An Edmonds resident expresses deep concern over WPZ’s announcement that they will send Bamboo the elephant, a 26-year resident of the zoo, to PDZA due to aggressive behavior.
Read the letter in the Seattle Times
Month: August, 2005
Letter: Forget confinement
Bamboo’s Story
Bamboo
Bamboo came to Seattle from Thailand as a frightened one-year-old baby Asian elephant in 1968. She grew into a gentle adult, docile enough to be walked on zoo grounds and touched by zoo visitors. In the late 80’s, Bamboo became aggressive toward handlers, during a period of intense physical punishment and all-night chaining. After the birth of a baby elephant in 2001, Bamboo was put into indoor solitary confinement for weeks and began pacing in constant counter-clockwise circles and shaking her head. She was not trusted with the baby for the first few years after her birth.
Woodland Park Zoo (WPZ) transfered Bamboo in August 2005 to Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium (PDZA) in Tacoma, another small habitat zoo which specializes in “troubled” elephants, where she paced in circles and shook her head almost constantly. Zoo officials repeatedly described Bamboo as being “happy and healthy” during this time.
After nine months of being unable to integrate her with the other elephants at PDZA, they sent Bamboo back to WPZ, where she must now been kept separated from African elephant, Watoto. Like all the elephants at WPZ, Bamboo spends only a few hours a day outside. Her “stereotypic” repetitive pacing and head-shaking behavior has continued at WPZ.
We are working to have Bamboo moved to a place where she can truly heal: The Elephant Sanctuary (TES) in Tennessee. TES has generously offered to transport and care for Bamboo at its own expense.
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