Asia’s first empathy-building animatronic elephant, ‘Ellie’ visits Hyderabad school

Ellie will interact with thousands of local students, blinking her eyes and flapping her ears, just like a real elephant

Hyderabad: Students at Glendale Academy were treated to a special visit on Tuesday from a stunningly realistic life-size mechanical elephant named Ellie, voiced by actor Dia Mirza, as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India launched an empathy-building tour of schools in Hyderabad.

Ellie will interact with thousands of local students, blinking her eyes and flapping her ears, just like a real elephant, as she tells children an age-appropriate story about the trauma of being separated from her mother as a baby, the abuse she endured in a circus, and finally, her happy life at a sanctuary after her rescue.

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PETA India Senior Education Coordinator Meenakshi Narang said, “Ellie the mechanical elephant helps children understand that members of other species feel pain, fear, joy, and love – just like us – and that they deserve to live out their days in peace.”

Captive elephants used for entertainment are often abducted from their families and jungle homes, beaten into submission, and jabbed with ankuses – heavy batons with sharp steel tips – to control them through pain and fear. Many develop abnormal behaviour after years of strict confinement, and they are rarely given adequate food, water, or veterinary care, PETA India said in a press release.