Do you want to see an elephant?

Or several elephants? Then check this out - the EleCam over at elephants.com, the home page of the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. It's a fantastic place ... a home to old elephants in need, for as long as they need it. If you read some of the back stories of the animals who live there, consider yourselves warned, it's really heartbreaking. Some of them were taken from the wild as babies and brought to the US to be trained for circuses. I don't even want to think about the traumatic experiences they must have gone through. This was way back of course that these things happened, in the 60s mostly for the elephants who are at the Sanctuary now. Before this practice became illegal. The Sanctuary is a place where these amazing animals can retire and live out the rest of their lives in natural surroundings, not in zoos or circuses, but in as close to the wild as can be managed for them. Like I said, it's fantastic. :-)

There are three EleCams to choose from - the Asian Habitat, the African Habitat and what they call the Q Habitat. (Q is for 'quarantine', I think.) Elephas maximus there too. They have mostly EM for obvious reasons, but two LA too. If you try the cams, don't give up if there's nothing to be seen ... check back again, you never know what you're going to see. Quite a lot of the time there's nothing. The Sanctuary is huge, it covers more than 2700 acres, so even though there are several cameras in each habitat, and the staff try to keep them on the elephants, there are often no animals to be seen. But you never know what kind of luck you'll have. Tonight I got to watch Tange, one of the LAs, grabbing some pre-dinner browse at the edge of the forest. Her friend Flora wandered past too. And right now, Shirley, the oldest resident (born in 1948!) is standing in the middle of the road and ... pondering where to go next, maybe. Aw, she walked off. Fantastic. :-)

Anyway. You should check it out. If you like elephants, you really can't let yourself miss it. :-)