyed,
is like, "I want everyone
on the phone in 20 minutes."
CHARLES: It came down to this
high-pressure, dramatic,
like, courtroom
battle via telephone.
And Mike Harris made his case
about how this is all a ruse
and these elephants
are not imperilled
like they say they are,
and the lawyer for the zoos,
at the last minute,
sort of seeing, maybe,
these elephants slip away,
she pulled out her trump card:
"I have a veterinarian who says
that these elephants have
already been sedated.
It would be dangerous to
their health to re-sedate them
if we win and
fly them out again."
I've asked a bunch of
veterinarians about that
and they said that's crap.
MICHAEL: And
the judge says to me,
"Well, is that true?
And do you have
your own expert?"
And no, we didn't.
I mean, they blindsided us.
"Then I'm denying the TRO."
(Banging)
And within a matter of 12 hours,
those elephants
were on that plane
heading to the United States.
REPORTER: The journey for
Omaha's herd officially ended
when a 747 carrying them from
southern Africa landed...
I asked this zoo director.
I said, "That's a ruse."
I mean, I'd been there.
I saw that those elephants that
were ruining the land
were kept on, like, 20 percent
of this, you know,
multi-multi-acreage preserve.
The zoo director I talked to,
Sedgwick County Zoo, said,
"Oh, yeah. No. That story
was totally made up."
And I'm, like, sitting there
as a journalist going,
"So you're telling
me point blank
that the whole thing
that got those elephants
on that airplane over
here was, in fact,
a made-up, you know,
rescue drama."
He said, "It wasn't
a last-minute rescue."
We've been working on
that for years."
I am confident in saying
that if we did not move
these animals here,
they would not be alive.
No matter what these animal
rights activists say...
these animals
would've been dead.
This was sneaky behaviour,
unprincipled behaviour.
It demonstrated lack of candor.
It was the most deflating
moment of my career,
or my life, for that matter.
It's underhanded.
It's backhanded.
It's really nasty.
And it ruined the lives forever
of 18 elephants.
INTERVIEWER:
Wow... (Speaking indistinctly)
MAN: You know, as much as
we'd love to have them stay
in their wild environment,
this needed to happen,
so the Swazis
were brought over here.
CHARLES: You know, people will
buy a lot of stories.
One day, sitting at
the Sedgwick County Zoo,
where they have that exhibit
of one of the actual
travel crates,
and inside they make
this fancy tableau
of, "Yes, this
last-minute rescue..."
Father and daughter
came through,
and he's going to his daughter,
"Could you believe those animal
rights people protested this?
This was a rescue.
These zoos saved
these animals' lives."
MICHAEL: That's not
conservation of wild animals.
That's just their own investment
in their own business.
JONATHAN: It was a
commercial imperative
underpinning
what they were doing.
You want to look
after elephants in the wild,
go and look after
them in Africa.
There are plenty
of ways of doing that.
(Speaking indistinctly)
WOMAN: Hey! Back
it up. Back it up.
(People speaking indistinctly)
Hi! Oh!
JONATHAN: People coming in
and paying for the privilege
of seeing these
creatures incarcerated,
it's a terrible thing.
People need to boycott it.
That's what they need to
do once the truth gets out.
MAN: Buenos Aires
and Argentina in general,
we are people that are extremely
sensitive to animal welfare.
So it was just natural
for us to gravitate
towards what the animal
right activists were saying.
We know that we
cannot keep animals
for the sake of
showing them to people.
We need to step up and evolve
into a modern-day institution
where we translocate all
our animals to sanctuaries
and we keep on rescuing
native endangered species,
not showing them to people,
just rescuing them,
releasing them.
So, well, these
are Kuky and Pupy,
African savanna elephants.
They arrived 30 years
ago in this place.
Basically, they lived
their entire lives here.
Oh, yeah!
TOMAS: Ever since
the government said,
"We're going to
stop having a zoo;
we're going to
start having an eco-park,"
our top priority
was to translocate
all our wild, exotic
animals to sanctuaries
and better conditions.
We've been working with Global
Sanctuary For Elephants.
We cannot wait, honestly,
for them to go to
the sanctuary in Brazil
and to have a new life,
which should happen any
moment from now.
(Rumbling)
But our main objective is for
this to be an interactive place.
TOMAS: We need to educate
people with robotics,
with animations, with film,
with so many of the attractions
that we have
where people learn a
lot about our wildlife
but without actually seeing
physical live animals.
You know, for generations,
kids have been obsessed
with dinosaurs.
Not once a kid had
seen a dinosaur.
The idea that we need to see
animals to protect them -
no, we don't.
They're going
to throw mud at us.
(Tomas laughing)
You see? Yeah.
They just want the attention.
Whatever is happening, they want
to be part of it, so...
(Speaking Spanish)
Um...
(Truck beeping)
SCOTT: When we put
them on the trailer,
we put them so they're
face to face
so they could still
see each other,
and there was doors
that could open
that they could still
touch each other.
So they still had that contact.
There's always concern,
so you prepare for
the worst case scenario.
But if you look at the history
of elephant transports,
every one has been with
remarkable success.
I remember being on the trip,
and the sun was coming up.
And you could see both elephants
looking out the side of
the crate.
Is this the first time
they saw the sun rise
over the horizon?
It's beautiful.
They put their trunks
out of the doors
so they could touch each other.
"I'm here for you.
Yes, I'm here for you."
(People speaking indistinctly)
We get a lot of accolades for
the work that we do,
but we are not alone,
and when you come back home
and there's this group
of people waiting
in the little village
just to say hi,
you just feel a sense
of gratitude.
And it's just something
remarkable to be a part of.
(People speaking indistinctly)
(Laughing)
(People speaking indistinctly)
LES: The fate of Lucy is
very complicated.
I always want an elephant to be
someplace where
she's around her own kind.
She has more room and
more opportunities
to live a dignified
end of her life.
What we need to really focus on
is to make sure that
if she can't move,
that no other elephants
are ever exposed
to this trauma anymore.
(People speaking indistinctly)
Each year, the Edmonton
Valley Zoo
brings in an external expert.
This year, thanks
to the generous support
of Free the Wild and
their supporters,
we've been able to bring in
experts from all over the world.
MARY-ANN: I
believe the zoo
allowed the independent
experts in
because of pressure
from the public.
Lucy has become well known.
ANIKA: So, we had meetings with
the zoo director, Gary Dewar.
We wanted to show them that
we actually were not here
to fight with the zoo.
We want to work with the zoo.
(Chattering)
From the people
that we suggested,
they handpicked who they
wanted to assess Lucy.
We have three veterinary
elephant specialists.
We have Frank Goeritz
from Germany,
Dr. Patricia London,
who is based out of Nepal,
and then alongside them,
we have a husbandry expert
called Ingo Schmidinger.
And together, they form,
essentially,
the panel of experts.
ANIKA:
At the end of the day,
two out of three reports said
that Lucy should go.
(Vocalizing)
MARY-ANN: I was thrilled.
I was absolutely thrilled.
After waiting all these
years to hear from somebody
not affiliated with
the Edmonton Valley Zoo
confirm what we
always felt was true,
we were utterly thrilled.
The first report I
read was Dr. London's.
She stated was that
Lucy absolutely needs
to go to sanctuary
and that she can make it safely
with proper preparation.
(Elephants vocalizing)
She won't have
bull hooks in her face,
and she will be able
to do whatever she wants.
(Elephants vocalizing)
And it would be like heaven,
absolute heaven
for this elephant.
(Elephants vocalizing)
SCOTT: Pocha standing there
with the crate door open
for several hours,
playing in the dirt...
natural earth,
something that she
hadn't felt in decades.
And she hasn't even really
embraced sanctuary yet.
Even the simple
things are profound.
The most remarkable
and beautiful elements
of all of this
was watching Pocha
watch her daughter find
that freedom.
(Elephants vocalizing)
(Birds, insects chirping)
LES: What I was
doing within the zoo world
wasn't actually having any
positive outcome for elephants.
It's hard to have to look
in the mirror and go,
"I just wasted a couple of
decades of my life doing this."
I stopped just believing what
people in the zoo community
were trying to sell me.
I got the advice that if you
want to learn about elephants,
get out into the bush.
Here, it's just a matter
of being respectful
and moving very slow.
They need less human contact.
They need less human influence.
(Men speaking indistinctly)
Elephant. Oh, we got an elephant
on the road here.
Look at him going
down that steep bank.
Right here to the left,
just crossed the river.
Beautiful.
(Whispering) Stop,
stop, stop. Thank you.
(Quietly) Look how
amazing this animal is.
Looks like this is
a young bull...
My guess is,
it's maybe early 20s.
It really is so precious
to be in such close proximity
with elephants when you
do it respectfully.
No matter how many times I bump
into elephants in the wild,
it's always a thrill.
Look at his body condition.
He's in amazing shape right now.
The true place for any living
animal, not just elephants,
is in their natural
environment that they choose,
and we have to accept
that we don't know it all.
And we should stop trying
to pretend like we do.
Generally, where
there's one elephant,
there's more.
Yeah. Look at this.
(Elephants vocalizing)
Beautiful little family here.
The perfect ecosystem
for this species.
(Elephants vocalizing)
Part thick woods,
part grassland here.
They all have their pick of
what they want to eat right now.
(Elephants vocalizing)
Listen how peaceful it is here,
just how tranquil
this environment is.
(Elephants vocalizing)
When you get the gift
of being with elephants
in their natural places,
you hear them breathing.
(Elephant vocalizing)
You hear them sometimes
squeak or grumble.
(Elephants vocalizing)
You can hear
these subtle ear flaps,
and it's incredibly peaceful.
(Elephants vocalizing)
That was never
a state that I was in
working with captive elephants.
There's no stereotypies.
There's no elephants swaying
or bobbing their heads.
(Elephants vocalizing)
It's not just a matter
of seeing it.
You can feel the attachment
to nature here
and just watching the elephants
do what they know how to do.
JOYCE: Elephants play such
an important role
in the ecosystems
in which they live.
They are what's called
a keystone species.
So, when you remove elephants,
many other things can collapse.
They open up habitat
for other species.
(Elephants vocalizing)
They distribute seeds, you know,
by feeding on fruiting trees
and then walking
through the forest.
They deposit seeds in
its own little potting soil.
(Elephants vocalizing)
I mean, we couldn't begin
to plant the number of trees
that an elephant can plant.
(Elephants vocalizing)
They're responsible
for keeping forests alive.
They're nature's gardeners.
(Elephants vocalizing)
LES: If we want to help the
best way to help these animals,
leave them alone,
protect their natural areas,
give them some space,
and they'll take it
the rest of the way.
And we'll benefit from it.
What we need to do is learn
how to live harmoniously
in their shadow,
not the other way around.
(Elephants vocalizing)
We have the perfect
multigenerational family
of elephants with this
amazing soundtrack.
My heart's racing.
(Elephants vocalizing)
This is amazing, you guys.
Ah, I'm losing it.
Makes me cry.
It never goes away, the magic of
seeing them in their home.
Lucy or any captive elephant
deserve to grow up here
amongst their family members.
They can't live without
this environment,
and the environment,
to a big extent,
can't survive without them.
This should have
been Lucy's rightful home.
(Elephants vocalizing)
We were very optimistic,
probably more than
we should have been,
as we've come
to learn since then.
REPORTER: Another
animal rights group
is walking back
part of their calls
to have Lucy the elephant
moved to a sanctuary.
(People speaking indistinctly)
The headline on the statement
was that Free The Wild agrees
with the Edmonton Valley Zoo
that Lucy is not well enough
to be transported to sanctuary.
Free the Wild would
be following up
with the Edmonton Valley Zoo
over the coming months
to re-evaluate her and work
on optimizing her health.
Only the report from Dr. Goeritz
said that Lucy shouldn't go,
so I didn't understand why
Free the Wild was in agreement
with the Edmonton Valley Zoo
that Lucy should remain.
ANIKA: In the amount
of time that we were given,
which was 48 hours
to do an assessment,
to put our name to this,
to say that Lucy won't die,
we did not want to do that.
Putting Lucy under sedation
would put her at risk.
She could die.
She could stop breathing.
MARY-ANN: I lashed
out at Anika.
Her response to me was,
they felt it was important
to build a relationship,
and she said that they wanted
a consensus from all of
the consultants.
I don't want to
put the zoo in a light
where they're being targeted,
and I'm not putting
a timescale on this.
In other words, they
were going to continue
to try to work with the zoo
to get the zoo director
to change his mind,
and I said to her,
"I wouldn't waste your
time on the zoo director.
He will never
change his mind."
People have to understand that
it took 30-something years
to get an assessment like this.
MARY-ANN: Lucy's been playing
a long game for 46 years.
She has no time
to play a long game.
ANIKA: If Lucy
gets better,
then she should go to sanctuary.
If they haven't followed up
with the recommendations,
Lucy is going to decline.
That's even more of a reason
why she should move then.
DEBI: See, the issue
I have with the zoo is,
she could have safely
been moved 10 years ago.
She could have been safely
moved five years ago.
They just let this ride.
They had $77 million in 2009
to put some towards Lucy,
and they did not.
They could have built
her a therapeutic pool.
They could have given
her space to roam.
They could have got
her off free contact.
(People speaking indistinctly)
They have done nothing to
alleviate the causes
of the issues that
she's suffering from.
(People speaking indistinctly)
She is short for this world.
Whether she dies in their barn,
whether she dies on
their walkway,
whether she dies in a crate on
the way to a sanctuary,
her premature death is on them.
It's on them.
SCOTT: Several years
before they came,
we had been asking questions
about Pocha's health.
After her arrival, she actually
looked really good,
and she was exploring,
and she was wandering,
and she was
discovering the sanctuary
and rediscovering life.
But you could still see
there was something
that wasn't quite right.
You could see it in her face.
You could see it in her posture.
She had an internal disease
that was just too
much, you know,
so six months after her arrival,
she passed.
Guillermina was
going up to her mom
and then coming back down
towards the barn
and go up to her mom.
(Elephants vocalizing)
She was rumbling and
making some calls,
and the other elephants came.
This is an elephant who had been
deprived of everything in life
except her mom.
It's all she had.
The other elephants came,
and one by one,
Guillermina went to her mom
with one individual.
Then she came back down,
and she got the next one
and went to her mom.
(Sighing)
And she did it again.
Her little elephant ceremony.
If Pocha had died in that pit,
Guillermina would not have
her new friends to help her.
Pocha gave her daughter
everything she could,
and sanctuary gave
Pocha freedom to her daughter.
MARY-ANN: I have to hold
on to hope for Lucy.
Otherwise, I wouldn't
be able to keep doing this.
If she could have a year or more
to lay on a sunny hillside
with the company
of other elephants,
making choices for
the first time in her life,
I would feel happy for her.
And that even
if she passed away,
she passed away with
dignity and love
and the chance to
finally be an elephant
that she's been deprived
of since she was two years old.
I will fight for her till
I take my last breath.
WOMAN: Okay. I'm going to go
and talk to her.
I want to do one more interview.
How many elephants
do you have here?
- So, we have 17 in total.
- Wow.
WORKER: They just alternate
who's in the display area.
(Spectators applauding)
MAN: If people saw even 10%
of what these elephants endure,
most people in our world
would say,
"My heart can't take it."
WOMAN:
Her name was Skanik.
She was captured in Sri Lanka
in 1975.
At two years old, she was sold
to the Edmonton Valley Zoo
and has lived alone
almost exclusively
for the whole time.
We are calling
on the Edmonton Valley Zoo...
Elephants need room to roam!
Lucy needs a bigger home!
PROTEST LEADER:
People have believed the lies!
PROTESTERS:
Open up your blinded eyes!
This is
how we're going to play it,
'cause we're going undercover.
LEADER:
24 years is long enough!
Let Lucy go.
LEADER:
Elephants should not be alone!
PROTESTERS: It's time
to find her a warmer home!
WOMAN: As long as you're
breathing
and I'm still breathing,
I'll never give up fighting
for you.
(People chattering)
MAN: I've been coming here
to study elephants
for over 20 years,
more so
after leaving the Calgary Zoo.
Lucy was born in Sri Lanka.
I really had this romantic
feeling that I wanted to work
in close proximity with animals.
Zoos often talk about the
conservation work that they do
and the research...
and I bought into that.
I got hired on shortly after
I was volunteering there,
and there was
an internal apprenticeship
that you entered to become
a fully qualified zookeeper.
You know, it was exciting
at first, and it was difficult.
Physical punishment was
an acceptable training method.
You demand that they comply,
and if they don't comply,
then you force them to comply.
I was very naive,
and I put my trust
into the people
who I thought were
the experts...
but it always made me sick.
I really wanted to make change.
I just didn't really know
how to do it.
Just heading to the rear gate,
to the elephant orphanage.
(Engines revving)
And I see we have quite
the entourage waiting for us.
When I was here the last time,
I was actually quite naive.
I hoped to learn
what elephant conservation
might mean
in the countries of origin,
but that's not what I learned.
I learned about
animal exploitation
in the countries of origin.
Pinnawala is
a zoological facility
in south central Sri Lanka,
and they've been around
since the early, mid-'70s,
where they were taking in
orphaned elephants.
What I was doing
was eerily similar
to what I was doing in a zoo
at the time.
And we're seeing
several elephants here
that are chained up.
Anytime an elephant is fettered,
nothing good comes of it.
All these elephants
are exhibiting signs of stress.
Now, we have an elephant
directly in front of us
that's swaying.
Just trauma.
WOMAN: Brochures.
Yeah. We want to bring this one.
Those...
Everybody got their buttons?
Everybody got their bracelets?
(Group chattering)
Looks like everyone's good
for signs.
I actually got involved
with Lucy way back in 2011.
Over the years, there's been
numerous other activist groups.
PETA, In Defense of Animals,
Voice for Animals,
and then us: Lucy's
Edmonton Advocates Project.
REPORTER: So, can you tell us
what's going on here today?
We want to bring attention
to Lucy's plight.
Uh, we are calling on
the Edmonton Valley Zoo
to allow a sanctuary vet in
to examine Lucy.
The only person that can make
the real call
as to whether Lucy can be safely
transported to a sanctuary
are those that safely transport
older ailing elephants
routinely.
Elephants should not be alone!
It's time to find her
a warmer home!
MARY-ANN: We've never said,
"Put Lucy's life at risk."
Our main goal has always been
to bring in an independent team
of experts to examine Lucy.
Back in 2019,
when I met face to face
with the zoo director
at the time,
he promised to bring in
fresh eyes to examine Lucy...
Every year,
the Edmonton Valley Zoo
has brought in their vets.
Vets that are part of
the circus and zoo industry,
and certainly not considered
independent.
And says,
"Due to Lucy's poor health,
there is no choice
but to leave Lucy alone."
GARY DEWAR: She does have
a severe breathing issue.
It's something that has caused
previous experts
that have examined her
to warn against moving her
from our zoo.
The stress
associated with that travel
could be life-threatening.
MARY-ANN:
So, the main vet
that they brought in
for many years
was Dr. James Oosterhuis.
He reports the same findings
every year.
That state that Lucy is too sick
to be safely moved to sanctuary.
He has claimed this
about other elephants
and been wrong.
Veterinarians are beholden
to animals
and the animal use industries,
and only one of those pays
their bills.
- LEADER: What do we want?
- PROTESTERS: Retire Lucy!
- When do we want it?
- Now!
LES: One of the things
I used to do here,
I do around the world,
is that I work on elephant feet.
So, is there the possibility
I could see some later?
MAN:
Yeah.
These animals were exposed to
a lot of physical punishment
as a method
of training elephants.
LES:
To start from the beginning,
there's the idea and the concept
of free contact as a method,
where you work without
any protective barriers.
The only thing that you have
as protection is a hook.
You hook behind their leg.
It draws them forward.
That is the part
that you can't escape from,
is the damage that a hook can do
to an elephant.
Those elephants
don't have a choice
whether to follow those commands
or not.
And if they don't,
you use that hook.
(Trumpeting)
You know what?
We're not going to do it.
(Trumpeting)
The training that I started with
was the exact same,
and that was the industry
standard
for zoos pretty much across
the world.
I smacked those elephants.
I beat those elephants.
I didn't recognize the failure
for what it was,
which was within me.
I blamed the elephants for it.
If she's not good for it,
we're not going to do it. No.
No. That's okay. Thank you.
That's okay.
INTERVIEWER: Here you are,
fighting to bring the truth
about what goes on
behind the scenes,
and you can't forgive yourself
for what you did
all those years. Why?
Just guilt.
I was part of a problem.
I know I was part of a problem.
I was just, clearly,
wilfully blind to it.
BOB JACOBS:
When tourists go to zoos,
you'll hear parents tell
their children,
"Oh, the elephant is dancing,"
or "The elephant is happy."
What the elephant is doing
is a reflection of brain damage.
There's a disruption
in parts of the brain
that control movement
that has been caused by
an impoverished environment.
And what's happened is
the environment
has messed with
these finely tuned systems
in such a way that you start
to see excessive movements
come through the system
that are normally suppressed:
repetitive,
unnecessary movements
that serve no apparent function.
What is clear, though,
that it represents brain damage
at some level.
DEBI ZIMMERMAN:
Her elephant barn,
it is a squat concrete building.
Her outdoor space
is also desperately small.
There's nothing there
that is of key importance
to elephants.
What's meaningful to elephants
is other elephants...
(Trumpeting)
space to roam,
and a very diverse environment.
They need warm climates,
and they need the ability
to make their own choices.
None of that is provided
for her.
The first time I recall
I had a visit with her,
she had a lot of sores
on her face.
One of my pictures
has her laying on the ground.
The whites of her eyes
are showing.
The sign of a terrified animal.
MARY-ANN: I have a really rare
autoimmune disease,
and I've managed
until COVID came.
And ever since then,
I've been on oxygen.
(Machine beeping)
As far as Lucy goes,
I faced quite a bit of pressure
from my family to let this go.
There isn't anybody that willing
to sit up
till 4:00 in the morning
writing e-mails
to city councillors.
It's actually good,
because it gives me something
to focus on
aside from not being able
to breathe.
(Cheering and applause)
We feel that they didn't want to
let Lucy go
because she was the big
attraction at the Valley Zoo.
What's the... Stop.
Let it go. Release.
WOMAN:
Make it pretty.
MAN:
Pretty.
WOMAN:
Oh, good girl!
MARY-ANN: And ego, I believe,
is a big part of it.
Admitting that maybe zoos
aren't the best place
for these exotic animals.
WOMAN: So, her trunk is
an extension of her nose.
JOYCE POOLE:
We know better now.
Science has shown
that they have feelings.
They think about things.
In a zoo, they're plunked down,
living completely alone
so that we get pleasure
to behold them.
There was an elephant in Alaska
named Maggie.
Maggie was getting sicker
and sicker,
and we parallel Maggie's story
with Lucy's.
She, too, was a lone elephant
that was kept in
a completely wrong climate.
Well, Maggie was here when
I started working at the zoo.
She came in the early-'80s.
A female elephant
should not be by herself.
MARY-ANN:
So, they brought in a panel.
PATRICK: And most of them said
she should go.
MARY-ANN:
The only one that said Maggie
wouldn't survive transport
was James Oosterhuis.
PATRICK: The committee voted
to keep Maggie,
and I was upset.
I almost quit over it.
MARY-ANN: Interestingly,
from that day forward,
James Oosterhuis
was the Valley Zoo's
go-to consultant every year.
One of the issues
that has come up each time
is whether or not that Lucy
should be moved.
And that, to me,
with her respiratory problem,
I think would be
very, very problematic.
ROB LAIDLAW: When advocates
want to move animals,
all the time,
zoos put forward the idea
that the animals
are going to die en route.
It's too stressful.
This is sort of a go-to,
this idea that no,
you can't move animals
because it's too dangerous,
we've seen it many, many times.
When the board decided that they
were going to keep the elephant,
there was kind of a checklist
of a number of different items
that would be done.
MARY-ANN:
And James Oosterhuis suggested
that Maggie needed
more exercise.
They could build
a treadmill for Maggie.
JOYCE: They spent $200,000,
I believe it was,
to get her a treadmill,
because she could barely walk
and she's stuck in Alaska
in the wintertime.
But she didn't like
the treadmill.
(Laughing) Why would an elephant
like a treadmill?
Nope. Didn't work out.
I questioned it to begin with,
because elephants
are so sensitive
about what's under their feet,
and it cost a lot of money.
MARY-ANN: Then Maggie started
to go downhill.
PATRICK:
She went down with colic twice.
Extremely scary times
when an elephant goes down,
'cause if they don't get up,
you know,
they're going to pass away.
I went back to the board.
The people were finally able
to agree that
finding another home for her
was the best thing for her.
JOYCE: Finally,
they were
convinced to send her to PAWS.
And my goodness!
The transformation.
MAN:
The ailments or diseases
or problems
that an animal experiences
are often because of
the conditions they're in.
You move that animal
to different conditions
that are more enhanced, their
health is going to improve.
I don't think anyone thought
she would live for 14 years,
but she did.
PATRICK: She just always
looked great there,
roaming the grassy hills
and browsing.
I do regret not being able
to get it sooner.
(Trumpeting)
MARY-ANN: This was the last time
I filmed Lucy.
MARY-ANN (On recording):
Oh, that looks bad.
She had just finished playing
the drums
and playing a recorder
and doing silly tricks,
and they were cleaning up
all of that.
And so, I just looked at her
and I told her,
"As long as you're breathing
and I'm still breathing,
I'll never give up fighting
for you."
(Sombre piano music playing)
(Trumpeting)
SCOTT BLAIS: For us,
sanctuary is about giving back.
It's about giving them control
of their life in their space,
in their time.
And you can't do that in a zoo.
You don't have the space.
By nature, I mean,
these are migratory animals.
They're always on the move.
(Elephants trumpeting)
The more space
that they were given,
the more they morphed into
who they always should have been
if they would've been left in
their natural habitat.
(Trumpeting)
We didn't realize
the depth of damage
until we saw
the profound recovery.
When you see the transformation,
there's no way to turn back.
(Trumpeting)
(Engine puttering)
(Trumpeting)
(Shirlei speaking Portuguese)
SHIRLEI DE SOUZA CIORUCI:
They have their own
elephant things to do.
Most of the people say to me,
"Oh, I would like to see
elephants all day.
Do you hug them?
Do you pat them?"
(Chuckling, speaking Portuguese)
I say,
"No. This is not important."
I feel so happy
when they are together,
having little parties, doing
their elephant things.
It's not about me.
It's not about Scott.
It's not about sanctuary.
To love,
it's an important thing,
but there's no meaning
without respect.
(Foliage rustling)
(Trumpeting)
SCOTT: It's the first time
in their life
from the time they were captured
as infants
where they could be within
a space that is their space.
(Trumpeting)
(Trumpeting)
(Trumpeting)
These elephants go through
horrific experiences in life,
and then they come to
the sanctuary.
They seem to turn a new leaf.
That doesn't mean their
trajectory to recovery
is upward.
It's a journey.
There's highs and there's lows.
MAN:
Hey, Marba. It's Maia.
I'll take Bambi.
MAN: So, many of them come sick,
and with stuff
that we know
that we're not going to fix.
But they don't give up.
They keep trying.
I think that's what really
shocked me at first,
because
they've been through much more
than many people have been
through in life.
Lady is one of
the great examples that I see.
She has so many stuff going on
on her feet
that we look in and see,
how is she walking?
But it's, like, "I'm going to go
across the creek.
I'm going to walk.
I'm going to graze."
We put so much boundaries
in our lives,
and we can see that
we just got to have the will
to overcome them.
SCOTT: You know, nobody loses
with this project.
This is a project that
gives back to the elephants.
It allows them a chance
for a rediscovery of life.
But it's also one
that people can be proud of.
(Trumpeting)
(Trumpeting continues)
(Birds chirping)
LES: This is the road that the
elephants will be walking down.
(Chains jingling)
Here they come.
(Man speaking local language)
(Chain rattling)
(Trumpeting)
LES: There's nothing new about
the anthropocentric viewpoint
of a lot of people,
who think that they're
the centre of everything
and that their experience
with this animal
is more important than
what the animal's side
of the experience is.
So, they're going to do
a wash time, right?
So, the tourists pay for that?
- MAN: Yeah.
- LES: Okay. I see. Okay.
Very happy elephants? Okay.
There's nothing natural
about elephants
having people
that close to them...
dragging them over
to tourists
with a hook and a chain
to have these fake interactions.
Do it, or be forced to do it.
That's it.
Those are their options.
I want people to know that
every time you have
a close interaction
with an animal like that,
you do a great deal
of damage to them.
Whether you see it or not,
the cost on the other side
is huge.
(Trumpeting)
In a country
that's so beautiful,
that has so much natural wonder,
you can come and enjoy Sri Lanka
without all the animal
exploitation tourism
that's attached to it.
(Man shouting in local language)
There's nothing good about
this anthropocentric bias
we have towards elephants.
(Man shouting)
(Chains jingling)
(Birds chirping)
RON MAGILL:
You know, as a small kid,
I grew up in a small apartment
in New York City.
My only connection to animals
was really watching a show
on television,
or I got a chance to go to
the Bronx Zoo.
And there's something
that happened
when I went to the zoo.
When I looked at an animal
eye to eye,
there was a connection
that happened there.
Something...
It was almost magical.
The zoo was what planted
that seed in me.
It just grew and grew and grew
to this tree of passion
that I have for wildlife,
for animals in general,
that I've carried now
all of my life.
When I first came to zoos,
they were basically geared
towards entertaining people
to come see animals.
There really was little
or no attention
given to the well-being
of the animal.
We are now spending millions
of dollars
creating habitats for animals
that not only reflect
the animal,
but the habitat
and the environment
in which that animal lives.
We live in a place
that has a climate
that is very similar to
what they would experience
in Africa.
It's all natural terrain.
Grasses and rocks and sand
and clay and stuff.
RON: Elephants walk many miles
a day to get to food,
and if you give them space
to walk over a decent terrain,
it doesn't have to be
many different miles.
It can be somewhat of
the same miles,
as long as you provide
the enrichment
that is going to keep them
mentally active.
JOYCE: So much bullshit
that comes out of zoos
about how elephants walk
just as much in captivity
as in the wild.
Even if they were to take
the same number of steps,
it's not the same.
Elephants are active
most of 24 hours.
They're on the move, looking
for food, looking for mates,
looking for water.
It has no purpose in captivity.
RON: Because elephants
are so incredibly intelligent,
they cannot be bored.
We have to mentally
stimulate them.
We fill that up with
different types of treats.
They take the bucket
and they shake it,
and they can then retrieve it
off the ground.
The same thing with the tire.
It makes them stretch up
and stretch up their trunks.
There's a bunch of mud
over there.
We fill that with water
and that's clay,
and they use that to throw it
on their backs
and they roll in the mud.
They are having fun.
They're good elephants.
They're good elephants,
and I don't... I'm always
hesitant to use emotional words,
but they appear to be happy
here.
They appear to thrive here.
INTERVIEWER: But in the wild,
they don't need to be stimulated
'cause the wild
is stimulating them.
Exactly.
INTERVIEWER:
So, isn't that then
show us the failure of the zoo,
because we have to make
this artificial stimulation?
RON: There is no question that
zoos cannot replicate
everything that's in the wild.
I think it's a compromise
that we make
to help stimulate and inspire
especially
this young generation.
That connection to people
to get them to care,
to want to protect them
in the wild.
That's a zoo's obligation.
To be great storytellers,
to get them engaged,
to get them inspired,
to make them want to
take it further.
I want every kid to leave
this zoo
the way I left the Bronx Zoo,
and say, "I want to learn more."
But I don't want
to sugar-coat this.
I don't want to say,
"No, this is why
we keep elephants in zoos.
It's a great thing."
It's not a great thing!
It's not a great thing.
It's the better of two worlds
in the sense that
we can have these animals that,
for the wrong or right reasons,
were taken out of the wild
in the first place.
BOB: Zoos like to claim that
these animals in captivity
serve as ambassadors
for their species.
I think
it's only partially true.
What I think is more true
is that they serve
as sacrificial lambs
for their species.
(Zoo attendees chattering)
Our goal is for every person
here to go home with
a trunk full of elephant's
wisdom.
Thank you, thank you.
We're going to start with
the beautiful Kitty.
TOURIST:
Oh, my God.
PRESENTER:
Kitty is 56 years old.
She has been with our family
for 33 years.
TOURIST: Wow.
PRESENTER: Now, joining Kitty,
up next is Rosie.
Rosie is 39 years old.
She's been with our family
for 29 years.
Now, last
but certainly not least,
down on the end,
little Miss Becky.
Becky is the youngest member
of our herd at 36 years old.
She's been with our family
for 29 years.
Katie's goal with this task
is to keep the colour on Rosie
and not get too much on Joanne.
We're going to take that
and press onto the canvas,
and that is how you get
a beautiful elephant smooch.
PRESENTER:
Oh, my goodness.
How did she do, everyone?
TOURIST:
Aw.
PRESENTER:
Absolutely gorgeous.
(Tourists applauding)
Even got the nose hair action.
I love it.
(Crowd chattering)
You can hand us
your phones and cameras,
and we will be happy
to take pictures for you.
If you did still want a chance
to visit the gift shop,
purchase any elephant artwork,
now would be a great time
to head that way
to make sure
you have plenty of time
for all of your photos.
INTERVIEWER:
So, how did you get into this?
INTERVIEWER:
GARY JOHNSON:
PRESENTER: We get a lot
of questions about training.
How do you train an elephant?
Well, operant conditioning.
That's the fancy-pants
terminology for training,
and part of that
is positive reinforcement.
You can help us today
by providing the ladies
with a round of applause
whenever you see something
awesome.
(Applauding)
GARY JOHNSON: You know, if...
The better trained your animal,
it doesn't matter if
it's elephant, dog, even kids,
the better trained they are,
the better care you can
give them
and the more freedom
you can give them...
PRESENTER:
Elephant yoga studio.
GARY: People don't
understand that.
MAN: It seems like the elephant
really knows you, eh?
TRAINER:
Oh, yes.
I've worked with her
for 28 years.
MAN:
Wow.
Sit.
Sit!
Move up.
(Hook clanking)
MAN: Where do they live
at nighttime?
TRAINER:
We have a barn for them.
MAN:
Ah, okay, okay.
- PRESENTER: And Rosie...
- (Elephant squeals)
Yep.
As I was about to say,
she's known for being
our resident chatterbox.
- (Imitating chicken clucking)
- Now, stop!
(Imitating chicken clucking)
(Cheering and applause)
High up. High!
High up! And I'm going to get
out of the way.
TOURISTS:
Oh!
Oh, my God.
Dixie up. Dixie up.
Lay down.
(Trumpeting in distress)
On the front foot,
we've got one, two, three, four,
five.
Steady. Come on. Come on.
Hold your foot steady.
One, two, three, four.
It's a little bit tricky,
isn't it?
We've got five on the front,
only four on the back.
Becky is the youngest member
of our herd.
Becky!
MAN:
Becky, steady.
- (Hook clanging)
- (Trumpeting)
Steady.
You are supposed to support
your friends!
Oh, my. We're going to talk
about this later.
Okay. So, that's
some fancy footwork there.
(Cheering and applause)
Yeah! There we go.
I would like to know
if any of you
have ever had two elephants
play Happy Birthday for you
on the harmonica.
TOURIST:
Wow.
(Playing harmonica)
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday
to you
Happy Birthday
dear elephant song
Happy Birthday to you
(Applauding)
PRESENTER:
That was beautiful!
- PRESENTER: Inhale...
- (Lucy plays flute)
- Wow.
- (Crowd reacting)
PRESENTER: You can clap...
(Cheering and applause)
(Sombre piano music playing)
LEADER:
Elephants should not be alone!
PROTESTERS: It's time to
find her a warmer home!
LEADER:
Elephants should not be alone!
ANIKA SLEEM:
I could not believe,
the images of seeing
this elephant in snow
was so bizarre.
She's housed half a year
inside a barn.
I mean,
elephants don't live like that.
I look at Lucy and, you know,
I feel for her.
And she's always on my mind now.
Like, what can we do?
MARY-ANN:
Even when it's not snowing,
people need to keep in mind
that Lucy is still indoors...
I ended up interacting with
the trustee
from Free the Wild, Anika Sleem.
She was a Pakistani-Canadian.
She said, you know,
"We worked hard to rescue Kaavan
from Pakistan."
She said,
"It would only be fitting
that I would want to help
an elephant in my own country."
ANIKA SLEEM: Kaavan, his story
came across social media.
I saw pictures of him chained,
his deficiencies in food.
Any human
with an ounce of compassion
could see that that was wrong.
I started tweeting.
I tweeted Cher.
Cher tweeted me back,
and I didn't...
I was like, is this Cher?
(Laughing)
Like, Cher had formulated
a charity called Free the Wild,
and her exact words were,
"Trying to get
the right Pakistani people
together to fix this."
And everyone tried for Kaavan
and no one was successful.
We were successful.
If we can do something
for Kaavan
and see the outcome
of his best life,
why can't we try to help Lucy
and give her her best life?
If we could free an elephant
in Pakistan,
why can't we help one in Canada?
MARY-ANN:
We were absolutely ecstatic
and felt hope for Lucy,
just sheerly by Cher's
celebrity status.
ANIKA:
Free the Wild has offered
a medical assessment
by elephant experts
to assess what is going on
with her health
to see if she would survive
going to sanctuary.
Our offer is still on the table,
and we are going to still try
to communicate with the zoo
and the city officials.
I'll check in with you
maybe in a couple of weeks.
Okay. That sounds good.
Okay, Mary-Ann.
Thanks so much.
WOMAN 1:
Okay. Here.
MAN:
Do we have everything?
WOMAN 1: I didn't know what
they had even read,
so, I'm going to
put one right here...
WOMAN 2: So, I think
there's just a few more.
- Okay.
- Yeah.
Hey, guys.
- Woo-hoo! High-five.
- High five.
All right, girl.
Look at this, hey?
Almost 150,000 signatures.
MARY-ANN: Today, we are
dropping off a petition
asking city council
to accept the offer
from Free the Wild.
Cher's foundation,
Free the Wild,
has offered to bring in
a team of international experts
to do a full examination
of Lucy.
Well, hopefully, this will help.
MARY-ANN: If it should turn out
that the examination shows
that Lucy would be safe
to be transported,
Cher's organization
has offered to cover all costs
associated with moving Lucy.
We'll have to do, yeah,
a few trips up in the elevator,
and we'll just wait at the top.
We are very peaceful.
We promise.
DEBI: I don't think
there's a question of
would her life in a sanctuary
be better than life in Edmonton.
Should she be able
to make that trip,
it would be a thousand
percent improvement.
She would have
all those key things
that are important to elephants.
Above all, freedom.
She would never have to be told
what to do,
when to do and how to do it.
- We got her done.
- Woo-hoo!
150,000 signatures.
Time to hashtag Retire Lucy.
WOMAN:
Retire Lucy, please.
Good job, guys. Excellent job.
JAKE DAVIS: I think there's been
a societal shift going on.
People are starting to recognize
that highly intelligent species
of animals like your elephants,
they have a reason
for being here
separate and apart from
human interest.
REPORTER 1:
In a historic court hearing
Monday in Bronx Supreme Court,
Happy became
the first elephant ever
to have a hearing ordered
on her behalf.
REPORTER 2: An animal rights
group is suing the zoo,
claiming 48-year-old Happy
is anything but,
living an isolated existence.
The Nonhuman Rights Project
argues elephants
are not meant to live alone.
They say Happy should be
in a private sanctuary.
LAWYER:
Good afternoon, Your Honors,
and may it please the court.
Madam Chief Judge,
I represent the petitioner,
the Nonhuman Rights Project,
and Happy,
a solitary female elephant.
How can the court apply habeas
when we're not talking about
a human?
Using species membership
is arbitrary.
JAKE:
Habeas corpus is a mechanism
for challenging
arbitrary imprisonments.
We believe that habeas corpus
should be extended to elephants.
ATTORNEY: There's no question,
at least based on
the five unrebutted scientific
expert reports,
that this is no place
for an elephant,
and these two sanctuaries
would be
as close to freeing her
as possible.
Maybe a hundred years ago,
we didn't know what, you know...
That elephants
could think and talk,
but now, we do, and you have
a duty under the common law
to update it.
The court has the authority
and the power to grant Happy
the freedom that she really
deserves.
JUDGE:
Thank you, counsel.
ATTORNEY: Thank you very much.
REPORTER 3:
A New York court has ruled
that an elephant
at the Bronx Zoo
must remain there, as she's not
legally considered a person.
JAKE:
We didn't win Happy's case,
but we view the case overall
as a win already.
Two of the seven judges
issued lengthy dissents.
After getting those dissents,
we know that we have the law
on our side.
We know
our arguments are sufficient.
We know that there is a shift
in society,
and we now know
that it's undeniable.
As long as we're able to
continue to bring these cases,
at some point in
the not-too-distant future,
we're going to win,
and an elephant's going to be
taken out of a zoo
and it's going to be sent
to a sanctuary,
and it's going to live a life
that's as close to what
nature intended as possible.
SCOTT:
Pocha and Guillermina,
seeing them in that space,
have nothing but rock
and concrete.
Four hundred square metres.
There's no grass.
There's no dirt.
There's no leaves.
There's no anything.
Pocha arrived in that facility
when she was young.
She came from a zoo in Germany,
and I believe she lived
more than 55 years there.
Guillermina was born
into that concrete pit.
When I say these are two
of the most isolated,
confined elephants
I'd ever seen,
it's not an overstatement.
Getting Pocha and
Guillermina out of the zoo
was actually a
huge joint effort,
starting with the voice within
that community that said,
"This is not right.
We cannot justify this."
The zoo and the government,
they created the model
to transform the zoo
into an eco-park,
to try to relocate
as many animals as possible to
sanctuaries internationally.
It's people making a choice
to make a positive difference
and no longer justifying what we
all know is not justifiable.
(Vocalizing)
The training for the medical
tests that were required,
it was all very
extensive and very slow.
By far, the biggest challenge
was the separation of mother
and daughter.
Two crates, two elephants.
For the first time in
their life, they're going
to have to be separated
for the journey.
(Vocalizing)
The fear that these two had...
But eventually, we ended up
having to reorganize
and put the crates one
in front of the next
so they could both still
be in contact with each other.
There was never going to be
a perfect scenario to do this.
But the perfect scenario
is giving them
a chance at sanctuary.
My past was dark and ugly.
I started working at
a safari park.
African Lion Safari.
Doing elephant rides,
helping out in shows more.
WOMAN: Here we go!
Clap a little bit...
SCOTT: So, we had a lot of
people come and say,
"You're learning from some of
the best of the best."
(People applauding)
At that point in my life,
I had no comparison.
WOMAN: We're going to slip this
harness over George's head,
and he's going to pull
this enormous log
around the arena for us.
SCOTT: They had
been living a life
of smoke and mirrors
for decades.
If people saw even 10 percent
of what these elephants endure,
most people in our
world would say,
"My heart can't take it."
I was 15 years old
when I beat my first elephant,
and when I got done listening
to my mentor telling me
how I needed to do
what I needed to do,
he said, "You cannot
let anybody else see this."
It's vicious.
I've seen electric prods used
in the anus and vulva and ears,
gang beatings where
people, you know,
grab multiple instruments
and beat them on the bony parts
of their body.
I've seen skin
slough off body parts
because they've
been beaten so severely,
and these people
that are doing this
feel like they are
on the top of the world.
It's a huge ego boost.
I can control an elephant.
MAN: Up in the air.
(People applauding)
WOMAN: There
you have them, folks,
our safari elephants.
To thank you for coming today,
they would like to give
you a final safari salute.
(People applauding)
SCOTT: People are
intrigued by elephants.
People want to get close.
They want to be able to ride.
They want to be entertained.
As a visitor,
you have the ability
to open up your eyes
and see the truth.
But many times, it's easier
to keep our eyes closed,
so you end up seeing
just that big elephant.
You don't see that being within.
INTERVIEWER: When people go
to the African Lion Safari,
the optics look like
all these animals are free.
SCOTT:
It's a beautiful facade.
Let's walk the elephant
through the trees.
Let's bring him to the lake.
The elephants didn't like going
in the lake most of the time,
but they would use a BB gun,
hit them with little pellets
so they would back up
into the water.
This is swimming on demand.
This is still dominance.
And then when
the cold weather hit,
it was hours and hours
and hours inside the barn.
It is chained up at night,
physical dominance, abuse.
A beautiful picture to
a harsh reality.
At African Lion Safari,
you know,
being the largest breeding
centre in North America,
there's a lot of pride
that goes over that.
INTERVIEWER: How many elephants
do you have here?
WORKER: So, we
have 17 in total.
And they have had such
successful breeding programs.
The gold standard
of elephant management
is producing baby elephants.
SCOTT: If you want to
bring money to the zoo,
have a baby elephant.
DEBI: The zoo will say
that they're contributing
to conservation of elephants,
but the breeding programs are
more for them than for the wild.
They needed to keep that
supply, internal supply going,
so they have breeding programs
to replenish their populations.
The populace was
not accepting them
for having animals
for entertainment purposes,
so they came up with
a rebranding strategy...
WORKER: Once the elephants are
done enjoying their snack...
DEBI: as agents for
conservation.
WORKER: And a
couple of our elephants
have gone to Denver Zoo.
Chuck and Jake, they went to
a bachelor herd there.
INTERVIEWER: So, you would send
them to other zoos
to mate with
other elephants as well?
WORKER: Yeah. So, we do
have a breeding...
SCOTT: Most captive
breeding programs
are separating these families.
These are animals
that are so maternal.
Their family bonds are
incredibly strong.
It's wrong on every level.
DEBI: Animals can breed just
fine in the wild.
They don't need breeding
programs domestically
to help them out in
any way that way.
(Vocalizing)
WOMAN 1:
Yes! Yes! Yes!
WOMAN 2:
Oh, my God! It's coming.
(Elephants vocalizing,
squealing)
(Trumpeting)
(Vocalizing continuing)
(Trumpeting)
JOYCE: In the wild,
an elephant birth
is just such a celebration.
(Elephants vocalizing,
trumpeting)
Trumpeting and rumbling.
(Roaring)
DEBI:
And they help the new mom.
They help her with nurturing
and protecting the baby.
(Elephants vocalizing)
(Vocalizing continuing)
JOYCE: But in captivity, it's
the complete opposite.
(Elephants vocalizing)
Most zoos have got females
who have been taken from
the wild at a very young age,
females who just
don't know what to do
when they suddenly
produce a baby elephant,
and so there is a
lot of infanticide.
MAN:
Get ready over there.
WOMAN: Good,
Shawnee. Good girl.
MAN:
Good girl.
LES: That's why zoos then chain
their elephants to the floor
and take their babies from them
without allowing them to bond.
MAN: Good girl. Steady, steady,
steady, steady, steady,
Shawnee. Shawnee.
SCOTT: You know, this baby
is too valuable.
We have to make sure she's okay.
WOMAN:
Shawnee, no.
SCOTT: She just wanted
to hold the baby.
She's getting the shit beat
out of her.
MAN:
Get on back.
(Elephant screaming)
WOMAN: Get it back. Get
it back. Get it back. Come on.
(Elephant screaming, rumbling)
(Elephants vocalizing)
(Vocalizing continuing)
MAN: It's crawling on
the baby's head.
LES: They have no choice even
who their breeding partners are.
They put a bull onto a truck,
ship this bull to this zoo.
Hopefully, this bull will
breed with these cows,
and many cows don't reproduce.
Zoos continue
to import elephants,
because their
captive populations
are not self-sustaining.
A lot of these zoos are trying
to still source to this very day
elephants from
their countries of origin.
When you have to
replenish your stock,
your captive stock,
with animals,
that's not conservation, is it?
(Elephants vocalizing)
You're mining precious resources
from the countries of origin,
is what it is.
(Elephants vocalizing)
Heavy-duty airlift
involving wild elephants,
more than a dozen of them.
American zoo officials
pulling off a secret rescue.
And now, the debate over
their transfer intensifying.
(People shouting indistinctly)
WOMAN: Police
escorting them safely
to zoos in Dallas, Wichita,
and Omaha.
But it almost didn't happen.
Animal rights groups saying they
had a safe location and money
ready to care for
the elephants in the wild.
Instead, the zoos secretly
shipped them to the US,
robbing them of their freedom.
MAN: Three US zoos applied
to import 18 elephants
from Swaziland.
(Elephants vocalizing)
BOB: I think what
surprised us the most
was the sheer number.
I mean, 18 elephants.
(Elephants vocalizing)
And when they got the permit,
Michael wouldn't let it go,
and he said, "I'm going
to file a lawsuit."
We needed to show that
the law was inadequate,
that what was going to
happen to these elephants
needed to be addressed
and made illegal.
(Elephants vocalizing)
CHARLES: You know,
the zoos know.
You know, they think, "Where
can we go to get elephants?"
And they go,
"Swaziland. Ted Reilly."
MAN: There, there.
You beautiful bull.
MICHAEL:
Ted Reilly is the head
of Swaziland's parks and
conservation programs.
In the last 15 to 20 years,
he's become known as
an animal wildlife broker.
Sells to zoos,
entertainment industries,
cosmetic industries.
TED: All of these animals
have been poached.
You know, whether
Reilly approached them
because he knew of their need
or whether they approached him
because they knew
he would be the guy
that could find it
for them, it's not clear.
But they came together.
(Chuckling)
And by 2015,
they were developing plans
and entering into
contractual arrangements
to sell these animals off.
(Elephants vocalizing)
MAN: There was no
overpopulation problem
with Swaziland
viewed as a whole.
(Elephants vocalizing)
In order for this to take place,
Reilly had to create
an overpopulation crisis,
and he did that by
restricting the area
that the elephants had to roam.
(Elephants vocalizing)
CHARLES: He said, "They're
overrunning the land,
and if no one takes
these elephants,
I'm going to shoot them."
So, in other words, it had
the imprimatur of a rescue.
(Elephants vocalizing)
JONATHAN: In certain
cases in South Africa,
we've been involved in
moving elephants
that would otherwise
have been culled
from one area to another just
to save their lives.
We were willing to just
give them the money
that they would
otherwise have lost.
That was the first thing.
The second thing
is, we were willing
to premium that by 10 percent.
We would have done
anything within reason
to show them that we were
willing to do this.
It was never necessary,
because they weren't
interested in it.
There was another deal going on,
and the deal was that the zoos
wanted the elephants.
We're not buying the elephants.
What we are doing is
transferring money to Swaziland,
to a trust that's
placed in trust
to support rhino conservation.
(Elephant vocalizing)
So, we file our lawsuit just
days after the permit's issued.
We have a call with the judge,
and the lawyer for
the zoos makes it clear:
"Well, we do need
to go get them,
but we can agree to a schedule
to have this hearing,
this injunction motion heard."
And we walked away from that
phone call with the judge
with the schedule,
with the zoos in agreement.
I felt like we had
a really strong case.
Frankly, I think the zoos think
we had a really strong case,
which is why they stole them.
CHARLES: One week before
the planned court date,
a plane lands in Swaziland.
MICHAEL: There was
a plane that arrived
and was coming to take
the elephants away.
Of course, I'm astonished.
We're in the middle of
this court case
and this agreed-upon schedule.
We were blindsided by this.
(Elephants vocalizing)
JONATHAN: They were captured,
taken out of there,
and put in enclosures
and prepared
for what we believe
was a commercial sale.
(Elephants vocalizing)
(Tranquilizer gun firing)
(Elephants vocalizing)
(Tranquilizer gun firing)
MICHAEL: My next move was
to call the court.
So, the judge, who's
now getting a little annoyed,
is like, "I want everyone
on the phone in 20 minutes."
CHARLES: It came down to this
high-pressure, dramatic,
like, courtroom
battle via telephone.
And Mike Harris made his case
about how this is all a ruse
and these elephants
are not imperilled
like they say they are,
and the lawyer for the zoos,
at the last minute,
sort of seeing, maybe,
these elephants slip away,
she pulled out her trump card:
"I have a veterinarian who says
that these elephants have
already been sedated.
It would be dangerous to
their health to re-sedate them
if we win and
fly them out again."
I've asked a bunch of
veterinarians about that
and they said that's crap.
MICHAEL: And
the judge says to me,
"Well, is that true?
And do you have
your own expert?"
And no, we didn't.
I mean, they blindsided us.
"Then I'm denying the TRO."
(Banging)
And within a matter of 12 hours,
those elephants
were on that plane
heading to the United States.
REPORTER: The journey for
Omaha's herd officially ended
when a 747 carrying them from
southern Africa landed...
I asked this zoo director.
I said, "That's a ruse."
I mean, I'd been there.
I saw that those elephants that
were ruining the land
were kept on, like, 20 percent
of this, you know,
multi-multi-acreage preserve.
The zoo director I talked to,
Sedgwick County Zoo, said,
"Oh, yeah. No. That story
was totally made up."
And I'm, like, sitting there
as a journalist going,
"So you're telling
me point blank
that the whole thing
that got those elephants
on that airplane over
here was, in fact,
a made-up, you know,
rescue drama."
He said, "It wasn't
a last-minute rescue."
We've been working on
that for years."
I am confident in saying
that if we did not move
these animals here,
they would not be alive.
No matter what these animal
rights activists say...
these animals
would've been dead.
This was sneaky behaviour,
unprincipled behaviour.
It demonstrated lack of candor.
It was the most deflating
moment of my career,
or my life, for that matter.
It's underhanded.
It's backhanded.
It's really nasty.
And it ruined the lives forever
of 18 elephants.
INTERVIEWER:
Wow... (Speaking indistinctly)
MAN: You know, as much as
we'd love to have them stay
in their wild environment,
this needed to happen,
so the Swazis
were brought over here.
CHARLES: You know, people will
buy a lot of stories.
One day, sitting at
the Sedgwick County Zoo,
where they have that exhibit
of one of the actual
travel crates,
and inside they make
this fancy tableau
of, "Yes, this
last-minute rescue..."
Father and daughter
came through,
and he's going to his daughter,
"Could you believe those animal
rights people protested this?
This was a rescue.
These zoos saved
these animals' lives."
MICHAEL: That's not
conservation of wild animals.
That's just their own investment
in their own business.
JONATHAN: It was a
commercial imperative
underpinning
what they were doing.
You want to look
after elephants in the wild,
go and look after
them in Africa.
There are plenty
of ways of doing that.
(Speaking indistinctly)
WOMAN: Hey! Back
it up. Back it up.
(People speaking indistinctly)
Hi! Oh!
JONATHAN: People coming in
and paying for the privilege
of seeing these
creatures incarcerated,
it's a terrible thing.
People need to boycott it.
That's what they need to
do once the truth gets out.
MAN: Buenos Aires
and Argentina in general,
we are people that are extremely
sensitive to animal welfare.
So it was just natural
for us to gravitate
towards what the animal
right activists were saying.
We know that we
cannot keep animals
for the sake of
showing them to people.
We need to step up and evolve
into a modern-day institution
where we translocate all
our animals to sanctuaries
and we keep on rescuing
native endangered species,
not showing them to people,
just rescuing them,
releasing them.
So, well, these
are Kuky and Pupy,
African savanna elephants.
They arrived 30 years
ago in this place.
Basically, they lived
their entire lives here.
Oh, yeah!
TOMAS: Ever since
the government said,
"We're going to
stop having a zoo;
we're going to
start having an eco-park,"
our top priority
was to translocate
all our wild, exotic
animals to sanctuaries
and better conditions.
We've been working with Global
Sanctuary For Elephants.
We cannot wait, honestly,
for them to go to
the sanctuary in Brazil
and to have a new life,
which should happen any
moment from now.
(Rumbling)
But our main objective is for
this to be an interactive place.
TOMAS: We need to educate
people with robotics,
with animations, with film,
with so many of the attractions
that we have
where people learn a
lot about our wildlife
but without actually seeing
physical live animals.
You know, for generations,
kids have been obsessed
with dinosaurs.
Not once a kid had
seen a dinosaur.
The idea that we need to see
animals to protect them -
no, we don't.
They're going
to throw mud at us.
(Tomas laughing)
You see? Yeah.
They just want the attention.
Whatever is happening, they want
to be part of it, so...
(Speaking Spanish)
Um...
(Truck beeping)
SCOTT: When we put
them on the trailer,
we put them so they're
face to face
so they could still
see each other,
and there was doors
that could open
that they could still
touch each other.
So they still had that contact.
There's always concern,
so you prepare for
the worst case scenario.
But if you look at the history
of elephant transports,
every one has been with
remarkable success.
I remember being on the trip,
and the sun was coming up.
And you could see both elephants
looking out the side of
the crate.
Is this the first time
they saw the sun rise
over the horizon?
It's beautiful.
They put their trunks
out of the doors
so they could touch each other.
"I'm here for you.
Yes, I'm here for you."
(People speaking indistinctly)
We get a lot of accolades for
the work that we do,
but we are not alone,
and when you come back home
and there's this group
of people waiting
in the little village
just to say hi,
you just feel a sense
of gratitude.
And it's just something
remarkable to be a part of.
(People speaking indistinctly)
(Laughing)
(People speaking indistinctly)
LES: The fate of Lucy is
very complicated.
I always want an elephant to be
someplace where
she's around her own kind.
She has more room and
more opportunities
to live a dignified
end of her life.
What we need to really focus on
is to make sure that
if she can't move,
that no other elephants
are ever exposed
to this trauma anymore.
(People speaking indistinctly)
Each year, the Edmonton
Valley Zoo
brings in an external expert.
This year, thanks
to the generous support
of Free the Wild and
their supporters,
we've been able to bring in
experts from all over the world.
MARY-ANN: I
believe the zoo
allowed the independent
experts in
because of pressure
from the public.
Lucy has become well known.
ANIKA: So, we had meetings with
the zoo director, Gary Dewar.
We wanted to show them that
we actually were not here
to fight with the zoo.
We want to work with the zoo.
(Chattering)
From the people
that we suggested,
they handpicked who they
wanted to assess Lucy.
We have three veterinary
elephant specialists.
We have Frank Goeritz
from Germany,
Dr. Patricia London,
who is based out of Nepal,
and then alongside them,
we have a husbandry expert
called Ingo Schmidinger.
And together, they form,
essentially,
the panel of experts.
ANIKA:
At the end of the day,
two out of three reports said
that Lucy should go.
(Vocalizing)
MARY-ANN: I was thrilled.
I was absolutely thrilled.
After waiting all these
years to hear from somebody
not affiliated with
the Edmonton Valley Zoo
confirm what we
always felt was true,
we were utterly thrilled.
The first report I
read was Dr. London's.
She stated was that
Lucy absolutely needs
to go to sanctuary
and that she can make it safely
with proper preparation.
(Elephants vocalizing)
She won't have
bull hooks in her face,
and she will be able
to do whatever she wants.
(Elephants vocalizing)
And it would be like heaven,
absolute heaven
for this elephant.
(Elephants vocalizing)
SCOTT: Pocha standing there
with the crate door open
for several hours,
playing in the dirt...
natural earth,
something that she
hadn't felt in decades.
And she hasn't even really
embraced sanctuary yet.
Even the simple
things are profound.
The most remarkable
and beautiful elements
of all of this
was watching Pocha
watch her daughter find
that freedom.
(Elephants vocalizing)
(Birds, insects chirping)
LES: What I was
doing within the zoo world
wasn't actually having any
positive outcome for elephants.
It's hard to have to look
in the mirror and go,
"I just wasted a couple of
decades of my life doing this."
I stopped just believing what
people in the zoo community
were trying to sell me.
I got the advice that if you
want to learn about elephants,
get out into the bush.
Here, it's just a matter
of being respectful
and moving very slow.
They need less human contact.
They need less human influence.
(Men speaking indistinctly)
Elephant. Oh, we got an elephant
on the road here.
Look at him going
down that steep bank.
Right here to the left,
just crossed the river.
Beautiful.
(Whispering) Stop,
stop, stop. Thank you.
(Quietly) Look how
amazing this animal is.
Looks like this is
a young bull...
My guess is,
it's maybe early 20s.
It really is so precious
to be in such close proximity
with elephants when you
do it respectfully.
No matter how many times I bump
into elephants in the wild,
it's always a thrill.
Look at his body condition.
He's in amazing shape right now.
The true place for any living
animal, not just elephants,
is in their natural
environment that they choose,
and we have to accept
that we don't know it all.
And we should stop trying
to pretend like we do.
Generally, where
there's one elephant,
there's more.
Yeah. Look at this.
(Elephants vocalizing)
Beautiful little family here.
The perfect ecosystem
for this species.
(Elephants vocalizing)
Part thick woods,
part grassland here.
They all have their pick of
what they want to eat right now.
(Elephants vocalizing)
Listen how peaceful it is here,
just how tranquil
this environment is.
(Elephants vocalizing)
When you get the gift
of being with elephants
in their natural places,
you hear them breathing.
(Elephant vocalizing)
You hear them sometimes
squeak or grumble.
(Elephants vocalizing)
You can hear
these subtle ear flaps,
and it's incredibly peaceful.
(Elephants vocalizing)
That was never
a state that I was in
working with captive elephants.
There's no stereotypies.
There's no elephants swaying
or bobbing their heads.
(Elephants vocalizing)
It's not just a matter
of seeing it.
You can feel the attachment
to nature here
and just watching the elephants
do what they know how to do.
JOYCE: Elephants play such
an important role
in the ecosystems
in which they live.
They are what's called
a keystone species.
So, when you remove elephants,
many other things can collapse.
They open up habitat
for other species.
(Elephants vocalizing)
They distribute seeds, you know,
by feeding on fruiting trees
and then walking
through the forest.
They deposit seeds in
its own little potting soil.
(Elephants vocalizing)
I mean, we couldn't begin
to plant the number of trees
that an elephant can plant.
(Elephants vocalizing)
They're responsible
for keeping forests alive.
They're nature's gardeners.
(Elephants vocalizing)
LES: If we want to help the
best way to help these animals,
leave them alone,
protect their natural areas,
give them some space,
and they'll take it
the rest of the way.
And we'll benefit from it.
What we need to do is learn
how to live harmoniously
in their shadow,
not the other way around.
(Elephants vocalizing)
We have the perfect
multigenerational family
of elephants with this
amazing soundtrack.
My heart's racing.
(Elephants vocalizing)
This is amazing, you guys.
Ah, I'm losing it.
Makes me cry.
It never goes away, the magic of
seeing them in their home.
Lucy or any captive elephant
deserve to grow up here
amongst their family members.
They can't live without
this environment,
and the environment,
to a big extent,
can't survive without them.
This should have
been Lucy's rightful home.
(Elephants vocalizing)
We were very optimistic,
probably more than
we should have been,
as we've come
to learn since then.
REPORTER: Another
animal rights group
is walking back
part of their calls
to have Lucy the elephant
moved to a sanctuary.
(People speaking indistinctly)
The headline on the statement
was that Free The Wild agrees
with the Edmonton Valley Zoo
that Lucy is not well enough
to be transported to sanctuary.
Free the Wild would
be following up
with the Edmonton Valley Zoo
over the coming months
to re-evaluate her and work
on optimizing her health.
Only the report from Dr. Goeritz
said that Lucy shouldn't go,
so I didn't understand why
Free the Wild was in agreement
with the Edmonton Valley Zoo
that Lucy should remain.
ANIKA: In the amount
of time that we were given,
which was 48 hours
to do an assessment,
to put our name to this,
to say that Lucy won't die,
we did not want to do that.
Putting Lucy under sedation
would put her at risk.
She could die.
She could stop breathing.
MARY-ANN: I lashed
out at Anika.
Her response to me was,
they felt it was important
to build a relationship,
and she said that they wanted
a consensus from all of
the consultants.
I don't want to
put the zoo in a light
where they're being targeted,
and I'm not putting
a timescale on this.
In other words, they
were going to continue
to try to work with the zoo
to get the zoo director
to change his mind,
and I said to her,
"I wouldn't waste your
time on the zoo director.
He will never
change his mind."
People have to understand that
it took 30-something years
to get an assessment like this.
MARY-ANN: Lucy's been playing
a long game for 46 years.
She has no time
to play a long game.
ANIKA: If Lucy
gets better,
then she should go to sanctuary.
If they haven't followed up
with the recommendations,
Lucy is going to decline.
That's even more of a reason
why she should move then.
DEBI: See, the issue
I have with the zoo is,
she could have safely
been moved 10 years ago.
She could have been safely
moved five years ago.
They just let this ride.
They had $77 million in 2009
to put some towards Lucy,
and they did not.
They could have built
her a therapeutic pool.
They could have given
her space to roam.
They could have got
her off free contact.
(People speaking indistinctly)
They have done nothing to
alleviate the causes
of the issues that
she's suffering from.
(People speaking indistinctly)
She is short for this world.
Whether she dies in their barn,
whether she dies on
their walkway,
whether she dies in a crate on
the way to a sanctuary,
her premature death is on them.
It's on them.
SCOTT: Several years
before they came,
we had been asking questions
about Pocha's health.
After her arrival, she actually
looked really good,
and she was exploring,
and she was wandering,
and she was
discovering the sanctuary
and rediscovering life.
But you could still see
there was something
that wasn't quite right.
You could see it in her face.
You could see it in her posture.
She had an internal disease
that was just too
much, you know,
so six months after her arrival,
she passed.
Guillermina was
going up to her mom
and then coming back down
towards the barn
and go up to her mom.
(Elephants vocalizing)
She was rumbling and
making some calls,
and the other elephants came.
This is an elephant who had been
deprived of everything in life
except her mom.
It's all she had.
The other elephants came,
and one by one,
Guillermina went to her mom
with one individual.
Then she came back down,
and she got the next one
and went to her mom.
(Sighing)
And she did it again.
Her little elephant ceremony.
If Pocha had died in that pit,
Guillermina would not have
her new friends to help her.
Pocha gave her daughter
everything she could,
and sanctuary gave
Pocha freedom to her daughter.
MARY-ANN: I have to hold
on to hope for Lucy.
Otherwise, I wouldn't
be able to keep doing this.
If she could have a year or more
to lay on a sunny hillside
with the company
of other elephants,
making choices for
the first time in her life,
I would feel happy for her.
And that even
if she passed away,
she passed away with
dignity and love
and the chance to
finally be an elephant
that she's been deprived
of since she was two years old.
I will fight for her till
I take my last breath.