Weeping Elephant Project

The great majority of our matters come to us through existing and new clients. In those instances, ADP acts in its capacity as the attorneys representing our client’s interests, which is the core of ADP’s work.

On a very limited basis, we also pursue special projects and causes in our capacity as advocates, rather than as attorneys for a client. We may do this on our own or in collaboration with other animal protection organizations.

As an example, ADP co-founder David Ebert has had a long-standing personal interest in the treatment of elephants in the U.S. and, specifically, the plight of elephants held in captivity.

Typically the captive elephants are quite poorly treated and cared for, housed and transported in deplorable conditions, prone to developing chronic health issues, and left to languish in deep emotional despair and relentless physical agony. This neglect, trauma, and abuse shortens their life expectancy substantially compared to elephants in the wild, which, under the circumstances, may stand as a stroke of unintended mercy.

These elephants are most often separated and taken from their mothers as babies, shipped in terror across the world as freight, and enslaved in a desolate existence with no other elephants or sources of comfort contact, often for the duration of their abbreviated lives. Baby elephants may be "trained" into compliance through a process known as “the crush,” which can include being restrained and beaten for several weeks.

These circumstances are particularly devastating for elephants, who, as we now know, are complex, intelligent, and intensely emotional and social beings. That we do this is an atrocity.