The Philadelphia Zoo’s latest plan for its African elephants is to send them to a breeding facility near Pittsburgh; their future after that is uncertain. These elephants deserve a forever home to enjoy freedom to roam on hundreds of acres, form life-long bonds, and be free from violence and intimidation. Only a sanctuary offers this.
Bullhooks, instruments resembling fireplace pokers, will be used at the breeding facility to inflict pain and dominate elephants.
Elephants will not have free access to property at the breeding facility; while outside of the pens they will be dominated with bullhooks and confined indoors during the long winter months. .
True conservation protects elephants in their native countries – it does not include breeding more captive elephants for display.
American zoos annually spend an estimated $16 million to maintain fewer than 300 elephants. In addition, zoos spend tens of millions of dollars on elephant exhibits. If this money were spent on conservation programs in Africa and Asia, thousands of elephants could be protected.
Zoos spend far more money on marketing and advertising than true conservation. The Philly Zoo claims approximately $250,000 in "conservation" funding per year, but does not disclose what percent is spent on actual range county conservation. By contrast, the Zoo spends $1.2 million on marketing and advertising annually
The elephants are chained during breeding (the Pittsburgh Zoo's idea of "natural breeding") See this article for more information. Excerpt from the article below:
"But inexperienced female elephants were afraid of Jackson. Theison decided to bring the experienced females around the female elephant being bred. Jackson was put on a back leg chain and the female being bred was held in front of him. Once he realized that if he were on a chain, a female elephant would be brought to him, he was fine with the chain."
Rock, Vicki. "So how does elephant breeding really work?" Daily American, 3 May 2009.
What's wrong with breeding elephants in captivity?
http://www.alv.org.au/issues/whatswrongwithzoos.php
Of the 5,926 species classified as threatened or endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, only around 120 are involved in international zoo breeding programs.
Many species, including endangered species such as pandas and elephants are notoriously difficult to breed in captivity. For example, to date no elephant has ever been bred successfully in an Australian zoo and even captive populations numbering in the hundreds in Europe and the United States are not self sustaining.
There is also the problem of genetic diversity. In small populations there can be problems associated with inbreeding, which can result in genetically weaker offspring. These offspring are more vulnerable and less likely to survive in the wild.
The concept of re-introduction is plagued with serious difficulties. Species threatened by poaching will never be safe in the wild until attitudes change and the culture of poaching is eradicated.
Species threatened by habitat destruction will have no home to be re-introduced to unless suitable areas for these species have been protected.
Even if the above problems can be overcome, there are still difficulties with the process of re-introduction. Captive bred animals have often missed out on valuable lessons their wild parents would have taught them and therefore often do not have the instincts or knowledge to survive in the wild.
Read here about how complicated the social structure is for elephants, and how important it is for new mothers to have their own mothers around to learn from. This doesn't happen in zoos.
