Sri Lankan Activists Halt Baby Elephant “Gift” From Being Shipped to New Zealand
Sri Lankan Activists Halt Baby Elephant “Gift” From Being Shipped to New Zealand
In February of 2016, at a meeting in Colombo, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena gifted former New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, with the life of a six-year old elephant named Nandi.
The reason for this horrendously inappropriate and blindly inhumane gift from the Sri Lankan Government is to commend the “excellent bilateral relations” between the two countries.
However, for the moment, a group of 18 Sri Lankan animal activists have managed to temporarily halt the transfer in the Sri Lankan Courts, citing that removing this baby from her family would be cruel. "Sri Lankan elephants have very strong family ties and to take away a child is a sin," said Omalpe Sobitha, a Buddhist monk and one of the activists involved.
The court is due to hear the case later this month. Hopefully Sri Lanka’s Government is beginning to get the message that giving elephants lives away as gifts is unacceptable!