A feature where we will include notable quotes from elephant advocates and zoo industry spokespersons and other individuals.
Pittsburgh Zoo Director Barbara Baker about the elephants at the Pittsburgh Zoo breeding-holding facility (International Conservation Center): "They will always be escorted," she said. "They'll be free to roam around -- and this is a great place for them to roam -- but only with supervision." PIttsburgh Tribune-Review, October 20, 2007, "Zoo Officials Break Ground For Elephant Habitat."
"Conservation, in the form of breeding programs for zoo animals, is also a rather flimsy platform to support the continued existence of zoological parks."
" Zoos can immediately stop degrading the word 'conservation' by employing it so irresponsibly."
-- David Hancocks, A Different Nature.
"As a scientist who has studied elephant behavior and communication among free-living individuals for 30 years, I am stunned that the American Zoo and Aquarium Association is not able to perceive the empirical evidence that elephants need much more space than what is currently allotted to them." Joyce Poole, who has studied wild elephants in Kenya's Amboseli National Park
"In captivity, their enormousness is muted, cloaked in indignity and shame, a source of acute dismay. But in the wild, they invoke awe, exercising uncanny skills, taking obvious delight in one another as they shuffle through our lives, keeping grave appointments at the other end of the world." Lyall Watson, Elephantoms, 2003, p 25-26
"He likened it to the city vs. country debate among humans: Are you happier on your hundred-acre estate or in your Center City condo, with access to arts and culture?'" Alexander L. Hoskins, President, Philadelphia Zoo (comparing an elephant's life in the wild to four elephants living in the Philadelphia Zoo on a quarter-acre and a barn the size of six parking spaces)Elephant Expansion Delayed At Philly Zoo CBS3
“’The staff is going to evaluate all the options,’ [Philadelphia Zoo Board of Directors Chairman Peter] Gould said. ‘I think we recognize that as much space as we can get them is valuable.’” October 28, 2005
"An elephant can live up to 70 years and when an elephant dies of old age the cause of death is often hunger as the 6th set of molars wears out." http://iucn.org/themes/ssc/sgs/afesg/faq/elefaq.html#RangeStates IUCN The World Conservation Union
The Philadelphia Zoo uses bullhooks to control Dulary, Petal, Kallie and Bette. http://www.helpphillyzooelephants.com/page/page/2848907.htm
The bullhook, also called an ankus, is a tool used to punish and control elephants. The handle is made of wood, metal, plastic, or fiberglass, and there is a sharp steel hook at one end. Both ends inflict damage. The trainer uses the hook to apply varying degrees of pressure to sensitive spots on the elephant's body, causing the elephant to move away from the source of discomfort. The thickness of an elephant's skin ranges from one inch across the back and hindquarters to paper-thin around the mouth and eyes, inside the ears, and at the anus. Their skin appears deceptively tough, but in reality it is so delicate that an elephant can feel the pain of an insect bite. A bullhook can easily inflict pain and injury on an elephant's sensitive skin. Trainers often embed the hook in the soft tissue behind the ears, inside the ear or mouth, in and around the anus, and in tender spots under the chin and around the feet. http://helpelephants.com/inside_zoos.html
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts — for support rather than illumination." — Andrew Lang.
"Recognizing truth requires selflessness. You have to learn to leave yourself out of it so you can find out the way things are in themselves, not the way they look to you or you feel about them or how you would like them to be." Harry G. Frankfurt, Princeton philosopher, as quoted in the New York Times, October 22, 2006
“We knew we could trust The Elephant Sanctuary to offer Shirley the kind of life she deserves. It was in Shirley's best interest to retire her to a place that was more suitable.”
–Jake Yelverton, Louisiana Purchase Gardens and Zoo Director
“I felt that, given the circumstance, we transfer Tinkerbelle and Lulu to a sanctuary, where they can each live with others of their kind. I respect the AZA and the importance of working through the SSP (AZA’s Species Survival Plan) process, but felt that, for these animals, a sanctuary provided a good alternative.”
–Manuel Mollindedo, San Francisco Zoo Director
The need for zoos has now been negated by the fact that TV provides spectacular footage of animals living naturally in the wild. This gives a much better impression of the beauty of these animals rather than seeing soulless looking animals pacing back and forth at zoos deprived of their natural habitat.
David , Scotland http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/2352613.stm
"Now, more than ever, when the elephants are so very vulnerable, their social family fabric torn to tatters, should the world SAY NO TO IVORY, no matter in what form. Each and every one of us can, and should, at least do that. Every piece of ivory is a haunting memory of a once proud and majestic animal, that should have lived three score years and ten; who has loved and been loved, and was once a member of a close-knit family akin to our own; but who has suffered and died in unspeakable agony to yield a tooth for a trinket. Something so symbolic of death and suffering can never be beautiful." http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/html/debate.html
Thirty years ago the elephant population of Africa stood at a healthy 3 million. Today less than 250,000 remain with numbers poised to decline further due to human pressures. http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/html/debate.html
"Elephants do not belong in captivity; they are far more intelligent than the educated professionals who control their lives and justify bad decisions with rhetoric about saving the species. " Pat Derby, Sanctuary Director, Performing Animal Welfare Society http://www.pawsweb.org/site/news/index.htm?http://www.pawsweb.org/site/news/newsdocs/ht_wankie.htm
"People's traditional expectation of zoos is that they see lions and tigers and elephants. But it's also their expectation that an animal has a good life.”
–Ron Kagan, Detroit Zoo Director
"If the elephants are a major "draw" at any zoo, is it too simplistic or obvious to point out that the zoo has a major vested interest in keeping them there?" Sally A. Gannett, woman who as a child named Bamboo, a zoo elephant http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/252664_ltrs20.html
"Jails and prisons are designed to break human beings, to convert the population into specimens in a zoo-obedient to our keepers, but dangerous to each other.” Angela Davis http://en.thinkexist.com/quotes/angela_davis/
"Zoo officials now say Toni is responding to treatment and could live several more years." (Quoted on a news show broadcast on January 23, 2006) http://nbc4.feedroom.com/iframeset.jsp?ord=100889
January 24, 2006 THE NATIONAL ZOO EUTHANIZED TONI, a 40-year-old ASIAN ELEPHANT, TODAY.
"Members of Friends of Phily Zoo elephants have videotaped each of the Philly Zoo elephants bobbing and swaying. Some of this footage of the elephants bobbing and swaying has been shown to several Philadelphia City Council members and offered to the media." Marianne Bessey, Friend of Philly Zoo Elephant member
"[Philadelphia Zoo Curator Kim] Lengel said [the Philadelphia Zoo elephants] do not bob and sway, behaviors that indicate that the psychologically complex creatures are in distress."
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/12707692.htm
"Zoo visitors can easily recognize if an elephant is bored and has not got enough to do: The elephant is observed to be "weaving", i.e. it stays in one place while slowly moving its head from side to side. " Author, Zoo keeper and circus elephant trainer Upali http://www.upali.ch/behavioural_en.html
“Although the zoo’s one-acre enclosure far exceeds the zoo industry’s professional standards, it is nonetheless inadequate for elephants, whose social, intellectual, and physical needs exceed those of other large animals.”
–Ron Kagan, Detroit Zoo Director regarding his decision to send elephants Winky and Wanda to a sanctuary, Detroit Free Press, December 30, 2004
"Local zoo officials and the American Zoo Association are circling the wagons in response not only to increasing breaks in their own ranks but also wider dissemination of the truth to the general public. That Nancy Hawkes [Woodland Park Zoo curator] would say 'Elephants belong in zoos' is appalling." Michael Crouch Seattle citizen
"The selfish part of me wants them to stay, but I know they'll be so much better off (at the sanctuary) in Tennessee. It will increase their longevity and health... Elephants can live 70 years or more in the wild, but 40 or 45 is old for a captive elephant. Moving them now gives them a chance to live long, healthier lives."
–Barbara Anderson, Chehaw Wild Animal Park Zoo elephant keeper (in March 2004, Chehaw Wild Animal Park permanently retired its two elephants, Tange and Zula, to The Elephant Sanctuary).
