Jemma Bullock: Elephants in the Time of Coronavirus

Species Unite

elizabeth novogratz

Philosophy, Society & Culture

5.0 • 911 Ratings

🗓️ 25 June 2020

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When the pandemic first hit and tourism all over the world shut down, thousands of captive elephants across Asia went from being very much in demand to being out of work, meaning they are struggling and many of them are in dire situations.

Whether these elephants are from places where their lives are really good, like certain sanctuaries, or from places where their lives are incredibly difficult, where they are forced to give rides, perform tricks and spend they rest of the day on horribly small chains, they have all been affected by the pandemic.

Jemma Bullock runs a project called ELIE at Elephant Valley Project (EVP) in Eastern Cambodia. EVP is one of the very good places to be an elephant. These elephants live in the forest, eat whatever they want, aren't ridden or bathed or used as selfie props, they don't have to do anything except be elephants.

In normal times, tourist visit EVP but they don't interfere with the lives of the residents. They go out into the forest and hike with the elephants and watch them in their natural habitat. It's a pretty incredible place. But, like everyone else, EVP shut down to visitors in March and until then, ecotourism was 90 percent of their income.

To survive the crisis, they had to shut down their second sanctuary in Thailand, and have been relying on grants and donations. The fact that they can receive grants and donations makes them much more fortunate than most.

I spoke with Jemma about life at EVP and what it's been like since the pandemic started. So far, 2020 at EVP has been a lot like many people's year– unpredictable, difficult, and absolutely insane. Not only have they been navigating the loss of income, tourism, and an entire sanctuary, but they've also had some days (and weeks) that they barely survived – including a three-week stint with a wild elephant on the loose, stealing one of their females and sending the humans up into the trees.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	We get there and it's actually a huge deforested area where there's an old bomb crater from the Vietnam War
0:07.3	where the new farmers had actually dug down the sides and made it like a water catchment that unfortunately 11 elephants had fallen into. Hi, I'm Elizabeth Novakrat's, this is Species Unite. Today's episode is about captive Asian elephants.
0:36.0	If you like today's episode and you have a spare minute,
0:40.0	please do us a favor and rate and review on Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to
0:45.7	podcasts. The reason that today's episode is about Captivation Elephants is
0:51.2	because I keep reading a lot of stories and hearing a lot of
0:55.0	rumors about what's been going on since tourism shut down when the pandemic
0:59.4	began in terms of what's happening to the elephants.
1:03.0	Whether these elephants are in places where their lives are really good,
1:06.0	like certain sanctuaries,
1:08.0	or they're in really difficult hard places
1:11.0	where usually people are riding them or they're made to perform tricks.
1:15.0	All of these places are struggling massively right now because all of the elephants are out of work.
1:20.0	So I got in touch with Jemma Bullock. Jemma runs a project called
1:24.5	Elli at Elephant Valley Project in eastern Cambodia and it is one of the very good
1:30.5	places to be an elephant. These elephants live in the forest, they eat whatever
1:34.8	they want, nobody rides them, they really don't have to do anything except be elephants.
1:40.2	And when people do come there, they go out in the forest and they walk with the elephants and just see them in their natural habitat.
1:48.0	It's a pretty incredible place.
1:50.0	So I spoke with Jemma about life at the Elephant Valley Project and what it's been like since the pandemic started. Can you just talk a little about yourself and how this became your life. How you ended up working with elephants in the jungle in Cambodia.
2:17.0	Yeah, I mean in a very, very long story short, I am I have been passionate about animals my entire life. My mom always said she thought she would pack me off on a plane one day to Africa to work on some kind of conservation program and I would never come back.
2:36.0	So all throughout high school I wanted to be a vet or some kind of thing like that.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from elizabeth novogratz, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of elizabeth novogratz and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.