elephant wisdom

Sanctuary Memories: Rana’s Call to Her Sisters

As part of our ongoing Sanctuary Memories series, Kat shares a memory of Rana that she’s always felt was profound. It is a reminder that, though captive elephants approach healing in unique ways, elephants often know fairly quickly when they are in a safe and restorative place....

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How Elephants Deal With Loss

Because of recent discussions on Mara’s health, some questions arose on social media about what it means when elephants who are bonded lose a friend and the mental toll it might take on them after that loss. Of course, we will never know the emotions each individual experiences, we can…...

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Year in Review: Gratitude

We try to do a “year in review” post each December as the year comes to an end. When we sit to reflect on the past year, it is an interesting look back. It’s likely the same for many of you. Most years rarely go as planned, but this year…...

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Lady and Maia Show a Photographer Their “Good Side”

A journalist and photographer were here last week, working on an article about the sanctuary. While we do most interviews using audio or video calling, it’s helpful for reporters to come here and see the property in order to grasp the bigger picture. As guests, they are always supervised and…...

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Rana Bug: An Empathetic Elephant

Rana Bug showed her soft and concerned side this morning. One of our dogs, Minnie, makes a reverse sneeze noise from time to time. It’s nothing serious, and it generally lasts less than a minute. This morning she did it at the barn when Rana was already in the chute…...

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Happy New Year to All!

We’re not going to lie, we forgot it was New Year’s Eve, it’s warm and rainy and we have a new Rana bug, so each day blends with the next and it doesn’t remotely feel like December. Rana was the joy that ended 2018 for GSE. After spending a year…...

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