Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants

David Hancocks, former Director of several zoos including Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo, is giving a presentation at Town Hall in Seattle. He will discuss the Future of Zoos with an emphasis on the future of elephants in zoos. He is deeply knowledgeable, persuasive, and entertaining. There will be an opportunity to ask questions.

When: Wednesday, May 23^rd, 2012. 7:30pm – 9pm
Where: Town Hall, 1119 8th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98101
Tickets: At $5.00 they will go fast. Seats are limited. http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/244456

David Hancocks: “One needs to question why the Zoo [Woodland Park Zoo] is so very desperate to hold on to elephants. Their logic is surely based on vested interests. More puzzling is why they are so content, even proud, to keep the elephants in such bad conditions.”

The Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) has stripped the Toronto Zoo of their accreditation for allowing their three elephants to be retired to PAWS in California, a vast sanctuary in an elephant-friendly climate.  The AZA said the Toronto Zoo contravened it’s governance rules when the Toronto City Council and Toronto Zoo Board, rather than Zoo officials, voted for the humane retirement of their elephants to a sanctuary instead of to another zoo.

The AZA, in flexing its muscles, is trying to send a message to other zoos about retiring their elephants to a life that is undeniably physically and psychologically healthier.

This decision reflects poorly upon the AZA by their putting ego before the improved welfare of the elephants in their care.

Renowned experts such as Jane Goodall said: “. . . there are some species, like elephants, which will always be unsuited to zoo environments.  With their intense social bonds and need for large areas to roam, elephants should remain in the wild or when this is not possible, in a sanctuary that can provide them with adequate care, the chance to form natural bonds with other elephants, and large areas of natural habitat.”

Bamboo, Chai and Watoto, the three elephants at Woodland Park Zoo, desperately need to be retired to one of the two elephant sanctuaries.  Only there can they heal from the traumas of the 16-17 hour lock up in a tiny barn stall for over half the year, access to less than one acre outdoors, and the lack of companionship of their choosing.

Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants asks the Seattle City Council and Woodland Park Zoological Society not to be bullied by the AZA. It is long overdue for them to show the same courage and compassion—based on science—as Toronto and retire Bamboo, Chai and Watoto to a sanctuary.

For more information about this unfortunate AZA behavior, check out the True Colors article in Psychology Today.

Ringling Bros. Circus is applying to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to renew their breeding registration for Asian elephants. They have repeatedly demonstrated that elephants should not be in their care—the largest fine in animal welfare history was levied against them. Public comments are extremely important and influence the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Being in a circus is pure hell for these gentle giants.

Your comments can be short and simple. Such as:

Email: dmafr@fws.gov (or call 703.358.2104 x1989)
Subject line: Deny Ringling’s application for breeding application
E-mail text: Please deny Ringling’s application to renew its captive-bred wildlife registration (PRT-720230) for Asian elephants.

Congress is currently considering legislation – H.R. 3359, the Traveling Exotic Animal Protection Act – which would restrict the use of wild animals in traveling circuses. Please visit the link below to urge your legislators to support this bill. Elephants and other wild animals deserve to live out their lives naturally and not be forced into a life of misery in circuses.

Click here to take action now

The Reid Zoo in Tucson, AZ plans to transfer their two elephants – Connie and Shaba – to the San Diego Zoo where sadly these two friends of 30 years will be separated from one another. The PAWS Sanctuary has offered to take in these two ladies at their sanctuary instead where they’d get to live out the remainder of their lives together and with dignity. Please contact officials in Tucson and urge them to surrender Connie and Shaba to PAWS rather than send them to a zoo where they’ll be separated.

mayor1@tucsonaz.gov, ward1@tucsonaz.gov, ward2@tucsonaz.gov, ward3@tucsonaz, goward4@tucsonaz.gov, ward5@tucsonaz.gov, ward6@tucsonaz.gov

Read more about these two ladies in this Tucson Weekly guest column. Here’s an excerpt:

Celebrated television personality and animal-welfare activist Bob Barker is going to “come on down” for Connie and Shaba so that Tucson’s beloved elephants can remain together—but will the City Council join him?

On a recommendation from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, both the Reid Park Zoo and San Diego Zoo have refused to find a way to keep them together—and believe us, we’ve asked.

Aside from those zoos, no other accredited facility that houses African and Asian elephants together is remotely suitable for Connie and Shaba due to a small exhibit size, the use of bull hooks or requirements that elephants give rides and perform circus tricks. This speaks strongly to their so-called “rigorous” standards. Forced to reach beyond that system, we approached PAWS (the Performing Animal Welfare Society), which has agreed to provide sanctuary for Connie and Shaba—together—when no one else has.

From Lily Tomlin:

My heartfelt thanks to everyone for their contribution—large and small—in the effort for Bamboo, Chai and Watoto to have a better life. Let’s hope 2012 brings them peace and finds them in a sanctuary where they can heal and reclaim being an elephant.

Lily Tomlin with FOWPZE coordinators

Every e-mail you write, every donation you make to Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants and every person to whom you explain the plight of Bamboo, Chai and Watoto helps bring their freedom a little closer.

Thanks and a happy, healthy New Year to all,
Nancy and Alyne

Seattle, WA – Woodland Park Zoo (WPZ) artificially inseminated Chai, a female Asian elephant, for the 59^th time on December 5, 2011.  The previous 58 artificial inseminations over 20 years have all failed to produce a live birth.

Hansa, the only calf born at WPZ, was conceived when Chai was shipped to Missouri to be bred with a bull.  Hansa died of Endotheliotropic Herpes Virus (EEHV) which is almost always fatal to young Asian elephants and horrifically painful. The zoo industry’s own expert, Dr. Laura Richman, a pathologist with the Smithsonian National Zoo, said that Hansa would have gotten it from one of the zoo’s other elephants. Chai could transmit the virus through the birthing process. There is no cure for EEHV and WPZ has no infection control in place.

Elephants have evolved over 40 million years to become the animal they are today: highly intelligent, highly social, and genetically wired to move great distances.  WPZ’s elephant display, designed in 1986, is woefully inadequate resulting in the elephants’ worsening physical and psychological conditions.  The elephants are locked in a 2,500 sq. ft. barn for 16-17 hours every day for about 7 months of the year.  Incompatilbility forces one of them to be in solitary confinement.  The 1 acre yard is divided into 5 tiny pens in order to keep the incompatible elephants separated.

WPZ claims having a calf aids the conservation of elephants.  No calf born at WPZ will ever be released into the wild—the accepted measure of ex-situ wildlife conservation.

Furthermore, if a fraction of the $400,000.00 it costs to keep elephants in Seattle each year was used to fund anti-poaching teams or fund organizations working to control habitat loss, real elephant conservation would be advanced.

Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants continues to appeal to WPZ and the Seattle City Council to allow the elephants retire to the 2,700 acre Elephant Sanctuary in TN; it’s a win all the way around:

• Seattle gets out of a law suit.
• WPZ saves about $400,000.000 annually.
• Our children learn a valuable lesson in science and compassion.
• Chai, Bamboo, and Watoto can heal from the traumas of zoo captivity.

Connie and Shaba have been together at the Reid Park Zoo in Tucson for 29 years—Connie was 15 and Shaba was just 2. They have been deeply bonded since the day they were first brought together.

Tearing Connie and Shaba apart is unconscionable.

Reid Park Zoo elephants

A fundamental requirement in elephants is being a bonded member of a social group.  Anyone who knows anything about elephants knows this, yet the Tucson City Council succumbed to Reid Park Zoo and voted to separate them.

Please help these elephants by filling out IDA’s form:  Click here.

It’s fast and so important.

The Toronto Zoo board has directed its staff to prepare to transfer the city’s three aging elephants to PAWS sanctuary in California by April 30, 2012. This endorses the Toronto City Council’s decision to send the elephants.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11/24/zoo-to-send-elephants-to-california-reserve

Unfortunately, the elephant keepers are still resisting what’s best for the elephants by not allowing Ed Stewart from PAWS to see the elephants. Hopefully the elephant keepers will  sign on to this compassionate move so that PAWS can work with the elephants on training for their transport.

http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1092744

Ground-breaking initiative on animal circuses announced on Capitol Hill.

“There will be a time when people will be shocked that we ever allowed the suffering of these animals in the name of entertainment to continue so long. Elephants living in chains and being beaten; lions and tigers in small cages on trucks, being whipped to perform tricks; it’s the dark ages. This bill helps bring us out of the dark ages.”   -BOB BARKER

Visit the PAWS website to learn more

Click here to find out how you can help