Hi John,
Do you have a daily routine? I know that my daily routines help me keep my head on my shoulders, even when times are tough. Small rituals like brewing my morning coffee and playing The New York Times’ daily word games give me a moment of solace and self-care, every day—I’m very grateful that I can choose to spend my time this way.
Daily routines look very different for our elephant clients. When our team investigates how our elephant clients behave in zoo exhibits, we’ve observed them walking around in circles, aimlessly pulling their trunks in the dirt. While they would normally roam dozens of miles through vast, diverse landscapes in nature, captive elephants like Jambo, Lucky, Missy, Kimba, and LouLou at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo can explore the entirety of their exhibit within 10 minutes.
They spend every day like this, over and over again—trapped in barren environments that cannot meet their complex physical and emotional needs.
In nature, elephants can live rich, fulfilling lives, surrounded by herds of up to 80 elephants—individuals who they form deep, lifelong bonds with. Zoos, however, condemn elephants to a lifetime of confinement, with limited companionship and no freedom to exercise their autonomy. Elephants in zoos cannot choose what they want to do or who they want to be with. They can’t even get a moment of solace from their daily physical and mental anguish.
