Every evening, Erika sets the pace.
She walks a familiar route through the forested grounds of the Elephant Rehabilitation Centre in Ban Santour, Haryana, and the herd follows — Lilly and Jasmine staying close, moving at her speed, pausing when she pauses. For the caretakers who have known Erika for over a decade, watching her lead is still something worth stopping for.
Because not long ago, she could barely stand without pain.
From Haryana’s streets to a forest sanctuary
Erika is around 65 years old. For most of her life before 2013, she walked not through forest but through traffic — a begging elephant on the roads of Haryana, covering long distances daily in noise and heat, lifting her trunk on command while strangers tossed coins. Her feet, built for forest floors, bore the strain of decades on asphalt and concrete. Her body was malnourished, her joints compromised.
When Wildlife SOS and the Haryana Forest Department tracked her down, her owner attempted to hide her as rescue officials approached. The team stayed with it, and within hours, Erika was loaded onto a transport vehicle and brought to the ERC — a 400-acre sanctuary run by Wildlife SOS in collaboration with the Haryana Forest Department, designed specifically for elephants who have survived captivity.
She was not the only one rescued that day.
A bond that survived loss
A few hours before Erika, another begging elephant from a different district of Haryana had made the same journey. Ella, then around 58 years old, was one of the most senior elephants to arrive at ERC. She was weak and cautious when she got there.
When Erika arrived hours later, the two bonded almost instantly — as though they had always belonged together.
This matters more than it might seem.
Captivity does not only damage an elephant’s body. It severs the social world that elephants depend on for their psychological well-being. In the wild, elephants live in tight multigenerational herds. They communicate constantly — through rumbles, chirps, touch, and movement. They remember each other across decades. When they are pulled from those structures and kept in isolation, or surrounded by fear and pain, the damage goes far deeper than the physical.
Rehabilitation, done well, has to address both. At ERC, that means veterinary care for damaged feet and arthritic joints, nutritional support, hydrotherapy, and mud baths — but also, critically, the chance to form bonds again.
Erika and Ella became the proof of what that could look like.
A herd built from scratch
Within the herd that formed at ERC, Erika became the dominant female — the one who set the pace on walks, whose lead the others naturally followed. Ella, for her part, became Erika’s steadiest companion, moving quickly to her side at any sign of distress, offering reassurance through trunk touches and low rumbling calls. She was Erika’s anchor through the transition from a life of hardship to one of safety.
When Lilly joined the herd in 2014, and later when Jasmine arrived in 2019, the two older elephants helped them settle. When Jasmine lost her own companion Daisy in 2023, it was Erika who helped her through it — taking her under her wing until she found her footing again.
The herd had become, in effect, a support structure — four elephants with entirely different histories, building something that resembled what captivity had taken from each of them.
Why saving an elephant is only the first step
India still has nearly 2,700 captive elephants. Many are used for begging, labour, temple ceremonies, and tourist rides. For wildlife organisations and forest officials, the challenge is not only rescue — it is what comes after.
Physical recovery from decades of captivity can take years. Psychological recovery can take longer. Many rescued elephants arrive unable to socialise, unable to trust, unable to rest without fear. The presence of a companion — another elephant who has been through something similar — can change the trajectory of that recovery in ways that veterinary care alone cannot.
At the rehabilitation centre, four rescued elephants formed a herd built not by blood, but by care — guiding, comforting, and helping one another heal from lives once shaped by captivity. Photograph: (Wildlife SOS)
Elephants that are built for long-term herd relationships suffer profound damage when those relationships are severed. Rehabilitation centres that understand this invest not just in medical infrastructure, but in the conditions that allow social bonds to form. ERC’s 400-acre forested space, its small carefully managed herd, its round-the-clock caretakers — all of it is oriented toward making that possible.
Ella passed away in April this year, from causes related to old age. She spent her final years in the herd she and Erika had helped build — walking the same forest paths, mud-bathing in the afternoons, surrounded by the others.
12 years on, still leading
The evening walks of Erika’s herd continue. Caretakers still hear the constant soft rumbles and chirps the group exchanges through the day.
The elephant who arrived in 2013 barely able to walk on soft ground — who needed a companion to find her footing, and found one, and built a family around that — now leads that family forward.
Twelve years is a long time. It is also, for an elephant healing from captivity, exactly how long it takes.
