Last Chain On Billie: How One Extraordinary Elephant Escaped the Big Top

As part of the largest elephant rescue in American history, Billie wound up at a sanctuary for performing elephants in Tennessee, able once more to roam through open meadows and share her days with a herd. She would never be beaten again. For decades, Billie crisscrossed the country, dazzling audiences as she performed breathtaking stunts. But behind the scenes she lived a life of misery: traveling in trucks, chained for hours on end, barely able to move, giving eight-minute performances under harsh lights and to the sounds of blaring music. Instead, traders captured her as a baby and shipped her to America, where she learned to carry humans, stand on a tub and balance on one leg – the full repertoire of elephant tricks. And worse.Finally, she got a lucky break. Her caregivers began to wonder if Billie could ever escape her emotional wounds. Against the backdrop of a glittering but brutal circus world, Carol Bradley's Last Chain on Billie charts the history of elephants in America, the inspiring story of the Elephant Sanctuary and the spellbinding tale of a resilient elephant who defied the system even as she struggled to conquer her past, who never lost sight of the life she was meant to have.Left in the wild, Billie the elephant would have spent her day

Although she learned difficult tricks and was a star, Billie rebelled and began to be known as a difficult elephant, gaining a reputation for attacking her trainers. Meanwhile, two former elephant trainers had grown disenchanted with circuses and the distorted lives that circus elephants lived, and they decided to found a sanctuary for former performing elephants in Tennessee. Department of Agriculture over her ultimate fate, and of Billie’s eventual adjustment to a life of freedom, Bradley’s newest (after Saving Gracie, 2010) has produced a well-researched winner. --Nancy Bent . Full of details of the brutal life endured by performing elephants, of battles between Billie’s owner and the U.S. After several years in a private zoo, she joined the circus, where she was trained to perform. Circuses are an extremely demanding environment for elephants, with constant travel from one town

Jessica Lynn said Last Chain touches the heart. I could not put this book down. Carol did an amazing job of explaining the history of elephants in captivity and Billie's journey through it all. I heard of this book through The Elephant Sanctuary, as I love to visit their website and watch the Ele-Cams. This book made me laugh and cry and feel outrage over the injustice these beautiful creatures have to endure. I am thoroughly disgusted by the lack of punishment against Cuneo and circuses in general that abuse their elephants and cannot fathom why they are allowed to get away with such cruelty. Thank God for The Elephant Sanctuary and the amazing work that they do in providing a safe . Many tears, few of joy I have to confess, I'm a sucker for punishment and I read a lot of books on animal welfare and I particularly love stories about elephants. Most of my reading has been with African based tales, but I thought I would enjoy this story as well. I did enjoy it very much, it is loaded with the history of circuses, loaded with so much reference to abusive treatment that these poor magnificent creatures have had to suffer at the hands of man.it is truly heartbreaking and disgusting. I would say 60% of the book is devoted to the discussion of circus life, lawsuits, charges against offenders etc. and the remainder dedicated to those people who d. An Excellent Document on the Lives Circus Elephants in Captivity Must Endure PNV Earlier this year at a circus protest I was participating in, a woman who stopped for a traffic light in front of me looked out her window at my "The Circus: No Fun for Animals" poster I was holding and asked me "Why are you protesting this circus and why is it no fun for animals?". At the time, my response was pointed and specific to the plight of the circus elephant, explaining how these intelligent and sentient beings are essentially living their lives in slavery, being beaten into submission to perform tricks and stunts that they would not normally do for any reason as an elephant in the wild. The next time I am asked that question,