{"id":9542,"date":"2025-07-31T07:59:58","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T07:59:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/?p=9542"},"modified":"2025-07-31T07:59:58","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T07:59:58","slug":"for-nearly-40-years-shes-swayed-in-silence-her-only-companions-the-echoes-of-a-life-she-never-chose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/?p=9542","title":{"rendered":"For nearly 40 years, she\u2019s swayed in silence, her only companions the echoes of a life she never chose."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This elephant\u2019s life is defined by concrete \u2013 the floors are concrete, the walls are concrete and even the \u201ctrees\u201d are concrete.<\/ins><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mali, a 43-year-old Asian elephant, was actually born in the wild in Sri Lanka. But when she was just a baby, people ripped her away from her family and transported her to the Manila Zoo in the Philippines, where she\u2019s lived for the past 40 years.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Mali<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Since Mali\u2019s arrival at the zoo in 1997, she\u2019s lived in the same, barren concrete enclosure. Initially, two other elephants lived with her, but they died not long after Mali arrived, Jason Baker, vice president of PETA Asia, told The Dodo. Very little is known about those other elephants or how they died.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Mali<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you see Mali, you can\u2019t help but imagine what the last four decades have been like for her, and the misery, boredom and loneliness she has endured,\u201d Fruno said. \u201cMali had already been at the zoo for nearly 10 years by the time I was born. Through everything I\u2019ve done in my life, Mali has been alone, staring at the same cement walls of her enclosure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Mali<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cIn a truly heartbreaking display of the impact the Manila Zoo has had on Mali, she\u2019s been observed walking to the edge of her pen and reaching out her foot in the hope of taking one more step,\u201d Baker said in a statement. \u201cWhen she realizes that she has reached the end, Mali steps back and tries again \u2026 and again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Mali<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cFinally realizing that there is nowhere to go, a dejected Mali walks aimlessly around her enclosure, picking debris off the ground,\u201d Baker added. \u201cOther times Mali paces incessantly or merely stands in one spot with her trunk to the ground. It is painfully clear that Mali is profoundly despondent. Her keen mind is a great, blank slate that cannot be filled by anything at the Manila Zoo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mali\u2019s physical health is also suffering. In 2012, elephant expert Dr. Henry Richardson suggested that Mali has several different foot ailments \u2013 which are common among captive elephants \u2013 including cracked nails, overgrown cuticles and cracked foot pads. They likely come from living on a concrete floor, instead of natural terrain.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Mali<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Since 2009, PETA Asia has been trying to convince the Manila Zoo, which is a government-run facility, to retire Mali and allow her to be transported to a sanctuary, but the zoo has yet to move her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The zoo has previously argued that Mali is too old to be transferred to a sanctuary and that she wouldn\u2019t survive the trip, but Fruno has a different opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Mali<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cAround the world every year, elephants of all ages are successfully transported from zoo to zoo, from location to location by circuses, and from zoos to sanctuaries by truck, plane and train,\u201d Fruno said in a statement. \u201cTransporting elephants is a common practice, and if it\u2019s done carefully, it can be done without causing significant stress to the animal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Mali<\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This elephant\u2019s life is defined by concrete \u2013 the floors are concrete, the walls are concrete and even the \u201ctrees\u201d are concrete. Mali, a 43-year-old Asian elephant, was actually born in the wild in Sri Lanka. But when she was just a baby, people ripped her away from her family and transported her to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9543,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[308],"tags":[1443,1444,1445,1442],"class_list":["post-9542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-animal","tag-animalrights","tag-sanctuarylife","tag-setthemfree","tag-silentsuffering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9542"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9544,"href":"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9542\/revisions\/9544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topkeynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}