The Great Elephant Migration September 8, 2024

 If you watch the CBS Sunday Morning show you probably saw last week’s story about this exhibition and these wonderful animals. Well, they are now here in NYC (in the Meat Packing District) and they are a marvel. Guaranteed to bring a smile to your face as you wander through this life size herd. You get close to — and even touch — 100 life-size sculptures of Indian elephants which are beginning a cross-country journey. The Great Elephant Migration traveling art exhibition aims to spread awareness about conservation efforts. The herd consists of replicas of real-life elephants personally known to The Coexistence Collective — the community of around 200 artisans in southern India who made them. Conceived a decade ago by The Coexistence Collective, a nonprofit that helps protect Indian wildlife, the sculptures were first shown in London and India before coming to the U.S. They were in Newport, R.I., before arriving in Manhattan last week. From here they will head to Miami, the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana and finally Los Angeles.The organization is planning to sell the elephants off to raise funds for 22 conservation organizations around the country as the tour progresses. Organizers said 30 sculptures had already been sold off, with prices ranging from $8,000 for a baby elephant to $22,000 for the largest tusked specimen. Sales at each site also help support a local nonprofit organization; in New York, it is the Wild Bird Fund. The enormous, life-like sculptures are made out of lantana camara — a tough, invasive weed that’s been encroaching heavily upon the elephants’ natural forest habitat, pushing the animals onto tea and coffee plantations where they live in much closer proximity to humans. Ruth Ganesh, a trustee of Elephant Family USA hopes visitors will learn more about how important it is for animals and humans to negotiate shared space, as more places become uninhabitable for both owing to direct human destruction and the impacts of human-caused climate change. I am sure I will revisit exhibition many times before they move on October 20, 2024 to their next destination. I included a map to help you negotiate. While in that neighborhood you can easily check out the always terrific Whitney Museum and my favorite walk, the High Line.