On March 14, 2007 Clara’s 50 years of imprisonment came to an end. She was euthanized after suffering for so many years. Although we wish Clara could have had one day of freedom-it was not to be. Now CLARASVOICE will speak for her dear friend and companion, PEARL. Pearl was Clara’s protector and never far from her side. Now PEARL must grieve alone. She was always with Clara and away from the rest of the ‘herd’.
Pearl has her own health problems. She has a prolapsed uterus (outside her body) from birthing Raja . Pearl is incontinent. She has constant urine scalds down her rear legs and feet. She has suffered from countless urinary infections, which could become systemic and risk her life.
It was too late for CLARA. IT IS NOT TOO LATE FOR PEARL! PEARL MUST BE SENT TO SANCTUARY
NEW PHOTOS OF PEARL
PEARL ONE YEAR AGO
Pearl, DONNA AND SRI
PEARL APPEARS TO HAVE LOST A GREAT DEAL OF WEIGHT.
PEARL ISRAJA'S MOTHER AND WAS CLARA'S DEAR FRIEND AND COMPANION. see video home page
PEARL WAS OBSERVED 'ROCKING' VIOLENTLY IN THE CORNER FOR AN HOUR. THIS IS A CAPTIVITY INDUCED NEUROTIC BEHAVIOR. ( www.helpelephants.com)
COMPARE THE PHOTO OF PEARL ONE YEAR AGO .
ALSO COMPARE HER TO DONNA AND SRI WHO LOOK ON.
ASK YOURSELF 'WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEARL?"
THAN ASK THE ST. LOUIS ZOO.
SEE THE 'CONTACTS' PAGE FOR INFORMATION.
PLEASE CALL AND WRITE FOR PEARL!
legs are covered with urine burns, weight loss shows her backbone protruding, her condition is worsening
1. Personally I know of one other case in a free-living ele, so I don't
think that it would be feasible to claim that this is strictly
"captivity" caused. Sadly we are severley limited when it comes to
intervention during elephant parturition and basically they are left to
resolve themselves with time, which luckily usually works. However if
anything is seriously wrong the cow dies in time, which is very
frustrating.
2. Cows can get chronic cystitis, but I would suspect from the history
that the uterine prolapse worsened any pre-existing cystitis, probably
because the neck of the bladder was pulled out of position and can't
now effectively close. On cost/benefit analysis corrective bladder
surgery would be ill-advised with current techniques, as the risk of
death is too great. (Personal note- I believe the only real alternative
to open abdominal surgery in these huge mammals is keyhole surgery via
endoscopy and this would take the development of extremely long and
expensive surgical endoscopes which is probably economically daunting.
In such massive beast, genral anaesthesia and recumbency for hours of
surgery are physiologically unsustainable in my opinion). So for now
other than monitoring and treating the inevitable intermittent urinary
infections, there is little that can be done sadly. It is highly likely
that she has a low grade background septicaemia as a result.
3. The key flooring to avoid for chronic cystitis is concrete as this
pools the leaking urine which rots the skin of the feet. So she would
be better on, deep litter, peat, saw shavings, straw indoors and grass
or deeper sand (ie not sand covered concrete rock) outdoors in my
opinion. The problem would be on deep litter indoors if she started to
eat it, it could make things worse by causing impaction colic, or even
poisoning if "treated" saw dust/shavings is mistakenly used. So
observation is key and ad lib hay overnight to prevent this.
