Wow, I'm just seeing this and it's overwhelming. I did not know Ambika nearly as well as some of the rest of you who've been volunteering with or seeing her for so long. But she was easily one of the most inspiring and impactful individuals in whose presence I have had the honor to stand.
I lived in DC twice before - in 2015, and 2017. Not sure which go it was but I was blown away when I first learned Ambika's life story. I couldn't believe a wild-caught elephant from my home country of India was still alive and thriving in DC. Ambika became a living monument for me and I started making half-trips to the zoo in which I would literally get to the elephants, stand in Ambika's presence for a while, and then head back out dazed and overwhelmed with thoughts about how much the world, India, zoos and conservation have changed over the course of her life.
Ambika saw life in the wild in India as a calf - not just in the wild but in what might be forest areas lost in the intervening decades to agriculture and development. I liked to anthropomorphize a little bit here and think that she had memories of India. That I could hang in her presence and the two of us could think about the awesomeness of the country we've left behind...
...and of its atrocities. Because I can't imagine the trauma she must have gone through during the taming process to became a logging elephant. We hear stories of how it used to be done back in those early years of independent India. Distressed me more than once to see her and imagine all the suffering in her past - being caught, broken, worked, and transported across the world...
...only to see the gradual transformation of U.S. zoo and elephant-keeping standards, while the world outside her sphere of stimulus was doing the same. India came of age and went from being a hellhole for elephants to one in which - despite persisting captivity issues - wild populations are hanging on under strong protections. Conservation came of age and started viewing populations in zoos from a genetic health and education-over-purely-entertainment perspective. And elephant exhibits came of age, so the ex-logger could live out her last few years in a spacious, enriching complex with companions, keepers and visitors that loved and honored her.
I don't have y'all's extensive knowledge of the different individuals and dynamics of the Zoo's herd, and read posts here to learn more about them. But I've definitely experienced the enormity of her presence. This will sound melodramatic but I think meditating on her life has made me understand why my culture reveres elephants, even individual ones. The combination of their high intelligence and long lives gives them the same aura as human elders. I moved back to D.C. earlier this year to start a new job, and made pilgrimage-style visits to see her - my fellow Indian in D.C., my elder from whom to seek unspoken blessings. I grew up as an urban atheist hating on my countryfolk who go to elephant temples to get holy water sprayed on their heads from the trunks of genuinely abused domestic elephants, but with Ambika, I came to understand that impulse. Thank Ganesh she was in a significantly better condition than those others.
She was off-exhibit on my last go, but the keeper (I'm hating myself for forgetting her name, it's with M) was so nice as to take me out back to say one last namaste. Ambika was doing better than she had been in the days before that, so I'm glad I got to see her one last time in a happy state. She lived a long, turbulent and impactful life - I'm glad she didn't have to suffer for too much longer at the end.
Rest (or reincarnate) in peace and power, Ma Ambika. I hope
@AmbikaFan and others who were such devoted admirers find their own peace and power in remembering her, and especially that Bozie, the keepers and fellow elephants weather this loss as well as is possible. And let's all keep up our commitment to elephant conservation and wellbeing around the world.
