New Book Highlights Elephant’s Journey to Freedom

 

As we get ready to celebrate the Fourth of July and our overall freedom, it is sad to realize that we still live in a society that doesn’t recognize that animals deserve that same right to freedom.

As Nelson Mandela said, “For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

Did you know that, according to one estimate, there are 600 elephants in circuses and zoos in the United States? With her new book Last Chain on Billie, How one Extraordinary Elephant Escaped the Big Top, which will be released later this month, Carol Bradley hopes to inform people about the wretched lives of all circus animals so they will stop supporting them and to inspire circuses to phase out animal acts. She tells the story of how one emotionally damaged elephant overcame her dark past with the circus at a sanctuary in Tennessee. In the Fall edition of Friends of Animals’ Action Line magazine, we will have a book review of Bradley’s latest well-written and well-researched book.

We hope you enjoy these photos of Billie enjoying her freedom at the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. Happy Fourth of July. You can view the sanctuary’s elecam right here.