World Elephant Day is on August 12th. We are celebrating by holding an “Elephant Parade Open Art Invitational.” The herd of Asian Elephant statues in front of the Gallery Dana Bay has grown in anticipation of next weekend’s World Elephant Day—a day, founded in 2012 by Patricia Sims and the Elephant Reintroduction Foundation of Thailand, that looks to bring awareness to elephant conservation efforts.Since 2006, after father and son Marc and Mike Spits saw a baby elephant in Thailand that had lost part of its leg after stepping on a landmine, the art exhibition of elephant statues, called the Elephant Parade, has looked to spread education and awareness of the crisis the endangered species of Asian elephant faces

“These guys saw the horrible situation and decided to raise funds for veterinary research and care to get her a prosthetic leg,” Gallery Dana Bay owner Dana Yarger said. “It took four years, and she kept growing and growing and growing. She’s 16 now, maybe almost 17, fully grown, successful with a prosthetic leg, and she should live to her normal age of 55 or so.”

Yarger added that when the two men started the project, “many people were more commonly aware of the crisis of the African elephant slaughtered for ivory.”

“But the Asian elephant is in crisis because of the growth of civilization, roads, plantations, so their existence in the wild is challenged to the point they may be extinct in two generations,” according to Yarger.

The elephants on display in front of the gallery are considered “life-size” because they are the same size as the two-year-old elephant that sparked the Elephant Parade organization.

Gallery Dana Bay

24682 Del Prado Ave #100, Dana Point

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