LAURYN MURRAY: How close are me and Lady Essex? Well, just as close as a human and an animal can ever be.
LAURYN MURRAY: I grew up on a circus. Lady Essex became a part of our family before I was born.
She is an Asian elephant, she almost weighs 10,000 pounds. Caring for her, it's a full time every day job.
So, I get up, I have my coffee and take it straight to her, we go for a big long walk and then depending on the
weather, she’ll have a bath, she’ll drink water, I’ll feed her. And then throughout the day you just do the same kind of
things where you go out and you feed her periodically through day or we’ll do certain things like I’ll teach her
new tricks. Like throwing a ball or kicking a ball or she’ll play fetch with my dog you know, and just keeping her
interactive and, you know, stimulated as much as I can.
LAURYN MURRAY: So, elephants have over 40,000 muscles in their trunk alone. You know, that’s more than
the human body and they can drink up to like 60 gallons of water in one sitting. You want to? You want to?
LAURYN MURRAY: That’s also something a lot of people don’t know, they see them drink with their nose and they
think that they drink through their nose and they don’t. They just suck it up in their nose
and then spit it into their mouth.
LAURYN MURRAY: I’ve spent literally almost every day of my life with her since I was born. I know things about her
that I really couldn’t even put into words, it's more like a feeling. I have to admit, she has a very special
personality and I think that’s because she is a family elephant. She’s been with a family, my family, her entire
life you know, so it's given her a comfort and a security to develop into having such a character.
Pick me up. Pick me up. Here’s one of the reasons again why I advocate for, advocate for private ownership of
animals. You know, when a family can own an elephant, they can put this elephant’s needs first.
LAURYN MURRAY: You are the best.
LAURYN MURRAY: Oh, I’ve been attacked by many, many animal rights activists. I think one of people’s biggest
misconceptions about animal welfare is that they think that certain animals can only be happy with a certain
lifestyle. Like, take an exotic animal like an elephant, they think that animals can only be happy like that in the wild
and they can’t understand that animals can be happy in all different kinds of settings.
LAURYN MURRAY: In all industries I think, no matter what you do in, in all walks of life and all industries,
people abuse power. People abuse things but when you come to a whole, the majority of all circuses take very,
very good care of their elephants or their animals in general because we have guidelines,
we have regulations, we have inspections, we have to take care of our animals.
LAURYN MURRAY: So, in hands-on human care, she can live to be 60 to 70 you know. They’re not really seeing
that age in the wild at all. And so, when you have mental stimulation and physical stimulation, I feel like that helps
you to live longer.
LAURYN MURRAY: I wouldn’t say there’s any danger with my son being around her as long as it's always
supervised. I know that as long as he’s with me, that child is safer with my elephant than he would be in a car.
LAURYN MURRAY: I let him feed her and sometimes he helps me wash her and he was in the show with her
when he was two. I like how good she is with respecting her family.
LAURYN MURRAY: Pressure washer helps to get the old skin off. It's one of the best methods to do so because
you can scrub on them a lot and it won't actually get the old skin off so, I mean, you can see how healthy her skin
is because of it.
LAURYN MURRAY: My main message is that I want to make sure that we stay integrated with animals
and we keep an animal-human bond alive.
LAURYN MURRAY: Because with the overpopulation of humans, the only ways certain species are going to
continue is if we reach out and we actually help them. Come here, come here good girl. Good oh thank you,
come here. Thank you, you’re so smart and pretty and so good at making me look like a fool.