Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants

Hansa

Nancy Farnam writes an in depth and compelling op-ed for Everett’s HeraldNet.

Woodland Park Zoo has truly been a regional zoo. People in Snohomish County as well as King County have been loyal visitors there for years. So when a 6-year old Asian elephant, Hansa, died at the zoo last year from a dreaded elephant virus, we were all shocked and saddened.

Remembering Hansa’s innocent playfulness, we wondered how she could have been taken so quickly. Her loss was harder to accept when the zoo’s records revealed that she was repeatedly exposed to known sources of the virus throughout her life.

Read the full article at HeraldNet.

Time.com published a scathing article on the shortened lifespan of elephants in zoos.

For animals living in the wild, nature plays for keeps. A life spent battling predators, famine, disease and the elements may be an independent one, but it can also be a very short one. That, at least, is the case zoos and wildlife parks often make when they contend that protective captivity may be a boon for many animals, particularly species that are endangered or threatened. But when it comes to at least one big and beloved creature, a new study suggests that a zoo might be the least safe place in the world.

In a survey of 4,500 captive elephants worldwide, a team of researchers from the U.K., Canada and Kenya found that once you lock up the giant, space-loving beasts, their health suffers, their median life span plummets, and they quit breeding — the last things you would want for a creature you’re ostensibly trying to help survive. “Whether or not it’s valid to say zoos keep species alive depends on which species you’re talking about,” says animal-welfare scientist Georgia Mason of the University of Guelph in Ontario. “Many species do well. Elephants don’t.”

Read the full article here.

Scientific American came out with an excellent article about the lifespan of zoo elephants and the recent study published in Science magazine.

Playful, mischievous and much-beloved, Mac was just two years old when he became the latest Asian elephant to succumb to the herpes virus at the Houston Zoo last month.

For animal welfare advocates, every early death is another piece of evidence that these 8,000-pound (3,625-kilogram) proboscideans don’t belong behind bars, where they can become obese, diseased and stressed out. A new study published today in Science provides the strongest evidence to date that zoo life is harmful to an elephant’s health.

Read the full story in Scientific American.

Nancy Farnam from Edmunds writes a compelling letter to the editor in response to the Seattle P-I article about captive elephants’ lifespans being shorter than those of wild elephants.

A study published last week confirms what animal advocates have known for years. Elephants live a lot longer in the wild than they do in zoos (“Elephants live longer in the wild, study finds,” Dec. 11).

One amazing finding was that Asian elephants born in zoos have much shorter lifespans. In fact, 76 percent of those born in recent years have died before age ten, 57 percent from herpesviruses. Woodland Park Zoo’s 6-year old elephant, Hansa, became one of these tragic statistics last year. Failure of zoos to practice infection control has allowed the deadly viruses to spread through the captive populations and are decimating young Asian elephants, the most susceptible to the viruses.

Adult zoo elephants die prematurely from ailments caused by inadequate space and being forced to stand on hard surfaces for years. Woodland Park Zoo’s records reveal that its surviving elephants all suffer from arthritis and chronic foot infections.

Woodland Park Zoo should join the growing list of zoos that have realized they can’t properly care for elephants. Bamboo, Watoto, Chai and Sri should be retired to The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee where they will finally have the space and freedom they need to thrive and the chance to live a normal lifespan.

The Seattle P-I has a similar but longer version of the previous story here.

Zoo elephants don’t live as long as those in the wild, according to a study sure to stir debate about keeping the giant animals on display. Researchers compared the life spans of elephants in European zoos with those living in Amboseli National Park in Kenya and others working on a timber enterprise in Myanmar. Animals in the wild or in natural working conditions had life spans twice that or more of their relatives in zoos.

Animal care activists have campaigned in recent years to discourage keeping elephants in zoos, largely because of the lack of space and small numbers of animals that can be kept in a group. Debates have been especially vocal in Dallas and Los Angeles.

Also, download a PDF of the study referenced in this article entitled Compromised Survivorship in Zoo Elephants.

As reported by the Associated Press and the Seattle P-I:

Researchers compared the life spans of elephants in European zoos with those living in Amboseli National Park in Kenya and others working on a timber enterprise in Myanmar. Animals in the wild or in natural working conditions had life spans twice that or more of their relatives in zoos.

Animal care activists have campaigned in recent years to discourage keeping elephants in zoos, largely because of the lack of space.

“This study validates what we’ve been saying,” said Nancy Pennington, a co-founder of Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants. Pennington said the three elephants currently kept by Seattle’s Woodland Park should be transferred to The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tenn., which is on 2,700 acres of land, while Woodland Park has one acre set aside for its elephants.

Read the full story in the Seattle P-I.