{"id":65,"date":"2014-07-09T16:16:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-09T16:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onetravel.com\/travel-trends\/animal-of-the-week-raju-the-captive-elephant-cried-when-he-was-freed\/"},"modified":"2018-10-04T11:17:17","modified_gmt":"2018-10-04T15:17:17","slug":"animal-of-the-week-raju-the-captive-elephant-cried-when-he-was-freed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onetravel.com\/going-places\/animal-of-the-week-raju-the-captive-elephant-cried-when-he-was-freed\/","title":{"rendered":"Animal of the Week: Raju the Captive Elephant Cried When He Was Freed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Animal of the Week: Raju the Captive Elephant Cried When He Was Freed \" src=\"\/going-places\/wp-content\/uploads\/files\/2014\/7\/crying-elephant-raju-rescued-chained-50-years-4.jpg\" alt=\"Animal of the Week: Raju the Captive Elephant Cried When He Was Freed \" width=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Meet Raju. Fifty years ago, awful human beings known as poachers stole Raju from his mother. His owners in the Uttar Pradesh area of India chained, beat, and starved him. Raju fed on scraps of food tossed to him by tourists and even ate plastic and paper to survive. Spiked chains around his legs made moving an excruciating experience and left permanent scars.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Animal of the Week: Raju the Captive Elephant Cried When He Was Freed \" src=\"\/going-places\/wp-content\/uploads\/files\/2014\/7\/crying-elephant-raju-rescued-chained-50-years-3.jpg\" alt=\"Animal of the Week: Raju the Captive Elephant Cried When He Was Freed \" width=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This month, Wildlife SOS staged a rescue to give this majestic animal a shot at the abuse-free life he deserves. In an attempt to foil their heroic deed, Raju\u2019s owner pulled the spiked chains around his legs tighter, shouted commands to terrify the elephant, and had people block access to the road.<br \/>\n\u201cWe stood our ground and refused to back down\u2014and as we did so, tears began to roll down Raju\u2019s face,\u201d Wildlife SOS founder Kartick Satyanarayan said. After hours of coaxing, Raju\u2014whose trust in humans was understandably depleted\u2014was loaded onto the rescuers\u2019 truck and on his way to freedom.<\/p>\n<p>Today, Raju is chain-free and lives with his adoptive family in a safe enclosure. He enjoys bananas, jackfruit, and cold showers\u2014and of course, glorious freedom. To learn more about how to help Raju, <a href=\"http:\/\/wildlifesos.org\/blog\/rajus-journey-freedom-photo-journal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Source <a href=\"http:\/\/www.the-open-mind.com\/elephant-raju-cries-after-being-rescued-from-50-years-of-suffering-in-chains\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">1<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.buzzfeed.com\/rossalynwarren\/an-elephant-cried-when-he-was-rescued-after-50-years-of-suff\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">2<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meet Raju. Fifty years ago, awful human beings known as poachers stole Raju from his mother. His owners in the Uttar Pradesh area of India chained, beat, and starved him. Raju fed on scraps of food tossed to him by tourists and even ate plastic and paper to survive. Spiked chains around his legs made [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel-tips-intel"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onetravel.com\/going-places\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onetravel.com\/going-places\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onetravel.com\/going-places\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onetravel.com\/going-places\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onetravel.com\/going-places\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.onetravel.com\/going-places\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98896829,"href":"https:\/\/www.onetravel.com\/going-places\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions\/98896829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onetravel.com\/going-places\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onetravel.com\/going-places\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onetravel.com\/going-places\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}