Bradley - Last Chain On Billie: How One Extraordinary Elephant Escaped the Big Top

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For Billie,

and for every other elephant

who has spent her life

in chains

CONTENTS

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FOREWORD

by Dr. Dame Daphne Sheldrick

I have worked intimately with elephants for fifty years of my life, rearing their orphaned young and rehabilitating them back to a wild life in Kenyas Tsavo National Park when grown, each at their own pace, and in their own time, when they themselves feel sufficiently confident to sever human dependency and return to where they belong. I have successfully reared from early infancy more than 170 orphaned elephant babies, and watched them grow into adulthood and eventually take their rightful place. However, the former orphans have never forgotten the role we played in their life, rewarding us by bringing back their wild-born young, and allowing their erstwhile human family to actually handle the calf as it shelters beneath its mothers belly, even when attended by perfectly wild elephant friends whom our elephants have told that not all humans are cruel and evil.

Elephants duplicate us humans in many ways other than in age progression and longevity. Endowed with a genetic memory, they are programmed at birth with information important to survival and which will equip them to implement their natural role on earth. Emotionally, they are identical to ourselves, with the same strong sense of family, and of death, and with friendships that span a lifetime, recognizing specific individuals whom they trust and love despite years of separation because elephants never forget, which happens to be true. With them, you reap what you sowtreat them with gentle reverence, understanding, and love, as would their natural elephant family, and you will be rewarded a hundredfold. Treat them cruelly and unkindly and they will settle the score in the end, at a time of their own choosing. With the authority of a lifetime, I can categorically affirm that elephants challenge the uniqueness of humans because they are just like us, but only better than us with many attributes we lack and others we have yet to fully understand. Although large and immensely powerful, they are inherently fearful and gentle by nature, and they can teach humans a great deal about caring, even when they are still infants. Both sexes exhibit empathy for less fortunate individuals; this extends to others beyond their own species, and both sexes adore and protect the young.

Wrenching a young elephant from its family and consigning it to a lifetime of bondage in a far-off land, simply for the entertainment of humans who know no better, is as evil and as wrong as it would be were innocent humans forcibly subjected to the same treatment. The so-called training of circus elephants involves immense cruelty to break the animals spirit and make it too fearful to disobey. Forcing it to perform unnatural stunts ends up damaging its frame, resulting in arthritic impairment and a lifetime of pain.

Nowadays, Billie must celebrate every day, for she enjoys a more normal life, thanks to caring humans who spoke up for her and her like. Although the dream of returning to her homeland and her family can never be fulfilled, at least she has other elephant friends and caring humans who treat her kindly. Her story will go a long way toward helping others and saving them from a cruel life of bondage and servitude. Her story will educate people around the world about the nature of her iconic species, sparing many other young elephants miserable captivity. Elephants do not belong in circusesand nor should theyin the twenty-first century, when the power of social media and the Internet has a global reach.

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Dr. Dame Daphne Sheldrick, DBE, created the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Nairobi, Kenya, and is the author of Love, Life, and Elephants .

PROLOGUE

Scott Blais opened the gate to the barn, stood back and waited for the elephant to lumber into view. Her trunk appeared first, raised slightly and held stiff with uncertainty, then the rest of her8,450 pounds of wariness and fear. All of the other elephants had been loaded up and trucked away, because all of the other elephants were predictable: Blais knew he could board them on to the semi relatively easily. There was a reason hed saved Billie for last.

For twenty-three years she had traveled the country, chained in place in the back of a semi as her circus caravanned from one stop to another. But a decade had passed since her last journey. There was no telling how Billie would react to seeing a truck again.

The elephant stared at the rear of the trailer for a moment, her left eye partially concealed beneath a scarred and puffy eyebrow. Ever so gently, she raised her trunk to touch first the gate and then the ramp. So far so good, Blais thought. Shes deciding whether she feels safe in this setting, whether she feels comfortable.

He wondered if she would remember being packed in so tightly with other elephants, her legs anchored in place. Whether she would remember the dark interior of the truck, the chill of traveling in winter, and the searing heat in summer months. Yet this truck was bright inside. It carried the scents of her barn mates, the six elephants that, two by two, had disappeared over the last few days. Could she detect that something was going to be different about this journey, this destination?

The man standing nearby had shown nothing but kindness to Billie. There was no sense of urgency, no one yelling or waving a bullhook or poking her to step on board. For the first time in her life, someone was asking her to walk up the ramp.

The elephant studied the inside of the semi as if she were memorizing every detail. She glanced back at Blais, hesitating. Its okay, Billie, he called to her softly. You can do it.

CAPTURING ELEPHANTS

What is it about elephants? The immense, seemingly docile animals have mesmerized American audiences for more than two hundred years.

The first elephant in America arrived in New York in 1796. Just two years old, still a baby, he was purchased for $450 and shipped over from India. Crowds could view the unnamed elephant for fifty cents. The Boston Gazette was so taken by the animal that it said he defied description.

Then, around 1800, a sailing boat from England sank in a storm at the mouth of Delaware Bay and somehow an elephant on board broke loose and swam ashore. The following morning local residents who came to see what was left of the wrecked ship were startled to see an enormous and unfamiliar animal wandering about on the sand.

Old Bet was the third to arrive, in 1804. She, too, was put on display; her owner sold off shares of her for $1,200 each and moved her from town to town at night to keep curious onlookers from glimpsing her for free. Her career ended when a posse of farmers in Maine turned their rifles on her for trampling through their gardens. Little Bet followed in 1811. She lasted eleven years before she was shot to death by five young boys hell-bent on discovering whether a mere bullet could take down such a large animal.