Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants

4 Letters to the editor related to Woodland Park Zoo’s elephants appeared in the Seattle P-I.

Check out the full text in the Seattle P-I.

What we won’t see on the zoo’s animal cams are the repeated performances of the artificial insemination procedure applied to a lovely Asian elephant by the name of Chai.

Read the full column by Cathy Sorbo in the Seattle P-I

Animal rights activists called Woodland Park Zoo’s elephant breeding program “reckless” and “irresponsible,” and demanded Tuesday that zoo leaders abandon plans to artificially inseminate an elephant next month.

Read the full story in the Seattle P-I

Elephant herpes is so pervasive and fatal that it’s irresponsible and “ill-conceived” for Woodland Park Zoo keepers to breed once again an elephant who already lost one daughter to the disease, according to several animal-rights groups.

Read the full article in the Seattle Times

In Defense of Animals, Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants, and NARN held a press conference Tuesday, December 4, releasing a critical report exposing how U.S. zoos have continued to indiscriminately breed elephants and transfer them between facilities despite the known risks of spreading the deadly Elephant Endotheliotropic Herpesvirus (EEHV). IDA’s report documents that the deadly virus has an 85 percent mortality rate and is responsible for at least 20 percent of the deaths of elephants in U.S. zoos over the past 25 years. The report identifies over a dozen zoos – including Woodland Park Zoo – where there is high risk for infection with the virus.

Woodland Park Zoo’s 6-year-old elephant, Hansa, died last June from herpes. The virus recently claimed the life of yet another young elephant, a 16-month old elephant named Nisha at Dickerson Park Zoo in Springfield, Missouri, where Chai was sent on a “breeding loan”. Four elephants at Dickerson have died from the disease.

Hope turns to disappointment overnight at Dickerson Park Zoo as its youngest elephant succumbs to a deadly virus.

Read the full story on OzarksFirst.com

6 year old Asian elephant, Hansa, died of an elephant herpes virus at Woodland Park Zoo (WPZ) last June. WPZ is now a herpes-contaminated facility. Any baby elephant born there will be at very high risk of contracting the same herpes virus that killed Hansa. Of all the Asian elephants born in zoos over the last 10 years, almost 70% are now dead, many from herpes viruses.

Despite these facts, WPZ is planning to artificially inseminate Chai in January with semen they want to import from Canada. They have applied to the US Fish and Wildlife Service for a permit to do so. To prevent anymore young elephants from dying at WPZ, we want to prevent the zoo from getting this permit. US Fish & Wildlife is accepting public comments on this application until December 10, 2007. Please contact them with the above talking points. Reference “PRT-108484″ in discussing the zoo’s application.

U.S. Fish & Wildlife (Dept. of Interior)
Division of Management Authority
4401 North Fairfax Drive
Room 700
Arlington, VA 22203
Fax: 703/358-2281
Phone: 703/358-2104