The Elephant that changed my life

A few months ago, the world was heartbroken. An elephant was subjected to malicious murder, in the name of a prank. Mid-corona season, the attack took place in India, where a wild, pregnant elephant was fed a pineapple that had been stuffed with firecrackers by locals. 

The wild elephant must have been roaming an unfamiliar village, in search of food, when she had been offered a pineapple. Moments after biting into the fruit, the firecracker exploded, mutilating her mouth and jaw. I can’t even begin to fathom the pain she must have felt, more so the fear. Not for her crushed tongue or obliterated jaw, but for the baby she was expecting in the next year. 

The gentle 15-year-old trusted and had more faith in mankind than I do, and took the fruit. Hungry and her mouth in excruciating pain, she shot through the village. She was petrified, in agony and desperate for sanctuary after that wicked betrayal. The most heart-breaking detail of all; even in blistering pain, she trod through the entire village, without injuring a single human or trampling a single house. Instead, she settled in a nearby river, cooling her trunk, in a desperate attempt to save her child. Despite authorities spending hours trying to rescue her, she stayed, she couldn't trust anyone anymore. Unfortunately, they both died. 

Upon reading this story, it haunted me. I lay awake the entire night, sobbing. I sobbed for the elephant, I sobbed for the child who’d been robbed of the chance of life. I sobbed for how disgraceful and disgusting human beings can be. I sobbed for how horribly the elephant had been betrayed. I sobbed for the vicious fact that we, as humans, have failed our duty to animals and mother nature.

We are responsible for the safety of all animals, most of all, this Earth is as much theirs as it is ours. The Earth is their home too and it’s because of how arrogant, selfish and narcissistic mankind is that animals, we have grown to know, are falling dangerously extinct by the day. That elephant didn’t belong to a sanctuary- she lived in the wild. Yet she still trusted those, who fed her that fruit, had good intentions and were good people. 

It boggles my mind to think that, people feel entitled to do what they please, when they please, to any animal. The confidence of certain individuals/groups- that can heartlessly ransack and destroy a habitat- honestly makes my insides turn. Rhinos are having their horns torn off, tigers are being skinned, elephants are having their tusks ripped off. According to the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), 55 elephants are being poached every day in Africa. It is also predicted that the African rhino will be extinct by 2025 from being hunted for their ivory horns. The World Wildlife Federation (WWF) reported that figures of tigers are still near 3,890 compared to 100,000 in the 1900s. It’s obscene to think that there are stats like this for every single animal, because humans are restless and obsessed with vanity, money or any other materialistic thing not worth killing animals for. Poachers murder animals and use their parts to decorate their houses, as some kind of sick trophy or as an accessory to their outfits. 

Since reading the story, I just couldn’t process how one could be so cruel towards a defenceless animal to whom we are ‘superior’ to. I felt guilty and ashamed to be a part of such a species, that could be capable of doing something this barbaric and inhumane. After 19 years, I wanted to make an actual difference and so I decided to stop eating meat. It didn’t sit morally right for me to sympathise, this greatly with animals, yet be somewhat of a hypocrite in doing so. Although this doesn’t make as miraculous of a difference as I’d want, it unfolds one person at a time.

Nature and animals are a gift that keep giving, regardless of how much we poach, malnourish, abuse and torture them. They give us such a chance and we hurt them every time.

Think twice, 

P xo

p.s Mad love to all my fellow vegetarians!!!