Elephant Haven - A Sanctuary for Europe’s Circus and Zoo Elephants | Tony Verhulst and Sofie Goetghebeur | Ep 95

The World Vegan Travel Podcast

Click here for the show notes:
In today’s episode, we’ll be talking to Sofie and Tony who founded and run an elephant sanctuary, in fact, the first-ever Elephant Sanctuary in Europe. Seb and I met Tony and Sofie way back in 2018 when we went to visit The Elephant Haven European Elephant Sanctuary in France. We had been in contact with Tony asking if our group might visit the sanctuary for our Dordogne trip in 2020 and if we might visit during a scout.

They kindly agreed to show us around one beautiful spring day and what a lovely day it was. Now, I should add, that at this time, there were no elephants at the sanctuary yet. They spent a couple of hours showing us what they had built so far, their story, and their goal to try to be a place where elephants will live the rest of their lives in a much better situation than they were before.

As usual, Seb and I were in absolute awe of the work these people are doing. Of course that Dordogne trip in 2020 did not go ahead, but we have actually rebooted that trip and you could be visiting this sanctuary, a sanctuary that is not open to the public on our trip on our A Taste Of The French Countryside: Romantic Villages & Valleys with Colleen Patrick-Goudreau that is happening in September 2023! This trip still has a few spots available and you can join us and visit The Elephant Haven European Elephant Sanctuary in France and meet Gandhi and Delhi!

In this episode, we discuss

• How Sofie and Tony got involved in animal protection
• Why there is a need for an elephant sanctuary in Europe
• Why they decided to create this space for elephants
• What their long-term goals are for this sanctuary

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