Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants

The following press release was distributed on Thursday, January 21, 2010 by In Defense of Animals. The St. Louis Zoo is currently home to Sri, who originally lived at the Woodland Park Zoo for 21 years. While the Zoo insists that it would be cruel to send Bamboo, Chai, or Watoto across country to The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, they had no problem shipping Sri to Missouri to breed.  Sri got pregnant and the fetus died in utero.  Sri still carries the dead fetus 5 years later.

San Rafael, Calif. – In Defense of Animals (IDA), joined by a top authority on elephant behavior and biology, today strongly criticized the St. Louis Zoo for recklessly breeding elephants. The charge follows an announcement by the zoo that the elephant Rani is again pregnant, despite serious complications following the last two births at the zoo and the threat posed by a deadly elephant virus.

In a statement released today, Dr. Keith Lindsay, a conservation biologist with thirty years experience studying wild elephants in Africa with the Amboseli Trust for Elephants, stated:

“Elephants deserve our respect and human decency, not confinement and control in degrading, dangerous conditions. St Louis Zoo is a classic example of how not to keep elephants in captivity. The problems are many and easy to see: eight elephants in a subdivided enclosure of just over an acre when they really need square miles, physical ailments resulting from the lack of movement, a cold climate requiring even closer confinement for months on end, and an incurable disease that is more likely to spread in such a tightly-packed group. How can zoo authorities be thinking of breeding under such conditions, inflicting additional stress on the mothers and bringing tiny calves into such a world of suffering?”

With the zoo’s two most recent births, each calf suffered life-threatening situations unseen in wild-living elephants. Maliha, born in 2006, failed to gain weight when mother Ellie didn’t produce enough milk and required extraordinary measures to insure her survival. Jade, born in 2007, was rejected and attacked by her mother on more than one occasion, suffering “superficial abrasions and contusions” during one incident, according to zoo records.
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Elephant on an Indian sanctuary

A major indication that zoos are on the wrong side of history when they insist on keeping elephants in tiny zoo “habitats”, this article came out of the Associated Press this past week:

NEW DELHI — All elephants living in Indian zoos and circuses will be moved to wildlife parks and game sanctuaries where the animals can graze more freely, officials said Friday.

The decision affects around 140 elephants in 26 zoos and 16 circuses in the country, said B.K. Gupta, an officer at India’s Central Zoo Authority.

The AP even acknowledged what elephant experts have been saying for years (at least those not affiliated with zoos):

Increasingly, research shows that elephants in the wild have longer life spans and better health and reproductive records than those in captivity, Sukumar said.

Zoo elephants often die prematurely and contract diseases or suffer obesity and arthritis more frequently than in their natural habitats, he said.

The sad news out of this article is that many captive elephants in India live terrible lives in temples and logging camps. Those elephants will not be released by this order. But as EcoWorldly points out, it is definitely a major step in the right direction.

Read the full AP story here

“Bizarro” cartoonist, Dan Piraro, created this excellent cartoon and commentary on zoo elephants.

Dan Piraro has been a supporter of animals and animal activists for many years, even participating in local fundraisers.


Woodland Park Zoo: Less than one acre outdoors and Seattle’s climate forces elephants to be locked in small, barren barn stalls for 16 – 17 hours a day for about 7 months a year.
The Elephant Sanctuary: 2,700 acres in a sub-tropical climate.

If you believe Bamboo, Watoto, and Chai should live like elephants at The Elephant Sanctuary, please write to: Tom Rasmussen (Seattle City Council) and Deborah Jensen, (Woodland Park Zoo president): tom.rasmussen@seattle.gov, deborah.jensen@zoo.org
Or call Deborah Jensen at 206-548-2416 and Tom Rasmussen at 206-684-8808.

According to a press release from In Defense of Animals, the USDA has fined the Los Angeles Zoo for failing to provide veterinary care to Asian elephant Gita, who died in 2006.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has hit the Los Angeles Zoo with a stipulated penalty of $3,281 for failure to provide veterinary care in the 2006 death of the elephant Gita, according to information just provided to In Defense of Animals (IDA) by the USDA.

“It’s outrageous that the USDA took so long to come to this pathetic conclusion, especially when the L.A. Zoo’s negligence caused Gita to suffer a slow and agonizing death,” said Catherine Doyle, IDA campaign director. “The paltry fine is nothing more than a slap on the wrist for the L.A. Zoo. It’s a sad reflection on how little value is placed on the life of an endangered species like the Asian elephant.”

Gita’s death on June 10, 2006, made headlines after IDA exposed the zoo’s failure to provide veterinary care to her after she collapsed and was unable to rise. Despite being observed down on the ground overnight, zoo personnel took no action to help the elephant, who died soon after keepers discovered the ailing elephant in the morning. It was estimated that Gita lay suffering for as long as 17 hours.

For decades Gita suffered from painful chronic foot disease and arthritis caused by inadequate conditions for elephants at L.A. Zoo. Her necropsy report noted that her severe arthritis or an extremely infected abscess on her back (caused by Gita leaning against her pen to take pressure off her painful front feet and joints) may have triggered a blood clotting disorder that caused her collapse and subsequent heart failure.

You can also check out the related AP article.

Caged Tiger

Best Friends Magazine has a terrific article this month, written by Lori Marino, Gay Bradshaw and Randy Malamud, entitled The Captivity Industry: The reality of zoos and aquariums.

Dr. Gay Bradshaw was extremely helpful to Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants in helping to understand Bamboo’s abnormal behavior when we first began our campaign to help Bamboo in 2005.

The intro to the article reads:

Millions of people visit zoos, marine parks and aquariums
every year. Ostensibly, these places provide an opportunity
to look at, connect with and appreciate the beauty and
behavior of the animals. Indeed, everyone is drawn to the majesty
and mystery of animals who look and live so differently than we
do, but nonetheless seem so similar to us.

But more is going on than meets the eye. Exactly what are we
learning about other animals in these places? How is the zoo experi-
ence different for the animals than it is for the visitors? And what
might we learn about ourselves by casting a more examining eye
on the institution of zoos and aquariums?

Download the article: The Captivity Industry

Following up on our previous post, the St. Louis Zoo has now discovered a second baby elephant at the zoo has the deadly herpes virus, as reported on STLToday.com:

The St. Louis Zoo is grappling with a second case of a potentially deadly strain of herpes that first struck an elephant calf more than a week ago.

Tests show Maliha, 2, has the same elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus, or EEHV, that was diagnosed earlier this month in her half sister Jade.

But zookeepers say the cases could not appear more different, raising more questions about a mysterious illness that has killed Asian elephants across the nation.

Read the full story on STLToday.com

Baby Jade

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the St. Louis Zoo, where Seattle elephant Sri was shipped off several years ago (so much for zoos not wanting to break important elephant bonds) has discovered a case of deadly herpes virus in their 2-year-old elephant, Jade. Our own Woodland Park Zoo is mentioned in this article as yet another zoo who has lost a young elephant to herpes.

Jade, a 23-month-old Asian elephant at the St. Louis Zoo, has been diagnosed with a strain of herpes that has proven fatal to elephants at other zoos and in the wild.

Jade is receiving antiviral medication and round-the-clock care from the veterinary and keeper staff, the zoo said.

She had been acting lethargic Sunday. A blood sample submitted to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park’s elephant herpes research laboratory Monday revealed the presence of elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus, or EEHV. The virus causes a bleeding disease in elephants.

In just the past two years, the disease has killed elephants at the Calgary Zoo, Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, the Houston Zoo and the Dickerson Park Zoo in Springfield, Mo. The disease is responsible for half of the deaths in young elephants, according to the National Zoo. That concerns zoos because elephants have had difficulty breeding in captivity and have a high infant mortality rate.

Read the full story here.

On CBS Evening News, Steve Hartman gets an inside look at the relationships the elephants form with each other, and in one case, with one of the sanctuary’s many dogs. Click this link to read the full story or watch the video. It’s a must-see that will lift the spirits.

“Every elephant that comes here searches out someone that she then spends most all of her time with,” says sanctuary co-founder Carol Buckley.

It’s like having a best girlfriend, Buckley says – “Somebody they can relate to, they have something in common with.”

Debbie has Ronnie. Misty can’t live without Dulary.

Those are pachyderm-pachyderm pairs. But perhaps the closest friends of all are Tarra and Bella.

That would be Tarra the 8,700 pound Asian elephant. And Bella. The dog.

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.