Not fair to elephants

Here we go again in the national elephant shuffle (10/26, Local, “Elephant 'penthouse' gets a tenant”).

Move Zoe from a small pen at Cameron Park Zoo (Waco, Texas) to the Kansas City Zoo to live with elephants she doesn¹t even know. Send Tanya, Abilene Zoo’s lone elephant, to a small pen in Waco to live with Tembo, an elephant she has never met.

Kansas City wants to breed Zoe, but if they can’t find a bull elephant, forced breeding through artificial insemination will be just fine.

Elephants are very intelligent, highly social animals that stay with their herds for life in the wild. To shuffle them around like trading cards is an insult to their very being and a reflection of how little regard zoos have for the needs of this species.

Only by creating huge preserves with space for large numbers of elephants to live in natural family groups will zoos be able to properly care for elephants. Until then, elephants needlessly suffer under inadequate zoo conditions that fail to meet their physical and psychological needs.

Les Schobert
La Quinta, Calif.

Comments

[BuddyT]

Get a life Les.