Thanks for your comments! I worked for three years as a volunteer in an animal enrichment program in a zoo with 3 adult female asiatic elephants (among many other species), and was an incredible time! but I totally agree with you: the right place for the elephants, asiatic or african, is in the wild, where they can live with all the freedom they need and make all the things that elephants must and want to do…

Joyce and Petter –

Beautifully put!

Cheers!

Joyce, I understand what you mean. I volunteer at my local zoo with our two wonderful asian elephants. I love them so much and I care about the survival of elephants very much but truthfully captivity really can’t provide the elephant with EVERYTHING the wild has to offer. But the point I am getting to is this: yes, 200-100 years ago zoos’ were only for entertainment and nothing else. But today that traditional zoo view is changing to more naturalistic setting exhibits and enrichment that offers the animal more naturalistic behaviors. And zoos (not all) are getting more involved into conservation projects in the zoo world and in the wild. Mostly the elephants in zoos are born in captivity and releasing them in the wild would be a bad idea because they wont know how to survive. But these elephants can be used as representatives for their wild cousins to teach people that the elephants do need our help. Not everyone is able to visit Africa or Asia to see an elephant up close. At least in some way captive elephants can get people thinking about conservation. Also zoos could, like you said, use the captive elephants as “insurance ” incase the wild population does be come genetically too degraded. All I am trying to say is that captive elephants should get the best care as possible in a zoo setting. I do not approve of abusive zoos who only put their elephants in traditional cement enclosures. Zoos should try the best they can to give elephants in captivity a more naturalistic life and continue to take part in more conservation issues. We can also apply what we learn from wild elephants to captive elephants to make the lives of captive elephants more enriched. We should COMPROMISE what we learn from the wild and in captivity to save the Elephant Specie as a whole.
Also, what about the elephant family from South Africa, who was going to be culled years back and how the San Diego Zoo Wild Animal Park took them in instead. If the zoo did not take them in, that whole family was going to die because of human over-population taking over their habitat? I rather have that family be alive then killed, and taken care of by a zoo. If they were going to be left in the wild they would have died.
I understand EVERYTHING cant be provided for captive elephants that the wild offers them (but they should get the best care there is at least in captivity), but at least with compromise, zoo and wild elephant research can maybe at the end help save the elephant specie as a whole, which is what we are aiming for.
Joyce-thank you for all the work you do with the wild elephants. I would love to someday visit Amboseli and see the elephant in their wild home. It must be so amazing working out there.
Thanks

Marie,

Thanks for your comment. As I said there is a lot of rhetoric and half-truths on both sides of the argument. The case of the Swazi elephants that went to San Diego is a case in point and was a very sad story. The Amboseli Trust for Elephants, of which I am a member, was very against that move and wrote an open letter to the San Diego and Lowry Park Zoos against the importation. If you want to know more of the details and our views you can read about it here http://www.elephantvoices.org/tools/documents/Zoo_letter_Swaziland_elephants.pdf. I would rather have seen the elephants given a new home in Africa (which was possible), not shipped into captivity. I hope that that is the last time it ever happens. According to South Africa’s new laws it will no longer be possible to capture wild elephants destined for captivity. Meanwhile keep up the good work making the lives of captive elephants as good as it can be. Thank you for your efforts.

The problem is that exhibits that look “naturalistic” to us humans are not necessarily so for the elephants — or any other animal. We need to look through all the nice vegetation around the outside, for example, and see if there’s live vegetation growing on the inside for the elephants to eat!

Zoos that are building new exhibits tout all the improvements they’re making. Sure they’re improving the exhibits — the old ones were so bad they couldn’t get much worse. Instead, zoos should take as their gold standard an animal’s life in the wild. Anything less than that means they are still failing — and they are failing. The biggest killer of elephants in zoos are problems caused by the inadequate zoo environment — arthritis, joint problems, foot problems. Look at Winky who was just euthanized at PAWS — she is the latest zoo casualty.

I’m also very troubled by the notion zoos put forward that they’re trying to create this population of elephants to have for the time when elephants go extinct in the wild. By abandoning the fight to preserve animals in their wild habitats, it says to me that the only way we care about these animals is in their relationship to us.

The recent announcement by South Africa that it plans to resume culling as a last resort, I think reveals something very interesting about zoos. Zoos have been silent on the subject. I know that some zoos have been involved in developing contraception for wild elephants and are probably involved in other similar projects. But where are they on this? Here’s a chance for them to demonstrate their commitment to conservation. Why does the zoo community not step forward, for instance, and offer to fund studies, pilot projects, etc., to find every single alternative to culling? Are they too busy trying to breed their own elephants?

I’ve gone on too long but I just want to state, before anyone accuses me of being anti-zoo or anti-anything else, that I am simply challenging zoos to live up to their own rhetoric. It’s telling that instead of answering legitimate questions, zoos try to brand anyone who questions them as radicals and extremists. I would hope that any institution that wants to be the best at what it does would welcome questions and challenges. Zoos have operated on the same tired model for a couple hundred years — based, by the way, on the same model as circuses — let people see wild animals close up. If they truly want to promote conservation and education, they need to start building a new model. Zoos can — and should — do better than they do now.

Excellent points made by all. It has been a sad month for both PAWS (CA) and the Elephant Sanctuary (TN). PAWS just lost Winky, she fell ill and had to be euthanized. The Elephant Sanctuary lost first Delhi about three weeks ago, she had been ailing for quite sometime. Then last week, a total shocker, Queenie died, no signs were apparent that she was ill. Very sad…I had followed their progress over the years and really loved each of them. These sanctuaries gave them the chance to feel grass under their feet, wind at their backs, and to bask in the sun with their friends, the next best thing to living free and wild, the way nature intended.

Joyce, about the elephants of Swazi- I did not know there was an option for them to be relocated somewhere else. I thought that either they were going to be culled or had to be taken in by a zoo.I would have much rather had them relocated then taken into captivity. I was asking about this problem to my Biology professor (about relocating elephant families if their population became too dense in an area instead of culling them). He said that if elephants are relocated to new areas, since their social organization is so complex (with other families and bond groups, etc), they would not be able to survive. Can you tell us more about this subject?
-Marie

Joyce and Petter, thank you so much for talking about this subject some more and for all the work you do!! Also, thanks for the link to the open letter! I have been visiting with these elephants for many hours and always wondered about the whole story and if it was really ‘the best thing’?! - I can see that there are efforts being made to make life as best as possible for these ellies, BUT, I have been fortunate to be able to visit elephants in their natural habitats in Kenya and I can see that this is still far from how life is for them in the wild. I have had long discussions with friends about the subject and I agree with you 100% and would wish, like Amy said, that zoo’s would take the challenge and focus more on effort to preserve their (elephants)natural habitats and adopt the video/multi-media theatre option.

I am trying to help a local elephant, Lucy.

She is very unhealthy yet the zoo has claimed for some time that she isn’t. Her medical records indicate she has arthritis, a respiratory infection and chronic foot infections. I would be surprised if she doesn’t have osteomyelitis.

Although the zoo staff claim that the bull-hooks aren’t sharp, privately they sharpen them. Lucy stands on concrete for 17 1/2 hours per day in winter. This is particularly hard on her feet since she stands in her own waste.

If you listen to the zoo rhetoric, Lucy is happy and healthy and needs no more than her keepers for company. She is taken on walks when her arthritis or foot infections don’t prevent it.

My point is for those who think the zoo’s are meeting captive elephants’ needs, Lucy is a prime example of how they are failing. Osteomyelitis is the number one killer of captive elephants.

Fortunately, The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee has agreed to take her. We are only waiting for Edmonton city council and zoo management to release her.

Here is an excellent recounting of the facts on the import of the Swazi elephants, taken from Dr. Keith Lindsay’s letter asking the US Fish & Wildlife Service not to issue an import permit. Dr. Lindsay is a colleague of Joyce’s.
http://www.savewildelephants.com/zoos.asp

What should not be forgotten is that the zoo had three older elephants they sent to the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago in order to have room for the new elephants. A former keeper of the original elephants predicted they would all be dead within 2 years and, unfortunately, he was right. You can read more here –
http://www.helpelephants.com/chicago_zoo.html

Anita, is it a done deal, or do we need to write the zoo and the city council? I’ll be more then happy to make calls and write them.

Thanks for all your comments. I write about elephants in captivity with some trepidation! But, these discussions are important if we are going to find ways to make life better for elephants - everywhere. Marie, yes there was money to move them, and places they could go, but there were also other agendas, so the real story didn’t come out. I will probably shock all of my readers when I say that I would rather those elephants had been culled rather than have them go into captivity. Harsh as that sounds, it has to do with the setting of precedents. Culling is repulsive, but taking the orphans from culls to populate small private fenced reserves and allowing them to breed to the point where they need to be culled or the young shipped off to captivity is totally irresponsible. There are quite a few such little fenced reserves in South Africa who might have wished to sell their “surplus” youngsters into captivity, also. In my view this is bad management and unethical treatment of elephants. In other’s views it is just commercial utilization of elephants. I don’t believe that people who care about the interests of elephants should encourage this practice.

What gets me so mad is that due to human over-population the elephants have to suffer in the wild and they have to be culled because there is not enough habitat to sustain them anymore. Elephants have been on this earth far longer then humans and it gets me so mad and sad that they have to suffer the consequence of our own mistakes.

No, Theresa, it’s not a done deal. City council and the zoo are digging their heels in like they did with Maggie in Alaska.

At the bottom of the page of this link is info on how to help:

http://www.v4a.org/?q=node/245

Thank you, Theresa, from the bottom of my heart. Lucy needs all the help she can get.

Sorry, Joyce and Petter, I didn’t mean to hijack your blog.

Thank you, Joyce and Petter, for not only the research you do but for speaking out for what is best for elephants. My favourite photos are of the elephants looking into the vehicle and one chewing on a tire.

I know you were part of the campaign to help Toni in Washington, D.C. That was a terrible waste of an elephant life. She deserved so much better than that.

Thanks Anita, we will also have a look at your petition for Lucy.

The elephants looking into the car and the one biting on the tire - not sure where you saw those - but they make me laugh so much. They were taken in Sri Lanka in Uda Walawe N.P. I will do a little posting about them cause it was very funny!

Anita, can you please email me @ siskind8@msn.com Thanks, Theresa