Thread: Elephant 'cries' during rescue after 50 years of abuse

Vets worked for 45 minutes to remove the chains and spikes that had dug into the elephant's leg. Photo: Press People

BY LIZZIE DEARDEN – 08 JULY 2014

An elephant that was kept in chains for 50 years and abused by a drug addict who used the animal to beg in India has been freed.


Raju had been beaten and starved since being poached from the wild as a baby and resorted to eating paper and plastic to fill his stomach.

The chains and spikes wrapped around his legs had left him with chronic wounds and arthritis and he was in almost constant pain.

But now he is walking free for the first time after a daring rescue by conservationists with a court order by the Uttar Pradesh Forest Department to take the elephant from his abusive owner.

When Raju was being rescued, volunteers said they saw tears rolling down his face.

Pooja Binepal, from Wildlife SOS UK, said: “The team were astounded to see tears roll down his face during the rescue. It was so incredibly emotional for all of us.

“We knew in our hearts he realised he was being freed.

“Elephants are not only majestic, but they are highly intelligent animals, who have been proven to have feelings of grief, so we can only imagine what torture half a century has been like for him.”

READ MORE AND VIDEOS: Elephant 'cries' during rescue after 50 years of abuse - BelfastTelegraph.co.uk


Only sick bastards impose such level of cruelty on innocent animals. This story is heart-touching.

There is so much wrong in India it beggars belief.

Its at times like this i wish i was a committed and sincere misanthrope.

Here's a great movie about mammals in captivity

http://kickass.to/blackfish-2013-hdr...-t7851553.html

Documentary which unravels the story of notorious performing whale Tilikum, who - unlike any orca in the wild - has taken the lives of several people while in captivity. So what exactly went wrong?
Shocking, never-before-seen footage and interviews with trainers and experts manifest the orca's extraordinary nature, the species' cruel treatment in captivity over the last four decades and the growing disillusionment of workers who were misled and endangered by the highly profitable sea-park industry.
This emotionally-wrenching, tautly-structured story challenges us to consider our relationship to nature and reveals how little we humans have learned from these highly intelligent and enormously sentient fellow mammals.