Happy In The Bronx: The Elephant Who Needs What We All Need, And Could Still Find It

A Film By Nancy Siesel

“We lean toward freedom.

So say the white sails.”

—Tomas Tranströmer

Our friend Nancy Siesel, a Pulitzer Prize winning former New York Times staff photographer, has launched a Kickstarter for her searing and beautiful film about Happy the elephant, whose known as one of the loneliest elephants in the world.

Happy has languished alone for the past 17 years, at the Bronx Zoo in New York, and her case has taken on international legal and ethical implications, which are described in the clip about the project here.

Nancy has been on our former Zoom calls, and I’ve had a chance to speak with her about this project, some months ago.

Long ago, Happy had six companions, all girls, and all named after Snow White’s seven dwarves. They all got split up, but she had some years with her most bonded companion, Grumpy. Grumpy, at some point, was the victim of an accident in the enclosure, and had to be euthanized, leaving Happy all alone.

Nancy has been fighting for Happy as both film maker and activist, for years. People like Nancy are the unsung heroes of this broken world.

Let’s see if we can help her raise this modest budget to complete this project.

I salute you, Nancy, and I don’t know how you do it.

Her name alone—Happy—can leave you feeling immolated by grief for the human race, so pathologically unable to recognize majesty.

Will the ache, the deep ache of all the deciding forces of domination, never let up? Do none of them see in her, their own mother, or recoil at the presence of the inconsolable?

You can donate here.