Elephants are the gentle giants of the earth. Weighing in at up to 13,000 pounds, they are the heavyweight champions in Africa and Asia. Being so huge and friendly, however, has had some negative consequences.

Elephants in captivity live shorter lives.

Humans have a history of imposing our will upon gentle but useful creatures. In India, there are over 4,000 elephants living in captivity. Meet Karma – she was one of those elephants.

Recent estimates show that the life expectancy of wild elephants is within the range of 60-70 years. Captive elephants are usually dead before 40. Last Chance for Animals says,

“Captive elephants suffer from chronic health problems, such as tuberculosis, arthritis, and foot abscesses, which nearly always lead to premature death. Furthermore, attempts to breed in captivity have been largely unsuccessful. Only three of 11 African elephant calves born in zoos since 1998 were still alive as of June 2003. Of five Asian elephants born in the 12 months preceding June 2003, three are already dead.”

Premature death and health issues are often caused by ignorance and abuse.

Concrete is not the most comfortable thing to walk on. While many of us would only consider walking on concrete if we were wearing our Doctor Scholl’s, captive elephants spend most of their life on it. This results in painful foot sores and further complications.

Many of the keepers simply don’t understand the needs of the creatures and fail to allow it the necessary living conditions.

Too much sugar.

A human’s diet is supposed to be varied and rich with different nutrients and minerals. The same goes for elephants. Karma, and most other captive elephants in India, live primarily off the dried remains of sugar cane production. This is incredibly high in sugar and doesn’t bring the nutrient diversity to the elephant’s diet that it truly needs.

Wild elephants should be consuming over 100 different roots and leaves, making up the diversity in their diet. With a diet only consisting of sugar, however, many elephants develop intestinal infections that could lead to death.

The blind tour guide, Karma.

Karma is an ex-tour guide elephant who would give rides to tourists and perform certain load-bearing tasks. The crazy part? She is blind. Every day she would walk the streets and do her work in total darkness.

A story of redemption.

Not all stories end poorly. Karma was rescued by Wildlife SOS. Following the rescue, Karma was taken to the Elephant Care and Conservation Center in India. Here, she will be treated, loved, and taken care of, as an incredible and intelligent creature like her deserves.

In the following clip, you can see the gentle creature slowly stepping off of the wagon and entering into the next (and better) stage of life. Recent reports show that Karma’s feet are healing and she is a much happier and healthy elephant overall.

Wildlife SOS started a fundraiser and raised some money to go towards her expenses, even raising a few hundred dollars!

Watch the beautiful video below.

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Source: Wildlife SOS, Animal Channel