LONDON -- When Nikita Dhawan first saw Shankar at the zoo in India's capital last August, she said her"heart broke."
Dhawan, who is the co-founder of a youth-run animal welfare advocacy group called Youth for Animals, decided to launch a campaign last October seeking to send Shankar back home to Africa and spread awareness of the plight of captive elephants. Dhawan and her Youth for Animals co-founder, Nandika Karunakaram, started an online petition via Change.org that has since garnered over 130,000 signatures. They also sent letters to the zoo and various Indian officials, pleading for Shankar's release.
Dhawan argues in her petition that Shankar should be transferred to an appropriate wildlife sanctuary in Africa or elsewhere that has more ample populations of African elephants. If that's not possible, she says, Shankar should be moved to an elephant sanctuary in India. In 1930, as many as 10 million wild elephants were estimated to have roamed Africa. Today, that number has dwindled to about 415,000 after decades of
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I kept hoping this would be a happy story. Alas, no.