Video evidence

That was probably Moli's last public appearance until August last year, when a number of netizens noticed an emaciated young elephant that often appeared in short videos shot at zoos in the cities of Jiaozuo and Zhoukou in Henan.

The footage, shared on popular short video-sharing platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou, showed the young female, accompanied by a man holding an ankus, a tool with a hook and a pointed end that is used to force animals to obey commands.

The elephant, whose feet were chained, could be seen performing tricks, including "playing" the mouth organ and doing a headstand, and being ridden by tourists.

The videos quickly went viral on social media because after comparing the footage with earlier videos from Kunming Zoo, some netizens concluded that the elephant was Moli, who they dubbed the "princess of Asian elephants".

Many volunteers and animal protection organizations posted on Weibo, China's Twitter-like platform, asking whether Moli was being abused and forced to perform, and also querying why the elephant, which should have been at Qinyang Zoo, was appearing at other facilities.

In September last year, Kunming Zoo confirmed that the elephant in the videos was indeed Moli, who had been rented out to other zoos for "exhibition purposes", according to local media reports.

Henan's Jiaozuo Forest Zoo rejected all criticism and denied that the animal had been mistreated.

"Indeed, a little elephant has been exhibited at our zoo, but it was healthy and not abused," the zoo said in a September statement, adding that it is common practice to transfer animals to other facilities to "meet tourists' demands".

It also said that chaining elephants' feet during behavioral training and exhibition was not abuse, but in line with industry norms.

However, Zheng Yu, a wildlife project manager at the international nongovernmental organization World Animal Protection, didn't think that was the case. "Most animal performances look easy, but they are usually based on punishment training, including being starved, whipped and intimidated with an ankus, which is obviously abuse," she said.

"The mental and physical health of these animals, who mostly live in confined spaces, can be damaged because they cannot express themselves."

According to China's laws and regulations on the protection of wildlife, Asian elephants enjoy the highest level of State protection, and it is illegal to abuse animals. However, the law doesn't give a specific definition of abuse.

The Jiaozuo zoo's statement failed to convince tens of thousands of netizens. To learn more about the elephant's rental period and the administrative permission for the move, the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation, an NGO, submitted several applications for information disclosure to the zoos at which Moli had stayed, including Kunming Zoo, Jiaozuo Forest Zoo and the zoo in Qinyang.

The only reply came from Kunming Zoo, which refused to disclose the information because it was a "business secret". It told local media that it had "no right" to get Moli back from Qinyang because ownership had passed to the zoo there in accordance with their contract.