Dear People of the World,

          As the saying goes ?East or West home is the best.? We elephants are privileged to have a home in the jungle. Despite life in the jungle being nasty and brutish we have a familial bond strong enough to bind all animal species. We have consistent and unique rules that man may not understand. For us the only difference between Elephants and man is the language.

Men tends to speak in language that only men understand. Elephants have a language that only elephants understand. Like men have feelings of love, pain, hatred emotions. We Elephants also have all that feelings. We also have a social organization within our community.

Whenever one of us is unwell. Other members of our herd will provide assistance by, providing security cover for the victim and stopping every time the victim stops to rest. Vulnerable members of our herds will often be found in the middle of the herd where there is least danger from external threats. The herd will lead the victim to forage and water.

We, Elephants hold the most elaborate funeral rites. As soon as the death of our member is confirmed. We divide ourselves into three functional groups. One group provide security to guard the dead body against destruction by hungry scavengers, another group leaves immediately to call distance relatives to come and help out in the mourning and burial arrangements, and the third group collects tree branches, leaves and twigs to cover the dead animal. During the Mourning period, we elephants forego our comfort and eat/drink very little.

We can survive in any habitat that has adequate quantities of water and food. Men has not considered our survival issues of concern. It is difficult for us elephants to live outside protected parks as we are pressured by poachers and by the habitat loss with increasing human settlement.

With the destruction of our habitat we are sometimes left to look far away for food as we are extremely vegetarian. Man has sometimes started fires in our homes and this leaves some of us injured and homeless.

Due to man?s activities like cutting trees our young ones suffer because they rely on water. We consume thirty to fifty gallons of water a day and without trees to tap the rain we are left in a desert to starve and die.

Why have you become so selfish and heartless so as to kill me to gain my tusks which are my pride? What if part of your body was chopped off?

You people can speak and understand each other. We communicate with an ear-splitting blast when in danger or alarmed only elephants can understand this language.

You have made snares, spears, machetes, iron traps, machine guns and riffles as your poaching tool. You inflict terrible pains and injuries and cause us torturous death.

You have also tried to ship us to other countries just to gain money in the name of boosting your economy. On moonless nights you switch on your powerful torches and helplessly frozen, we are hacked to death in what you called ?blind and slash attacks.?

If tourism as you claim is your second largest contributor to the economy, isn?t it then your responsibility to fight for elephants survival? You talk of human – elephant conflict yet you have taken my habitat away.

Why can?t I be free to move and look for my food? Why must I be locked up in small cages? How I miss the natural habitat of the wild.

          Part of my home has been grabbed and you carry out illegal activities like destroying the forest, for settlements, charcoal burning, clearing land for plantations, and setting up factories which pollutes the environment with suffocating and intoxicated poisonous fumes.

          You have no heart for me as long as your personal gains are achieved. You have killed so many of us in the bush scavengers wait in earnest for a celebration over my dead brothers and sisters. We die of hunger but unfortunately, you cannot bring relief food to us because we are animals

It is tragic!

My patience with man has run out now. I no longer have the energy to fight on. Most of the members of my herd have strayed out of the game reserve and invaded homes in search for forage.  For how long are we going to be refugees in our own country?

Dear people of the world, the early people killed animals for food but because they only killed what they needed the wild life population was not threatened. People lived in harmony with nature. Then when people started hunting animals for pleasure and not just for food, the balance was upset and the struggle for survival began.

Many of us have had to adapt to new surroundings and our families have been scattered. The bitterness we feel is beyond any explanation. We have nothing left to be proud of except wait to be attacked by cruel heartless men, who only cares for money.

Please man, when will you learn to live and let live? For this is what God meant it to be!

From,

The elephants of the world