Dear John,
My name is Danielle Carnahan, executive director at Weeping Elephant Project, and today, I want to tell you about Simba.
Simba is a 58-year-old Asian elephant currently residing at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay. She was born wild in 1968 and taken into captivity as a young calf, arriving at Busch Gardens in 1972. In the wild, a calf her age would still have been at her mother's side, in a family she would have stayed bonded to for life. Whatever she knew of that world, she knew only briefly. Since her capture, she has spent more than five decades inside a theme park. Former keepers who worked with the herd have told us that Simba is now experiencing blindness and cognitive decline, and spends much of her day swaying back and forth.
Simba began her life in the soundscape of a wild herd. She has spent the rest of it inside the soundscape of a theme park. It is worth pausing on what that actually means for an elephant. Elephants sense the world through low-frequency sound and vibration that travels through the ground, far below what human ears register. Busch Gardens', on their own website, recognizes that elephants communicate using infrasonic sound. In an environment engineered for human thrill, the coasters, the construction, the crowds, and the fireworks are not background noise to them. They are physical events that the elephants feel through the ground beneath their feet. And these theme park sounds rarely stop.
The public record shows the impact that can have on an elephant. In 2022, an elephant named Rosie collapsed during a fireworks event. She never fully recovered, and she was euthanized two years later. In December 2023, during another fireworks event, Karnaudi, Simba’s only remaining companion who she relies on for socialization, pressed her head against a large tree placed in the enclosure, a behavior associated with aggression and agitation in elephants. She then ran into the pool and tried to climb its rock wall with both front feet, as though trying to leave the habitat. Earlier this year, another elephant, Carina collapsed three times over six days and was euthanized.
Busch Gardens’ record speaks for itself.
Since early 2026, Weeping Elephant Project has been documenting the elephant program at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay. In October 2024, formal complaints were filed by park keepers with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). Nearly two years later, there is no public sign of a response, and no independent review of the herd has taken place. The park is AZA accredited, but that accreditation is voluntary and self-regulated, and the oversight sits uncomfortably close to the accredited. The current chair of the AZA board is also the Chief Zoological Officer of United Parks and Resorts, Busch Gardens' corporate parent (formerly SeaWorld Entertainment).
For World Elephant Month, Weeping Elephant Project and our friends at the NhRP are coordinating a few key actions to help secure the freedom and release of the three elephants at Busch Gardens. Today, we invite you to join us in asking United Parks and Resorts to allow an independent welfare review and to retire Karnaudi, Simba, and Tina to an accredited sanctuary.
