Tania The Elephant Has Spent Most Of Her 39 Years Alone. Please Help Her Find A Family. *Updated*

This is Tania. Tania was just three years old when the rest of her herd was wiped out in 1978, and she has since been moved from zoo to zoo across Europe. The loss of her family, the loss of the freedom she had in the wild has left her isolated and showing signs of distress in a bare cage in Romania’s Târgu Mureș Zoo. The only thing to ‘play’ with is a ball, which now is difficult since she has a damaged foot that is made worse by walking on rubber floor that is constantly moist with urine and faeces because of no draining. She also have a cracked nail of a front foot. The following video was captured January 25 2013, in it you see how she lives, how she keeps swaying from side to side. Notice her foot that she don’t want to touch the floor with probably because of the pain. Notice that cold cage and behind her the wet sand she sleeps in:

Instead of being placed with other elephants after her family died, Tania was sold to the Plaisance-du-Touch zoo near Toulouse, south-west France, where she remained isolated for around a quarter of a century. In 2004 Tania was moved to the Terra Natura zoo in Benidorm, Spain, where she was temporarily placed with another female elephant, Khaiso, who also had a difficult past. The two quickly became inseparable. But the zoo got into financial difficulties she was again sold off, and in 2009 was taken to Le Barben zoo in France, whose herd did not accept her so she was moved in 2011 to Le Cornelle near Milan, Italy – where the same thing happened. She has now spent more than a year at this current zoo. Alone. And know that Indian elephants can grow to be around 55-70 years old… She now have access to an outdoor enclosure too. Which consists of trees and a little ‘pool’ which she has problem accessing. There are no other animals in there for company. No other elephant. Just Tania standing there day after day after day. Swaying. She has also been seen banging her head against the walls.No healthy happy elephant does that. They are highly social animals that shares strong bond with their family in a herd. They feel strong feelings of sorrow when a member of their family die. An elephant herd is considered one of the most closely knit societies of any animal, and a female will only leave it if she dies or is captured by humans. And there we have Tania today, captured and no one to talk to. Tania needs to come to a sanctuary. She needs to learn how to be an elephant again and to be in a herd, to have one friend. This so-called life she lives has been way too long and hard for her. Don’t you think?

The latest video on Tania is uploaded by some visitors to the zoo. They do seem to think that she is dancing though since they are applauding….

So what can we do to help Tania? 

Update February 25 2014: 

There are a petition running for Tania that I hope you will sign so we can continue to work to free her from her lonely prison. Enough is enough! Big thank’s to Mark for bringing it to my attention!

You can find and sign it here: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/956/417/286/free-tania-the-elephant-from-tirgu-mures-zoo-in-romania/

You can read more about her here and the campaign to get her away from this zoo at the Free Tania from the Tirgu Mures Zoo in Romania

You can contact the zoo directly through their facebook page Tirgu Mures Zoo

You can also contact Mr Martin Van-wees who is the chairman of EAZA ( European Association of Zoos and Aquaria) He is the EEP chairman of Asian Elephants where you tell him of your concerns for her and that they need to act promptly. His email is: m.van.wees@rotterdamzoo.nl The sad part is that I heard that he don’t care too much about Tania’s situation though.

You can also sent mail or email here: Executive Director: lesley.dickie@eaza.net
Email the European Commission.
1.Director: janez.potocnik@ec.europa.eu
2. SG-PLAINTES@ec.europa.eu
Attention: Ion Codescu, Head of Enforcement.

Thank you for visiting and caring ♥