The devastation was unbearable. The fire chief gazed out over the charred remains of the circus tent in utter disbelief.
“How could this happen?” he stammered. Covering his mouth from the stench. Trying to understand the chaos that ensured that night.
“How could such a magnificent creature suffer such an intolerable fate?”, he asked the broken shell that was left of trainer standing next to him.
The trainer, uncovering his face to speak, “Habit, really. But never would I have dreamed that it was this ingrained.”
Before the two men, laid the remains of five, once majestic elephants. Four of which lay with only a rope loosely clinging to their ankles. But next to them was the much smaller frame of a baby elephant still chained to a heavy stake in the ground.
“I can understand if the mother and father did not want to leave their child’s side, but why didn’t these other two simply run out of the burning tent?”, ask the fire chief. “They were only being held by this toothpick in the ground”, as he easily pulled out the charred wooden stake still tied to one.
The trainer choking back tears answers, “You see that little one there? They all start with a heavy chain shackle on their ankle. Because the first few months they do try to break free and you will see them pulling so hard sometimes that the shackle will cut into their thick skin.”
The trainer continues as he turns back to the larger carcasses, “But they will slowly break… mentally… And as the do, we slowly lighten the shackles till their enormous ankles are being held by only a thin rope tied to only a wooden stake as you see. They possess the strength to easily pull free and break the anchor, but that habit built in them from a baby makes them stop as soon as they feel the slight pull on their ankle.”boardboardboardboardboard