Meet Walnut aka Wally, Our Adopted Elephant From Wildlife SOS

We like to support charity at Bartlett James because our team is made up of lovely people and lovely people generally want to help those less fortunate.

The charities we support with donations are chosen early in our financial year and sit in-line with our company vision and values so when we heard about poor Walnut, we couldn’t help but help.

You can read all about Walnut here.

Wildlife SOS came to be in 1995 in an attempt to protect and conserve India’s rich natural heritage. It became quickly apparent that the organisation would need to support the conservation of certain habitats whilst studying and researching the biodiversity and culture of the areas in which they found a thriving poaching community.

It was important for the group to take a holistic approach to rescue in order to help those communities. Where poaching was the “norm” for sustaining villages, Wildlife SOS strives to create other avenues of employment so that the local wildlife can remain protected.

Walnut was rescued along with 3 other elephants from a circus in Maharashtra in 2015. At the age of 18 years, he was subjected to a lifetime of abuse and torture where he had to perform unnatural tricks for the sake of entertainment. When he arrived at the Wildlife SOS Elephant Hospital campus, he was aggressive and uncomfortable as the only experience he had with humans was one that caused him pain.

Walnut will need love and medical care from humans for the rest of his life so, understandably, Wildlife SOS are always on the lookout for new donors to help give Walnut the life he deserves after so much struggle. Walnut is not the only elephant the charity takes care of, in fact, they have rescued 40 to date, with 28 of them currently residing at their Conservation & Care Centre near to Mathura. Wildlife SOS started out rescuing Sloth Bears from the tourism trade, successfully eradicating the Dancing Bear practice throughout India. Now their many projects include the rescue and conservation of bears, elephants, reptiles, leopards, tribal rehabilitation and many others across India. You can read about their projects here.

We have fallen in-love with Walnut, and we will keep you posted with his development.