Ornate ‘elephants’ on cross-country voyage to roll down the Strip

Las Vegas residents are used to unusual sights on the Strip, from Elvis impersonators to ornate shrines to museums that could only exist in Sin City. On Wednesday at noon, locals will be treated to something they’ve likely never seen on the Strip: a caravan of elephants.

Given Vegas’s urban environment and water scarcity, however, these elephants are not the intelligent, lumbering beasts that roam the grasslands, forests and deserts of Africa and Asia. Instead, 25 pickup trucks will each carry an intricate elephant statue carved from an invasive, toxic shrub called lantana camara.

At the tail end of its 5,000-mile journey, the convoy of elephants will arrive on the Strip at noon Wednesday, when it will allow onlookers to take photos and receive the “Key to the Strip.” The caravan is scheduled to depart Vegas around 1:30 p.m.

The caravan began in Newport, Rhode Island in July 2024, before snaking its way through destinations including New York, Miami Beach, Houston, Montana and, most recently, Salt Lake City.

The Great Elephant Migration is selling each elephant for between $8,000 and $22,000 to raise money for Indigenous Indian artists and more than 20 conservation organizations. The artists weave the elephants using lantana camara to remove the destructive plant from Indian forests, protecting native plants and animals in the process.

Each elephant is carved by the Real Elephant Collective, a community-owned organization of 200 Indian artists, which aims to empower human-wildlife coexistence projects. The year-long journey will conclude in Los Angeles in early August.

Contact Isaiah Steinberg at isteinberg@reviewjournal.com. Follow @IsaiahStei27 on X.