Indian officials order elephants out of zoos, circuses

Animal rights advocates are heralding the decision, announced this month by officials with India's Central Zoo Authority, that the country's zoos and circuses will no longer be allowed to keep captive elephants. 

The decision means that all elephants living in India's zoos and circuses -- an estimated 140 pachyderms in 26 zoos and 16 circuses -- will be moved to "elephant camps" run by the nation's forestry department.  (Those elephants currently employed in logging camps or living in Indian temples -- by all accounts, a larger number than those in zoos and circuses -- are unaffected by the decision.)  In the camps, the elephants will be able to move freely in a large space and graze as they would in the wild. A group of mahouts will be employed to monitor their well-being.

"It's a free-roaming animal that travels a long distance, and very few zoos have large areas to provide free movement," B.K. Gupta, the zoo authority's evaluation and monitoring officer, told the Agence France-Presse of the decision to move the elephants. "The issue was with keeping them chained for long hours."

Your morning adorable: Elephants canoodle at new Thai elephant retirement home

Thailand's new Pang La Elephant Rehabilitation Center officially opened over the weekend, becoming the first facility of its kind in the country known for its love affair with elephants. 

The center, in Thailand's Lampang province, plans to care for up to 200 elderly and disabled Asian elephants; currently, about 30 elephants call it home, including several that are partially or completely blind, according to the Bangkok Post.  It's staffed by veterinarians and mahouts and run by Thailand's Forest Industry Organization. 

Pang La will care for elephant residents, like the two elderly pachyderms above, "until their last breath," Forest Industry Organization chief Manoonsak Tantiwiwat told the Bangkok Post.

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-- Lindsay Barnett

Photo: Elephants at the Pang La Elephant Rehabilitation Center use their trunks to pet each other Nov. 21.  Credit: Pongmanat Tasiri / European Pressphoto Agency

Pepper for pachyderms: Africa's Elephant Pepper Development Trust helps farmers and animals

For many residents of Botswana, Namibia and Zambia, elephants don't seem majestic so much as menacing. Elephants are largely protected from poachers in these nations, but many people whose crops and homes the animals have destroyed wish they weren't. Enter the Elephant Pepper Development Trust, which aims to help both the people and the elephants survive -- through elephants' culinary nemesis, pepper. Here's an excerpt from our colleague Robyn Dixon's story:

The Zambia-based trust trains African farmers to repel elephants by using chile peppers. Elephants hate chiles.

African farmers often burn chiles as a repellent, but it's not enough. The trust's method involves four simple steps, but takes a lot of work and commitment.

The method: 1) Leave 5 yards of cleared space between the forest and the fields. At night, smelling humans around, crossing the gap into a field makes the elephants nervous. 2) Plant a thick barrier of chiles around the field. 3) Put up a fence with rope that has jangling cans (which gives them a fright) and cloth flags coated with thick chile-spiked grease. 4) Burn chiles, making pungent smoke.

The trust guarantees to buy chiles grown from farmers and manufactures its own Elephant Pepper brand of chile spices and sauces, sold in southern Africa and soon to hit the U.S. market. (They are already available to U.S. customers via the group's website.) The profits go back into the trust.

"We say, 'We are not here to give you food or money,' " Osborn said. " 'We're here to give you an idea. It's up to you to take it up.' "

THERE'S MORE; READ THE REST.

Photo: Women sort chiles grown by local farmers for the Elephant Pepper Development Trust. Credit: Robyn Dixon / Los Angeles Times

Oklahoma couple sideswipes escaped circus elephant with their SUV

It's not unusual to see a deer or a cow crossing Oklahoma's rural highways. But an elephant?

An Oklahoma couple driving home from church nearly slammed into a pachyderm that had escaped from a nearby circus late Wednesday.

"Didn't have time to hit the brakes. The elephant blended in with the road," driver Bill Carpenter said today. "At the very last second, I said, 'Elephant!' "

Carpenter, 68, said he swerved his SUV at the last second and ended up sideswiping the 29-year-old female Asian elephant on U.S. 81 in Enid, about 80 miles north of Oklahoma City.

"So help me Hanna, had I hit that elephant, not swerved, it would have knocked it off its legs, and it would have landed right on top of us," he said. "We'd have been history."

The couple, who own a wheat farm, weren't injured. But the 8-foot, 4,500-pound elephant was being examined today for a broken tusk and a leg wound. A local veterinarian said it appeared to have escaped major injury.

Your morning adorable: Asian elephant calf goes for a swim at Australia's Taronga Zoo

At Australia's Taronga Zoo, the birth of an Asian elephant calf this summer was a cause for celebration. The calf, a male, was the first of his species to be born in an Australian zoo. 

The zoo held a contest to name the baby, for which it received about 30,000 entries. In the end, the name Luk Chai (pronounced "Look Chai") was selected for him. "We liked this name as it reflects his Thai heritage and means 'my son,'" according to the Taronga Conservation Society. "A word that sounds similar to Chai also means triumph, and our boisterous and inquisitive boy certainly is a triumph for the conservation breeding program."

Zoo staff report that Luk Chai loves swimming. He "learned really quickly not to get out of his depth in the water," keeper Lucy Melo said. "He goes into the moat at the end near the elephants' barn, which has steps making it easy for him to control how deep he gets."

He also enjoys wallowing in the mud and, if you can believe your eyes, soccer! See a photo of him playing with a giant soccer ball after the jump.

PETA protests Oregon wildlife park's car-washing elephants

The car-washing elephants at an Oregon wildlife park don't really get your car very clean -- but that's not the reason PETA wants the park to stop using them.

Wildlife Safari's website jokes that the spring and summer attraction, at which the park's African elephants "wash" the cars of visitors under the supervision of trainers, is "guaranteed not to get your car clean!"

The animal rights group wrote a letter Oct. 22 that called the elephant carwash "a gimmick that does nothing to foster respect for endangered species," according to the Associated Press. The group is particularly concerned with the elephant training tool known as a bullhook, or ankus, which is a metal rod with a hook at one end.

In an interview with Roseburg's News-Review newspaper, the park's general curator, Dan Brands, said the trainers use the bullhooks only as guides. And the car washing, he says, is a modification of a behavior the elephants do naturally and have been trained to do using positive reinforcement with carrots or yams.

Your morning adorable: Elephant calf is scared of his own sneeze

We never expected to see a baby-animal-sneezing video that rivaled the charm of a certain panda cub, but this elephant calf seems to do just that! (Naturally, we've awarded bonus points for the fact that he has a much larger nose than the panda, and therefore, a much more satisfying sneeze.)

-- Lindsay Barnett

Video: kikicat25 via YouTube

Your morning adorable: Elephant eats a pumpkin at Maryland Zoo Halloween celebration

As part of the Halloween festivities at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, even the elephants are getting the chance to celebrate our ghastliest holiday in style.  African elephants Felix (above, who, despite what her name suggests, is female) and her year-old son, Samson, will spend the weekend enjoying Halloween-themed enrichment activities before the zoo's visitors.  (Two of the zoo's other elephant residents, Anna and Dolly, will even get to smash pumpkins as part of the three-day event.)

Don't fret; the other animals aren't left out -- lions, leopards, chimpanzees, polar bears, penguins, giraffes, otters and other zoo residents will also participate in Halloween activities over the course of the weekend.

Felix is an unusual African elephant, because -- have you noticed? -- she doesn't have any tusks.  (She was born without them, according to the zoo.)  It's rare but not unheard of for African elephants to be born tusk-less, and the zoo reports that the absence doesn't slow her down one bit.

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-- Lindsay Barnett

Photo: Rob Carr / Associated Press

Your morning adorable: Rescued elephant calves frolic at Kenya wildlife center

Among the first to suffer as a result of Kenya's ongoing drought are the country's wild animals, and as we learned last month, even Kenya's elephants are being affected. 

One organization working to help them is the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, which has worked on behalf of Kenya's animals, particularly elephants and rhinos, since the 1970s.  (Dame Daphne Sheldrick, the organization's chairperson and the wife of the late naturalist for whom it's named, is widely recognized for her contributions to the field of wildlife rescue.  She's successfully hand-raised more than 80 needy African elephant calves, many of which were able to successfully return to the wild after benefiting from her expert care.  Earlier this year, she wrote a moving op-ed piece for The Times about the L.A. Zoo's controversial Pachyderm Forest project.) 

The Sheldrick Trust's facility is home to a number of needy African elephant calves, some of which (including the little guy above) were orphaned as a result of the drought.  Hopefully, thanks to the Sheldrick Trust's care, the worst is behind this little fellow; at any rate, he certainly seems to be having a good time playing in the mud. 

See more photos of the calves playing and eating after the jump!

Lawsuit aimed at halting L.A. Zoo's construction of Pachyderm Forest exhibit can proceed, appeals court rules

There's a new development in the long and passionate struggle between animal lovers over the fate of the Los Angeles Zoo's Pachyderm Forest exhibit, as a three-judge panel of California's 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled Wednesday to allow a lawsuit accusing the zoo of abusing elephants to go to trial. 

Attorney David Casselman, a longtime animal advocate who is also chairman of the board of an organization called Elephants in Crisis, filed the suit in 2007 on behalf of actor Robert Culp and real estate agent Aaron Leider.  But in short order, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled against them, saying the issues raised in the suit were political and not for a court to decide, our colleague Carla Hall reported on our sister blog L.A. Now.

Culp, the former star of the television series "I Spy," and Leider filed the suit under California's taxpayer waste statute, arguing that the Pachyderm Forest is a waste of money in light of what they call the zoo's abuse of elephants. They hope to halt construction of the $42-million exhibit, which has already faced intense opposition from those who say that the zoo's sole elephant, Billy, should be moved to a sanctuary rather than completing the expensive project. (The zoo has said it plans to eventually bring in additional elephants to live there with Billy after construction on the Pachyderm Forest is complete. But no firm timetable has emerged for the addition of other elephants, which are extremely social creatures. Billy's perceived loneliness is a major issue raised by opponents of the exhibit.) Construction has already been put on hold once, with the Los Angeles City Council voting in January to continue it.