The more accurate claim would be that he paid 'youngsters' a quarter for "live cats and dogs", and didn't ask any questions in regards to where they came from. He may very well have intended for them to catch strays, but the youngsters probably only went "oooh, a quarter", and sold him any animals they could get their hands on. This is backed by several sources, including the "secretary of of historical research" at the Thomas A. Edison laboratory in West Orange, who had direct access to the research papers, and wrote a book that covered it. According to what I've been reading for the past while, I get the impression that this is stuff Edison and his team did, themselves - not this campaign I mentioned previously. So he might've been more involved than I thought!

As for the elephant: Yes, it's true that Edison hadn't been personally involved in this for a while when it happened. Which I have agreed with several times. Hence why I stated that he was only indirectly involved; having a film crew from his company dedicate the film of an animals execution to him personally is absolutely indirect involvement, whether or not he was in charge of the company at the time.