No More Pink Elephants

When we went on our trip to India in August 2024, the tour company originally wanted us to ride elephants; I knew that elephants should not be ridden as their bodies were not designed for that. However, I was not aware of how badly elephants were treated in the elephant industry until I did further research. Fortunately, my research drew me to Wildlife SOS, a group that aims to free elephants from their enslavement and take them to a place where they can be looked after and never abused again.

We decided to visit the Wildlife SOS elephant sanctuary after a chance opportunity led us to this place in Uttar Pradesh. There, we bore witness to the horrors that elephants faced, such as blindness and ear removal, but also the beauty they can embody in their natural habitat.

Yet despite the continued work of Wildlife SOS, more than two thousand elephants across India remain in chains, including at the place where we were originally scheduled to ride them. But the tide is turning. With the ongoing expansion of Wildlife SOS's facilities and the abolition of elephant rides, country by country, state by state, a future without elephant abuse is becoming closer to reality every day. But this is only possible if more and more people wake up to the horrors that elephants face in the global tourist industry and move money for elephants from elephant rides to places like Wildlife SOS.

I named this fundraiser "No More Pink Elephants" because the trunks that captive elephants are often painted with paints that chemically burn the elephants, turning them pink, away from their natural gray-brown colour. The elephant in the photo is a former captive elephant, which is why her trunk is pink.