Julie was captured in Africa some forty years ago, and has spent most of her life in a Portuguese circus, performing with the Cardinali company since 1988 [1]. This month, she walked into a field and took a mud bath [1].
The field is Pangea, a new refuge in Portugal's Alentejo region and the first large-scale elephant sanctuary in Europe - about 400 hectares, with room for as many as thirty animals [1]. Julie is its first resident [1]. A second elephant, Kariba, is expected to join her later this year [1].
Her arrival closes a chapter for the whole country. Julie was Portugal's last circus elephant, and with her retirement the nation's ban on wild animals in circuses - passed in 2018 and fully in force since 2024 - is, for elephants, complete [1]. After a lifetime under the big top, she has somewhere to simply be one [1].
