8/18/26 - Inside The Preserve: Elephant Exploitation Repackaged as an “Experience”
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In June, CompassionWorks International visited The Preserve in Texas to document what happens during its commercial elephant “experience.”
Our investigation documented normalized exploitation that is often easy for the public to overlook: a sustained pattern of elephants being handled, positioned, prompted, touched, and made to perform for paying visitors under the constant threat of a bullhook.
What CWI documented
The Preserve sells close access to elephants as an opportunity for education, connection, and friendship. But the experience offered to tourists depends on the elephants’ repeated participation.
CWI’s footage shows Rosie subjected to bathing by dozens of tourists. Afterward, she is prompted to perform a headstand.
Visitors are permitted to touch the bottoms of elephants’ feet. An elephant is made to hula hoop while holding a circus-style pose. Rosie is made to paint. Another elephant lifts a staff member from the ground. Throughout the experience, the elephants are directed into unnatural movements and positions for the benefit of the audience.
In one especially clear moment, a handler uses a bullhook to make an elephant lift her trunk higher so visitors can see inside her mouth.
No single clip must carry the entire case. The footage shows a cumulative system of compulsory participation:
Tourist access to elephants’ bodies
Repeated touching and bathing
Positioning and prompting by handlers
Staged tricks and performance behaviors
The use of physical control
Commercial intimacy sold to the public as connection
Elephants do not need to be beaten in front of an audience for their treatment to be exploitative. Requiring them to submit to repeated handling and perform for paying customers is itself the problem.
The exploitation did not disappear. It was repackaged.
Public opposition has made traditional elephant circuses and other performances increasingly difficult to defend. But the underlying belief that elephants exist for human entertainment has not disappeared.
Instead, it has been given gentler language.
The performance becomes an “experience.” Tourist handling becomes “connection.” Tricks become “behaviors.” Access to an elephant’s body is presented as education or friendship.
The vocabulary changes. What is required of the elephant does not.
A painted canvas may appear more wholesome than a circus ring. A tourist bathing an elephant may appear less troubling than an elephant ride. But both depend on an elephant being made available, handled, directed, and used to create a marketable human experience.
Exploitation does not become conservation because the public is invited to participate.
The Elephants at The Preserve
The Preserve houses four Asian elephants: Kitty, Becky, Rosie, and Sophie.During CWI’s June 2026 visit, staff told visitors that Kitty is 59 years old, has been with the operation for 36 years, and is the oldest and largest elephant there. Becky is 39 and has been with them for 32 years. Rosie is 42 and has also been with them for 32 years.
Sophie, formerly known as Becky, was previously used by Carson & Barnes Circus and Endangered Ark Foundation before being relocated to The Preserve. She is approximately 57 years old.
Sophie was not on public view during CWI’s investigation and does not appear in our footage; however, she has been confirmed to be on-site.
These elephants have already spent decades living according to human demands. They deserve lives defined by their own needs, not by the expectations of paying visitors.
A founding-era CWI campaign
CWI’s history with the people behind The Preserve goes back to our earliest days.In 2013, before CompassionWorks International had formally launched to the public, our Circus Protest project was already campaigning against Have Trunk Will Travel. We created a dedicated website, Have Trunk Will Abuse, shared evidence of the company’s elephant training practices, and launched a petition that ultimately gathered roughly 10,000 signatures.
Over the years, CWI continued challenging Have Trunk Will Travel at public events, organizing protests, contacting government officials, and urging venues to stop using its elephants.More than a decade later, the business has a new name and a different presentation.
The fundamental problem remains the same.
Elephants are still being controlled, made to perform, and used to create entertainment experiences for humans.
Tell The Preserve to end these activities
CWI is calling on The Preserve to end:
Hands-on elephant encounters
Public elephant bathing
Staged tricks and performances
Other commercial public-contact activities requiring elephants to interact with tourists
