Bearing Weight

In 2008, Courtney walked into the Oregon Zoo while working on a film about animals and saw an elephant named Packy pacing back and forth in a steel-barred enclosure. He was 47 years old. He had been doing this every day of his life. In that moment, Courtney experienced what she calls satori — a sudden, full recognition of another being's experience. Not observation. Not sympathy. Understanding. Sh...

For the first time in years, Jordan World Circus is touring without elephants. In early 2026, the circus confirmed it would not use elephants for the rest of its tour. In this episode, Danielle and David sit down with Debbie Metzler of PETA to unpack how that decision came about, what it means for the elephants who had been on the road, and whether it will hold. At the center of the story is Viola...

Sangita Iyer didn't set out to make a film that would be nominated at the United Nations General Assembly. She set out to tell the truth about what was happening to elephants in the temples of Kerala — and the truth turned out to be something the world needed to see. In this episode, Sangita takes us inside her decades of work documenting the plight of temple elephants in India — the suffering hid...

Frank Pope came to elephants by accident. He spent years with his eyes fixed on the ocean, until he looked into the eye of an elephant in Samburu and felt the same thing he'd felt looking into a whale's eye. That was enough. In this episode, Frank takes us inside the research engine at Save the Elephants, from using AI to assess camera-trap footage to reveal that scientists were missing 30% of ele...

Steve Koyle didn't set out to be a disruptor. He just couldn't stop asking for more. In this episode, Steve takes us through 14 years as an elephant keeper at the Phoenix Zoo, and how his passion for elephant welfare ultimately led to him being fired. It was, he says, the best thing that ever happened to elephants. Today Steve travels the world through Elephant Care Unchained, showing up at zoos,...

What does it actually take for a traumatized elephant to begin to heal? And what does it mean to be a truly ethical traveler in a world where every venue calls itself a sanctuary? In part two of our conversation with Katherine Connor, we move from her personal story into the broader landscape of elephant welfare in Thailand. Kat takes us inside the recovery process at BLES — where no two elephants...

At 21 years old, Katherine Connor quit her job, left London, and flew to Thailand — drawn by a lifelong love of elephants she had never actually seen. What she found there would change everything. In this episode, Kat shares the origin story behind Boon Lott's Elephant Sanctuary — from traveling to over 30 elephant venues in search of one that truly put elephants first, to a chance encounter with...

What do the people on the front lines of elephant welfare and conservation have in common? They carry a weight most of us will never fully understand — and they carry it anyway. Bearing Weight is a podcast hosted by David Ebert and Danielle Carnahan of the Weeping Elephant Project, dedicated to bringing together the voices of researchers, sanctuary founders, and advocates doing the work for elepha...