Episode 67: Rethinking elephants- The Bigger Conversation

In this week’s episode, we catch up with Kat and Scott. While they’re still busy providing documentation to SEMA, we’re happy to share that the temporary suspension of the sanctuary’s operating licence has been lifted.

We also celebrate one very dedicated listener with our first-ever Global Rumblings Podcast Binge Award of 2025 — after listening to every episode in just one month.

For the past three seasons, we’ve been catching up on the last ten years of Scott and Kat’s lives since arriving in Brazil. Now, it’s time to zoom out.

We introduce a new multi-part series, Rethinking Elephants: The Bigger Conversation — a deeper exploration of who elephants are, what science now understands about them, and the larger ethical questions surrounding captivity.

Over the coming episodes, we’ll explore elephant society and communication, trauma and social disruption, neuroscience and welfare research, the physical costs of confinement, the history of captivity, modern conservation debates, why society continues to accept it — and ultimately, what an ethical future for elephants could look like.

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The episode transcript can be found here.

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Who we are: Global Sanctuary for Elephants exists to create vast, safe spaces for captive elephants, where they are able to heal physically and emotionally. There are elephants around the world in need of sanctuary, but too few places exist to be able to care for even a fraction of the elephants. International support is necessary to build sanctuaries for elephants in need of rescue and rehabilitation. Our pilot project is Elephant Sanctuary Brazil where former zoo and circus elephants from across South America live their best lives.

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