For Immediate Release: May 8, 2009
Conservationist Featured on 60 Minutes Tells Philadelphia City Council
To Take Action To Rescue Elephants
City Council Given Easy Way To Save Millions: Budget Hearing Testimony Highlights
City Waste in Funding Private Zoo with No Accountability
May 8, 2009, Philadelphia, PA -- Today, the Philadelphia City Council is being urged by world-renown conservationist and elephant expert Dr. Dame Daphne Sheldrick, founder of Kenya's David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust who has three times been featured on CBS news magazine program 60 Minutes, to take action on behalf of the City's two elephants. At Budget Hearings held today the Council will hear testimony that outlines why the City should freeze the millions of dollars annually given to the privately-operated Zoo based on the Zoo management's lack of transparency and unwillingness to address public concerns about animal welfare.
Marianne Bessey, representative of Philadelphia's Chapter of the League of Humane Voters and local grassroots group Friends of Philly Zoo Elephants, will give testimony to the Council and cite examples of the Zoo's failure to respond to public concerns about animal welfare problems at Zoo which is located on city-owned property. Statements from experts will detail flawed Zoo plans to send the two elephants to a breeding facility, with false claims of "conservation," and problems regarding the elephant-management techniques used by both the Philadelphia Zoo and the breeding facility.
"It is my opinion that trying to breed elephants in captivity serves no conservation purpose whatsoever, and claiming that it does merely confuses the public," wrote Dr. Sheldrick, conservationist who has worked with African elephants for over 50 years. "Keeping elephants in captivity does not serve conservation, and nor is it educational for people to view a miserable captive which can be likened to keping a human being in a cupboard for life. These are animals that should not be confined because they need far more space than it is possible to give them under any artificial circumstances."
When: Friday, May 8, 10:00 a.m.
Where: Philadelphia City Hall, Room 400
What: City Council Public Hearings on 2010 Budget
Each year the City Council approves millions of dollars from the general fund to give to the privately-operated Zoo and the City Council has allowed the Zoo unchecked for years. Despite this public funding, the Zoo refuses to release records to the public and is unresponsive to public concerns regarding animal welfare. Local residents urge City Council to exercise restraint and hold Zoo accountable and to freeze all city funding of the private Zoo until it becomes responsive to community concerns and operates with transparency.
Nearly two years ago, the Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), a 2,300-acre refuge in California with the space and natural conditions necessary for elephants to thrive, offered to take the then-three African elephants at no charge (52-year-old elephant Petal has since died, collapsing in her cement stall last June). Zoo Director Vik Dewan refuses to send the elephants to the spacious sanctuary, opting instead to keep them in Philadelphia in conditions that zoo officials admit are inadequate while the breeding facility is built. At the breeding facility, plans are to first breed Kallie and Bette with a bull elephant, and then use artificial insemination - an extremely invasive and painful procedure for elephants.
Friends of Philly Zoo Elephants is a group of local residents concerned about the elephants at the Philadelphia Zoo. For more information, please visit www.helpphillyzooelephants.com or call 610-733-1248.
