I want to foster or adopt an elephant (not in my home, silly). There are several organizations that I could donate to. How do I decide which one? In other words, how do you decide what charity/foundation/trust is the organization you give your money to?
I recommend the Performing Animals Welfare Society (PAWS).
From the website:
“The Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) captive wildlife sanctuaries are places where abandoned, abused, or retired performing animals and victims of the exotic animal trade can live in peace and dignity.”
And they do have a number of elephants you can ‘adopt’ right now.
http://www.pawsweb.org/meet_elephants.html
We fostered an Elephant Nature Park elephant after our visit there. They have an amazing park in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and most of their elephants have been rescued from logging, performing for tourists, giving rides, or begging in the cities.
The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, TN. 2700 acres to roam. Visitors are not allowed. After decades of being on exhibit, these elephants are allowed finally to just be elephants. Each elephant has an endowment and lives off the income of the endowment. When an elephant dies, the trust funds another elephant.
StG
I suggest you look up any potential recipient on Charity Navigator. PAWS, as mentioned above, has four stars, the highest rating. The Elephant Sanctuary in TN has three. You can search by keyword, and in the results, as well as the star rating, gives you some basic financial data to help inform your decision.
How about your local zoo foundation? Some zoos provide special benefits for sponsors, like tours, behind the scenes experiences, etc.
Seconding the Elephant Nature Park, very heartily. Mae Kham Pan, Mae Perm and Jokia are all big sweeties (as are they all, really).
Jokia was the one we fostered, in fact.
You should name him Stampy.
Another vote for the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. Best place in the world for an elephant, IMO.
You can follow their elephants through blogs and by watching the webcams - even donate supplies and materials rather than money if you like. The elephants live as naturally as possible, in herds - they only come into the barns if THEY want to. They have several thousand acres of habitat.
Elephants can’t be wild-caught anymore for zoos and circuses, in the United States, and since breeding them in captivity hasn’t been particularly successful, there are lots of “senior citizen” elephants ready for retirement and very few young elephants of breeding age. Many if not most of the elephant sanctuaries in the United States are focused on perpetuating the species - intensive breeding programs that do not focus on the long-term health and welfare of the elephants.
Ringling Brothers, for example, owns the most elephants in the US (and produces the most baby elephants) in their “sanctuary” program, because if they don’t, they’ll have no circus elephants in the very near future and it will hurt their business.
The Elephant Sanctuary, by contrast, ignores all that, and operates on a platform that elephants are not SUPPOSED to be in captivity, or performing, or intensive breeding programs.
How is the TB thing going in Hohenwald?
I think it costs extra if you want to name the elephant.
Its worth it!
Also remember, a man with a lot of ivory is less likely to need more than a man who’s virtually ivory free