Conservation Activities/Successes ”Elephants of Paradise” Proves the Power of Documentary Film: In 1998 our Executive Director Philip Price was film assistant on “Elephants of Paradise.” The film resulted in documenting actual events around elephant translocations. It was an exciting film and indoctrinated Philip forever into loving Sri Lankan culture and its elephants. After reviewing the film, the Ministry radically shook up the wildlife department by hiring 6 additional veterinarians to replace the sole veterinarian that filled that role. Untold numbers of elephants lives have been saved in these past 20 years, and this proved the power of film in effecting beneficial change. We are most grateful to producer/filmmaker Stefan Quinth of CameraQ, Sweden for his compassionate work in Sri Lanka and India. Price and Quinth are reuniting this February 2017 for yet new adventures, while making conservation and culture focused films.
TripAdvisor Ends Promotion of Elephant Rides Trip Advisor is a world leading and influential online tourist agency that books hotel rooms and recreational events. SavingGanesh participated in a campaign to stop TripAdvisor from promoting and booking elephant rides at worldwide locations. We published many stories and articles about the abuse of training and supporting these tourist elephants, while asking our followers to write directly to TripAdvisor. The tourism agency announced this year that they will stop promoting these tours - we are grateful for the responsiveness of our followers, and our cousin Asian elephant conservation groups.
Ringling Bros. Ends Elephant Shows Influence of SavingGanesh.org: Tour Executive Director Philip Price was invited by the Director of Wildlife Health to join a meeting between himself and three senior executives of Feld Corp (parent company of Ringling Bros.). Our Director said “you know that there is a steamroller of public opinion against Ringling Bros. use of elephants?” The chief executive and others heads were slumped low at the time, and the most senior executive said: “we are aware of that.” Interestingly, all three appeared “karmically injured” is how it can be best described. Within two weeks, they announced an end to such elephant exploitation. SavingGanesh.org’s influence continues to grow - we are a leading voice..combining science based approaches with conservation objectives.
Social Media: The Power of Public Pressure Social media is a huge force in influencing public opinion and government policy. SavingGanesh continues to build upon it’s large Facebook presence as one of it’s most popular pages for Asian Elephant conservation. Our posts, videos and pictures sometimes reach half a million people in one week! We average 10,000’s of weekly views, allowing us a huge voice in the cause of elephant conservation. Thank you for following!