WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW .....

There is an air of celebration in the village as the baby elephant, unable to move in any direction, awaits her fate. Young and old come to watch and participate in the spectacle before them.

One by one, additional ropes and steel cables are wrapped around her belly, legs, and feet—even her tail is bound. She desperately tries to thwart off her tormentors to no avail, using her trunk to push the ropes away and to defend herself from their painful blows. But there is no mercy. Her trunk and the sensitive skin between her toenails are hit with clubs and punctured with nail-studded sticks, and nails are inserted into her ear canals.

Bound and exhausted, she can no longer stand. Her legs give out, forcing her to hang by the ropes choking her neck or wrapped around her belly or to collapse against the sides of the cage. A jab to the ribs sends her momentarily upright again.

A village elder climbs on top of her and straddles her neck. He holds a stick attached to a long, curved, and pointed blade. Speaking in Thai, he delivers a message to the baby elephant, “Remember, if you don’t go against us, we won’t hurt you.” He raises the blade, spits on it, and sinks it into her head, directly between her ears. Each time he drives the blade into her head, he strains to work it back out of her tortured and bloodied flesh. Later, it is discovered that she has lost her ability to hear, most likely the result of this elder’s sadistic lesson.

The elder dismounts and two young men take his place. They casually sit atop her back, one smoking a cigarette. His cigarette break over, the man fervently works the pointed end of a stick into the wound in her head, placed there by the village elder. She roars in inescapable agony, lifting her head in a futile attempt to shake off this instrument of pain.

Dusk has fallen upon the village, and through the smoke of a campfire burning beside her cage, her sorrowful eyes reveal the fear and confusion of a baby elephant whose world has been turned upside down. Her mother is gone and she has been bound, beaten, and abused by those she trusted. However, her ordeal is far from over. For the next several days, she is denied food, water, and sleep. Taking shifts, the villagers beat her day and night, ensuring that her subjugation is absolute and complete.

A week later, witnesses to the beatings discover her tied to a tree outside the village. Her eyes are swollen shut, blood and pus run down her large, torn ears, and her body is covered with raw wounds. Footage of other caged baby elephants with diarrhea coating the backs of their legs is graphic evidence of the pure terror that they endure. Beatings will be used regularly for the rest of their lives to remind them “who’s boss.” Some will eventually snap from the strain of relentless abuse, attacking and killing mahouts and tourists.

Watch Videos (Warning! Graphic - what all baby elephants go thru)

http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/Prefs.asp?video=thai_elephants

First ever eye witness accounts to circus cruelty live on internet

For the first time film clips of violence inside circuses are live on the internet on the ADI website for MPs deliberating on the Animal Welfare Bill to view the evidence that has been amassed:
http://www.ad-international.org/media_centre/videos.php?g=1

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