I took my son to Kids Yoga this morning at our local studio.

After he stuck his flip flops in a cubby, and bounded upstairs gleefully with his yoga mat, I settled down into a seat in the lobby area to wait. To my right was the latest issue of LA Yoga, so I picked up a copy and started thumbing through as I sipped my morning tea.

As I turned a page, an adorable picture of a couple of elephants nuzzling trunks caught my eye. The accompanying article was titled, “Supporting Elephants at Black Dog Yoga.” The name of the studio struck a chord in my memory; ah, that’s right, it’s a yoga studio in the Valley (818!).

As I read on, I felt that oh-so-familiar warm and fuzzy feeling coming over me.

The story described how the studio had been accepting donations (appropriately around a statue of Ganesh, the elephant-headed Hindu god) to raise funds in support of various elephant conservation projects. How awesome is that? The donations have been used to foster an orphaned baby elephant and to raise awareness about elephant conservation.

How inspiring to see a yoga studio get behind a cause and raise awareness for the humane treatment of animals.

Read the full article here.

To cap off this elephantastic Sunday morning, my attention was drawn away from the magazine I was reading when I heard the woman behind the front desk give a little gasp. I looked up to see her fluttering her hands with excitement. “Oh my gosh, this is so awesome,” she gushed.

“What?” I asked.

“Well,” she said, “I never know how much I can trust these Facebook memes, but if this one is actually true it’s amazing! Come look!”

I got up and went over to take a look at her screen. It was a photo of an elephant with pink tusks. The idea behind this is to deter poachers who seek to kill the animals to gain their tusks for the value of the ivory. When I got home I did a google search for “elephant pink tusks” and I found this link to a petition on change.org: Elephant Poachers: Dye Elephant Tusks Pink.

The headline for the petition reads: “Let’s not wait for one more elephant killing. Pink tusks say to poachers, “There is no value.” To tourists pink says, “Support wildlife. We are heading for extinction.”

I signed it, of course.

Let the elephants live.

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Assistant Editor: Laura Ashworth/Editor: Bryonie Wise

Photo: change.org