Greetings from Bulwagi! Conference attendees followed up the Nashville Zoo week with a post trip down south to see the Birmingham Zoo
Early October found elephant professionals and enthusiasts from across the United States and abroad gathering in Nashville, Tennessee, for the 36th annual Elephant Managers Association conference. These events provide a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with old friends, make new friends, share accomplishments, and just talk about elephants. We even got to experience the flavor of the Grand Ole Opry. President, Linda Reifschneider, and Secretary, Vanessa Gagne, were in attendance to represent Asian Elephant Support and Linda presented the past year’s projects and updates. It is always a pleasure to be able to share our efforts and to talk to the people that do so much for elephants on a daily basis, but still find time to help support our efforts. We gained a lot of new supporters and we were able to get our message out to a lot of new EMA members. Our information table was a busy spot for exchanging news and ideas! This year’s conference took a much different approach than those of the last few years; the main goal was to find out how we, as the elephant community, can best serve one another by becoming more cohesive. This change in attitude will not only improve the care of elephants at Western facilities, but that information can be shared to improve the lives of elephants around the world. We are very excited and pleased to be working alongside elephant professionals in the EMA to better serve elephants and their caretakers.