Julie the Elephant Is Enjoying Life at New Portugal Sanctuary. After 40 years of performing, the last circus elephant in Portugal can now be found splashing in mud puddles, foraging for food, and otherwise enjoying life as the inaugural resident of the country’s first dedicated elephant sanctuary. ​ Julie, an African elephant, was captured as a calf in the wild in the late 1980s and brought to Portugal, where she began performing in the Víctor Hugo Cardinali Circus. In 2018, the Portuguese government passed a law prohibiting the use of wild animals in circuses, legislation that went into effect in 2024. ​ She was then officially retired from performing and left without a clear future. Her last remaining companion, another of the circus’ elephants, had died the same year. As owner Víctor Hugo Cardinali considered options for her, Pangea Elephant Sanctuary in Alentejo reached out to offer Julie a permanent home. ​ The first of its kind in Europe, the sanctuary was still being built at the time, but staff soon began coordinating Julie’s move. Fast-forward 18 months, and on June 30, Julie took a two-and-a-half-hour truck ride from the circus grounds to her new habitat, becoming the first elephant to live on-site — and she settled in right away. Watch a video chronicling her journey from the circus to the sanctuary.

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I told my family that I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids from a bottle. So, they got up, unplugged my computer, and threw out my wine