Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants

May 27, 2011

Seattle, WA – Judge Michael Heavy dismissed a lawsuit filed by local animal activists against the City of Seattle and Woodland Zoo, citing a technicality. After hearing 10-minute arguments from both sides in King County Superior Court on Friday, the judge granted the City and Zoo’s motion to dismiss the case.

The court ruled that the plaintiffs lack standing to bring the suit. The suit alleges that the manner in which WPZ manages its three elephants violates Washington anti-cruelty statutes.  The court’s ruling did not reach the merits of the plaintiffs’ contentions.  Nevertheless, as Judge Heavy ruled from the bench, he twice stated his personal belief that the zoo’s elephant exhibit is objectionable, stating at one point, “…to confine animals in small habitats, take away their freedom in grossly confined spaces, outweighs children seeing (wild and rare) animals.”

The plaintiffs have a number of options available in response to the court’s order, including appealing the court’s dismissal or refilling their complaint. Their decision will likely come within the next few weeks.

The following information is directly from the recent newsletter of the Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS):

When PAWS director Ed Stewart visited the City of Toronto on May 12, 2011, to present PAWS’ formal offer of free lifetime care, relocation and transportation expenses for the Toronto Zoo’s three African elephants, opposition from the Association of Zoos & Aquariums was expected.

What was not expected was the egregious misinformation disseminated by the AZA to the Toronto Zoo Board of Management and the media. This information is considered by PAWS to be not only unprofessional, but also defamatory.

PAWS realizes the AZA’s positions are not always unanimously supported by its member zoos, and because of this PAWS has worked cooperatively on behalf of captive elephants with a number of AZA accredited zoos. Thus, PAWS has provided sanctuary to elephants retired from zoos in Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Alaska.

A letter from PAWS founder, and co-director, Pat Derby, has been sent to the AZA demanding a retraction of their defamatory remarks. A copy of Pat’s letter follows.

(Click the “Continue Reading” link to read Pat Derby’s Letter to the AZA)

Continue Reading »

Woodland Park Zoo

The Stranger takes a very in-depth look at Woodland Park Zoo’s elephants, their quality of life, the tragic death of Hansa and various mental and physical illnesses suffered by all of WPZ’s elephants, and much much more.

Read the full article, Cash Cows: Is Woodland Park Zoo Mistreating Its Elephants?

The following excerpt from the article shows that another nearby zoo, Pt. Defiance in Tacoma, is able to acknowledge that these tiny zoo habitats are inadequate for elephants, due to their physical and mental needs.

The Detroit Zoo is the only zoo in the nation to voluntarily retire all of its elephants to a sanctuary. The Bronx Zoo has stated that it will shut down its two-acre elephant exhibit once the elephants living there now die off. Even the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma acknowledges that elephants need more room to roam than it can provide and is exploring “transitioning away” from keeping elephants (again, once its current elephants die off).

“We’d like to have more space—our yard is about an acre—but our footprint doesn’t allow much for expansion,” says John Houck, deputy director of the Point Defiance Zoo. There are also only about 150 Asian elephants nationally, and captive breeding programs just aren’t working, he says. “We need to see about nine calves born a year, nationwide, and we’re averaging about two. It’s really a numbers game. When we lose these two current elephants, what will we do?”

Still, the Woodland Park Zoo has no plans to retire its elephants or expand its space. It continues to try to breed more babies on its one-acre plot.

Read the full article here

Closing the elephant exhibit at Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium is within sight but what about the two elephants living there?

Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium (PDZA) is holding a public comment meeting to discuss their 10-year plan which includes closing their tiny elephant exhibit – but not until poor Hanako and Suki die.

WHY WAIT for them to die? Why force them to continue to live in this physically and psychologically harmful environment?

Please come to ask (or write) that the humane decision be made. Ask for Hanako and Suki to be retired to an elephant sanctuary.

When: THIS Monday, April 25^th from 4:30 – 6pm. Come anytime!

Location:
Metro Parks Headquarters Board Room
4702 South 19^th Street
Tacoma, WA

If you can’t come: Please e-mail the zoo at:  strategicplan@pdza.org

Or snail mail: Attention Strategic Plan, 5400 North Pearl St. Tacoma, WA 98407
You can also join their facebook page and leave comments supporting the end to the elephant exhibit. https://www.facebook.com/PtDefianceZoo

To be most effective, be polite and thoughtful.

The Ballard Tribune had a nice write-up about the battle to get the WPZ elephants out of their cramped zoo enclosure, and into the 2700-acre Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee:

In close quarters: local activists continue to demand more space for the Woodland Park Zoo elephants

Also check out the response to this article from The Elephant Sanctuary’s CEO

Here is an excerpt from the article:

One of the main complaints against WPZ is that the three elephants endure solitary confinement and a lack of social experience.

With roughly one acre of yard space outside, these elephants have four pens to roam in and their heated indoor barn is divided into four separate holding areas, according to the zoo’s website.

Iain Douglas-Hamilton once wrote in a National Geographic article that elephants travel for three things: sex, sustenance and safety.

“We have all of that here – the elephant’s travel is resource-based and we are always looking for ways to enhance that,” said WPZ’s elephant curator, Bruce Upchurch. “What we have now is enough. We have quality space, it’s just the amount that’s the issue.”

Alyne Fortgang, co-founder of the Friends of the Woodland Park Zoo Elephants, doesn’t agree.

“After years of having people take pictures and staring at them, these elephants have become living shells of a being,” she said. “They look like zombies, exude little emotion, and hardly even act alive compared to wild elephants that are in movement 20 hours a day.”

Chai in ERD (elephant restraining device) - photo from mynorthwest.com, Dennis Dow

Woodland Park Zoo (WPZ) artificially inseminated Chai, a female elephant, for the 60^th time.  Inseminated 50 times prior to her daughter, Hansa’s, birth and 10 times since have yielded only miscarriages.  Hansa, died of the deadly endotheliotropic elephant herpes virus (EEHV).  Watoto, one of three elephants on display at WPZ, tested positive in 2008 for the same strain of EEHV that killed Hansa.  There is no cure and WPZ has no infection control in place—in fact Chai could transmit the virus to her own fetus.

The virus attacks the internal organs causing massive hemorrhaging and a painful, gruesome death.  “To even take a chance of causing another defenseless calf such a horrific death is unconscionable and unethical” says Nancy Pennington, co-founder of Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants (FOWPZE).

“Breeding elephants to live on public display is a moral question as well”, adds Pennington.  Due to Seattle’s wet and cold climate the elephants are locked in a tiny barn stall for 16-17 hours daily for 7 months of the year.  Outside the elephants have less than one acre.  This is an inhumane amount of space causing physical and psychological harm to these far-ranging elephants.

FOWPZE has made WPZ management, the Woodland Park Zoological Society, and the Seattle City Council aware of the consequences of this deadly breeding program.

The statistics and current science clearly show it is irresponsible to breed in the herpes-infected Woodland Park Zoo.

Good afternoon board members, Thank you for sharing a few minutes of your time today. I also want to thank you for the time, energy and financial support you provide to Woodland Park Zoo.   It’s a great resource for our community and for conservation. However, I too have significant reservations about the zoo’s elephant program.  My concerns are not about the care they are given, but about the insurmountable limits on the resources we can provide.

I work at Google as a software designer, and I AM a bit of a math nerd, but it doesn’t take much smarts to see that the numbers don’t add up. There are too many troubling statistics for me to cover tonight, so I’ll just touch on three.

First: space.  Asian elephants typically roam over an area on the order of 200 square miles. That’s 128,000 acres — 128 THOUSAND TIMES as much space as the one acre that Chai, Bamboo and Watoto all share.  And that’s the conservative estimate — many elephants roam far larger areas.

Secondly:  companionship.  Elephants are incredibly social creatures who, in the wild, travel in large herds and frequently interact with other groups. Over the course of a day they might encounter 20 to 200 other elephants. These social connections are known to be vital for an elephant’s well being. So it’s fair to say that in the elephant world, three is hardly a crowd… especially when two of those elephants don’t get along and must be constantly separated.

Third: foot and joint disease. In the United States in the last decade, there were 74 deaths of zoo elephants above the age of 10.  Of those, 22 are known to have died from foot or joint disease.  That’s 30 percent. This type of death is almost unheard of in the wild, so clearly the zoo environments and resulting inactivity play a huge role in cutting these lives short.

From Woodland Park Zoo’s own reports, Bamboo and Chai have been treated for foot abscesses — with Chai receiving 80 treatments for foot infections in 2008 alone.  Also, Watoto and Bamboo are reportedly showing symptoms of joint disease.  Sadly, our elephants are all on track to join that fateful 30%.

On a personal note, I live not far away in Ballard with my wife and a 1-year-old daughter. And like most parents I’d like my child to grow up with self awareness and the strength to stand up for her convictions. But I can only teach her those lessons if I lead by example — which is why I’m here tonight asking you to please consider transferring the elephants to a sanctuary, where they can have plenty of space to roam, lots of  companionship, and an environment conducive to foot and joint health.

As much as I’d love to bring my daughter to Woodland Park Zoo, I would be a bit of a hypocrite to do so knowing that the elephants have so little of what they need to live long and healthy lives.

The Elephant Sanctuary has posted a great message of support for Lily Tomlin and other celebrities who use their resources to help those in need. In this case, elephants who are suffering in a life of confinement.

I always enjoy hearing how celebrities use their fame and money to give back. It’s even better when the celebrity is a fellow Michigander, like Lily Tomlin.

Tomlin has chosen to devote her spare time in a crusade against elephants in captivity. And on January 20th, she will speak on behalf of the new documentary Elephants and Man: A Litany of Tragedy. The film covers the history of elephants in captivity and exposes the cruelty that is at the center of this history. You can watch the film on YouTube, split into seven segments, but prepare yourself for the graphic content.

Throughout the years, Tomlin has spoken out against zoos housing elephants. She fought against the $42 million enclosure at the Los Angeles Zoo, championed a quest to relocate an elephant at the Dallas Zoo, and has joined the battle to urge Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo to remove their three elephants.

Read the full story on elephants.com

The Knoxville News Sentinel reports on a tragic death of a zoo elephant keeper at the Knoxville Zoo.

Photo from knoxnews.com

Stephanie James didn’t need to die.  If the Knoxville Zoo used protected contact which means that there is always a barrier between the elephant and keeper, James would be alive today.

The Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) which accredits zoos abrogated their responsibility by not requiring protected contact as a condition for accreditation. Protected contact is used in only about half of AZA accredited zoos.

However looking at the bigger picture:  It’s time for humans to understand that we can’t take a highly intelligent and social animal like an elephant and deprive it of all that is instinctual.  If the public knew what it takes to dominate an 8,000 pound elephant they would be appalled.  Edie’s reaction to decades of dominance, severe confinement, lack of space and sensory deprivation is not surprising – about 1 elephant keeper a year is killed in zoos and circuses.

The answer to saving keeper lives is to not display elephants in zoos in the first place.

Read the full story here

Photo courtesy of broadwayworld.com

Kudos for these celebs who stuck their necks out to expose the cruelty perpetrated upon elephants in zoos.  Hopefully more people will understand the consequences of their patronizing zoos.

Read the full article:

Cher, Baldwin, Tomlin et al. Set for Elephant Documentary Premiere