!! ACTION ALERT !! Ten minutes can save 11 elephants

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IGC3 [iGC3]

Friday, August 15, 2003 11:36 AM

IGC3

!! ACTION ALERT !! Ten minutes can save 11 elephants

 

 

!! URGENT UPDATE: PETA has learned that the cruel capture and export of

Swaziland’s elephants to U.S. zoos is scheduled for August despite an

announcement made last September by Swaziland’s minister of tourism that the

elephants would not be removed and that any move to sell them would violate

the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. !!

 

What You Can Do – BE HEARD!!!

Please take 10 minutes to challenge the cruel actions taken by the Kingdom

of Swaziland and the San Diego and Lowry Zoos.

We can still affect the outcome of this cruel capture and export. A united

outcry from the international community may still sway the zoos to

reconsider the cruel capture and captivity of these wild and beautiful

elephants. To guarantee success, we MUST reach out to our network of

friends and family.

Please contact the zoos and urge them to immediately cancel any plans to

obtain wild African elephants from Swaziland or any other area in Africa:

 

Douglas Myers, Executive Director

San Diego Zoo

Tel.: 619-231-1515

Fax: 619-231-0249

E-Mail: DMyers

 

C. Lex Salisbury, President and CEO

Lowry Park Zoological Garden

Tel.: 813-935-8552

Fax: 813-935-9486

E-Mail: Lex.Salisbury

 

The San Diego Zoo intends to discard its older, unwanted elephants. Since

they are too old to breed, they are no longer of use to the zoo. It is

disgraceful that the zoo would even consider splitting up and disposing of

these elephants who have been together for over 20 years. Please tell San

Diego Zoo that they have an obligation to keep these friends together and

provide for their lifetime care.

 

Syd Butler, Executive Director

American Zoo and Aquarium Association

8403 Colesville Rd.

Silver Spring, MD 20910

Tel.: 301-562-0777

Fax: 301-562-0888

E-Mail: Sbutler

 

Notify your local AZA-accredited zoo that you won’t visit until elephant

captures for U.S. zoos are halted, and please contact the AZA to urge

officials to immediately implement a policy that forbids future imports of

wild elephants for U.S. zoos.

 

Ambassador Mary M. Kanya

Embassy of the Kingdom of Swaziland

Tel.: 202-234-5002

Fax: 202-234-8254

 

Notify the Swaziland Ambassador that you will recommend your friends and

family not to visit the Kingdom of Swaziland until it implements a policy

that forbids future exports of wild elephants for U.S. zoos.

 

 

 

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Yesterday, Thursday August 15th members of PETA had taken up residence

inside the embassy and were refusing to budge, in protest of Swaziland's

plan to separate and export 11 recently captured African elephants, who once

lived in Swaziland's wildlife parks, and send them to zoos in San Diego and

Tampa. REUTERS/David Snyder

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PETA Protests Lowry's Plan To Import Elephants

 

August 14, 2003 - Tampa Tribune

 

 

TAMPA - Three people were arrested inside Lowry Park Zoo today after going

into the zoo's administration offices and vocally protesting the zoo's plan

to import African elephants.

 

The three, a woman and two men, were removed in handcuffs by police while

other members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals held banners

and protested outside the zoo's grounds. The three face trespassing charges.

 

The protest was apparently a planned event by PETA to voice its objection to

a federal judge's ruling last week allowing Lowry Park and San Diego Wild

Animal Park to import 11 African elephants from Swaziland.

 

Shortly after the protesters entered the park, PETA issued a news release

announcing the protests and denouncing the plan to import the elephants.

 

The judge ruled the elephants could not be loaded before 6 p.m. today,

providing animal welfare groups time to appeal the decision. A coalition of

animal welfare groups that includes PETA appealed the judge's ruling earlier

this week.

 

A handful of protesters remained outside the zoo Thursday afternoon, holding

banners that said, ``Keep Swazi Elephants Free.''

 

Under the current plan, Lowry will get four elephants for a safari exhibit

slated to open in 2004. San Diego will get seven.

 

 

 

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The San Diego Zoo and Lowry Park Zoo have devised a despicable and cruel

plan to capture and import 11 African elephants from their homeland.

 

The 12-year-old elephants are roaming freely with their families on the

74,130-acre Hlane Royal National Park in Swaziland. These elephants are

among the babies who witnessed the horror of their families’ being

slaughtered at Kruger National Park in South Africa in 1994. At the time,

traumatized orphans were relocated to Hlane to live a life of freedom.

Knowing elephant behavior, these elephants have likely integrated into a

herd and have bonded very closely with their new family members. If the zoos

have their way, these elephants will suffer another devastating loss and a

lifelong prison sentence.

 

In a desperate attempt to make this crime against nature more palatable to

the public, the zoos are claiming that they are importing these elephants

because the park wants to kill them—despite the fact that PETA has offered

to assist in translocating them to another free-roaming area in Africa if,

in fact, they are facing

 

death.

 

 

 

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Born Free

The elephants currently have the freedom to walk many miles a day, swim in

watering holes, play in mud pits, and interact with their loved ones. The

social structure of free-roaming elephant herds is extremely complex and can

’t possibly be duplicated in captivity. In nature, females remain with their

mothers for life and males until they are 10 to 15 years old. Mothers teach

their babies to cake themselves with mud to ward off sunburn and grasp

marble-sized pieces of fruit with their trunks. Males approaching maturity

require the guidance and wisdom of older bulls in order to become

well-adjusted adults themselves.

 

Sold Out

In exchange for a “donation” to the Swazi park, the elephants will be ripped

from beautiful savannas and fields of umbrella-shaped trees, shoved into

transport containers, and carted halfway around the world where they will

spend the rest of their lives in tiny, barren zoo cages that could never

simulate their natural habitat. Elephants in zoos frequently suffer from

zoochosis, a form of mental anguish caused by the impoverished environment.

 

The American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) permits its members to

provide elephants with as little as one-fortieth of an acre of yard space

per animal. What’s more, some accredited zoos continue to try to discipline

and control these frustrated animals by chaining them for long hours and

using cruel, outdated, circus-style training that includes beatings. The AZA

refuses to require that zoos convert to protected contact, a safer and more

humane method of elephant management that does not utilize physical

punishment.

 

The Conservation Con

Incredibly, the zoos want to remove African elephants from the wild, where

populations are already threatened, in order to breed more elephants who

will spend the rest of their miserable lives in captivity. They hope the

young, imported elephants will produce crowd-pleasing babies to boost zoo

revenues. In fact, some of the Swaziland elephants selected for export may

already be pregnant. Heavily marketed newborns can easily bring in an

additional 30,000 visitors.

 

Captive breeding, which has been a dismal failure, is not the solution to

extinction. The greatest threat to African elephants is loss of habitat and

poaching, and nothing being done in captivity will prevent that. Zoos

mislead the public by claiming to foster conservation education, leaving the

public with a false sense of security that the so-called “experts” are

handling the problem and that therefore they need not concern themselves

with supporting legitimate conservation programs.

 

According to the AZA’s African Elephant Studbook, “Captive breeding efforts

have been met with little success. In the entire history of African

elephants in North America, only 79 calves have been born with only 50

percent surviving to a year of age.”

 

Captivity Kills

Captivity itself is prematurely killing elephants. Lack of exercise, long

hours standing on hard substrates, and contamination resulting from standing

in their own feces and urine are major contributors to elephant foot

problems, the leading reason for euthanizing captive elephants. At least 90

African elephants, most captured in the wild, have died in North American

facilities since 1990, and not a single death was from old age. In fact, 92

percent never even reached age 40, far short of their 70-year life

expectancy.

 

Even under the best of conditions, elephants “are actually very poor

candidates for life in captivity,” according to David Hancocks, former

director of the Woodland Park Zoo. Hancocks doubts “if a dozen elephants

worldwide are in truly good psychological, behavioral, and social

conditions. Their requirements are so substantial—it is probably beyond the

capabilities of most zoos to even begin to resolve them.”

 

Hideous Records

Both zoos have a history of failing to comply with the minimum standards of

care established by the federal Animal Welfare Act. The San Diego Zoo has

been cited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for failure to

provide animals with sanitary living conditions, proper feeding, sufficient

veterinary care, adequate shelter, and proper ventilation. Even more

disturbing, several years ago the zoo found itself in the middle of a public

relations nightmare when members of the public witnessed the beating of an

elephant named Dunda. Dunda was tied down with ropes on all four legs and

beaten for two days with clubs and axe handles. It is amazing that she

survived this torture.

 

Currently, the Lowry Park Zoo is under USDA investigation and is being sued

for the deaths of several wallabies. Reportedly, the zoo transported the

animals in the back of an unventilated, hot truck typically used for moving

furniture instead of using a vehicle specially designed for transporting

animals. This is not the first time that Lowry Park Zoo has run afoul of its

legal and ethical responsibilities to the animals in its charge. The Lowry

Park Zoo has been cited by the USDA for failure to provide animals with

clean water to drink, shelter from direct sunlight and inclement weather,

safe enclosures, and proper handling. The last elephant the zoo had was

shipped off to the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, a typical

example of how zoos dump unwanted animals with no consideration of their

future welfare.

 

Pachyderms in Purgatory

At present, more than 200 African elephants are held in captivity in North

American facilities. Nearly all were captured in the wild, and many are

living in grossly substandard conditions.

 

PETA has suggested that the zoos instead attempt to save Maggie, an African

elephant who suffers from loneliness and bitter cold at the Alaska Zoo. Or

Mary, a lone African elephant, who spends most of her life swaying

neurotically in a trailer while being dragged around the country for

circuses. Or Tonya, another solitary African elephant, who has tried to

escape from her miserable circus life at least four times. If the San Diego

Zoo and Lowry Park Zoo are interested in obtaining additional elephants,

they should be rescuing elephants in need, not violating more animals by

taking them out of the wild.