Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants

Ringling Bros. Circus is applying to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to renew their breeding registration for Asian elephants. They have repeatedly demonstrated that elephants should not be in their care—the largest fine in animal welfare history was levied against them. Public comments are extremely important and influence the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Being in a circus is pure hell for these gentle giants.

Your comments can be short and simple. Such as:

Email: dmafr@fws.gov (or call 703.358.2104 x1989)
Subject line: Deny Ringling’s application for breeding application
E-mail text: Please deny Ringling’s application to renew its captive-bred wildlife registration (PRT-720230) for Asian elephants.

Congress is currently considering legislation – H.R. 3359, the Traveling Exotic Animal Protection Act – which would restrict the use of wild animals in traveling circuses. Please visit the link below to urge your legislators to support this bill. Elephants and other wild animals deserve to live out their lives naturally and not be forced into a life of misery in circuses.

Click here to take action now

The Reid Zoo in Tucson, AZ plans to transfer their two elephants – Connie and Shaba – to the San Diego Zoo where sadly these two friends of 30 years will be separated from one another. The PAWS Sanctuary has offered to take in these two ladies at their sanctuary instead where they’d get to live out the remainder of their lives together and with dignity. Please contact officials in Tucson and urge them to surrender Connie and Shaba to PAWS rather than send them to a zoo where they’ll be separated.

mayor1@tucsonaz.gov, ward1@tucsonaz.gov, ward2@tucsonaz.gov, ward3@tucsonaz, goward4@tucsonaz.gov, ward5@tucsonaz.gov, ward6@tucsonaz.gov

Read more about these two ladies in this Tucson Weekly guest column. Here’s an excerpt:

Celebrated television personality and animal-welfare activist Bob Barker is going to “come on down” for Connie and Shaba so that Tucson’s beloved elephants can remain together—but will the City Council join him?

On a recommendation from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, both the Reid Park Zoo and San Diego Zoo have refused to find a way to keep them together—and believe us, we’ve asked.

Aside from those zoos, no other accredited facility that houses African and Asian elephants together is remotely suitable for Connie and Shaba due to a small exhibit size, the use of bull hooks or requirements that elephants give rides and perform circus tricks. This speaks strongly to their so-called “rigorous” standards. Forced to reach beyond that system, we approached PAWS (the Performing Animal Welfare Society), which has agreed to provide sanctuary for Connie and Shaba—together—when no one else has.

From Lily Tomlin:

My heartfelt thanks to everyone for their contribution—large and small—in the effort for Bamboo, Chai and Watoto to have a better life. Let’s hope 2012 brings them peace and finds them in a sanctuary where they can heal and reclaim being an elephant.

Lily Tomlin with FOWPZE coordinators

Every e-mail you write, every donation you make to Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants and every person to whom you explain the plight of Bamboo, Chai and Watoto helps bring their freedom a little closer.

Thanks and a happy, healthy New Year to all,
Nancy and Alyne

Seattle, WA – Woodland Park Zoo (WPZ) artificially inseminated Chai, a female Asian elephant, for the 59^th time on December 5, 2011.  The previous 58 artificial inseminations over 20 years have all failed to produce a live birth.

Hansa, the only calf born at WPZ, was conceived when Chai was shipped to Missouri to be bred with a bull.  Hansa died of Endotheliotropic Herpes Virus (EEHV) which is almost always fatal to young Asian elephants and horrifically painful. The zoo industry’s own expert, Dr. Laura Richman, a pathologist with the Smithsonian National Zoo, said that Hansa would have gotten it from one of the zoo’s other elephants. Chai could transmit the virus through the birthing process. There is no cure for EEHV and WPZ has no infection control in place.

Elephants have evolved over 40 million years to become the animal they are today: highly intelligent, highly social, and genetically wired to move great distances.  WPZ’s elephant display, designed in 1986, is woefully inadequate resulting in the elephants’ worsening physical and psychological conditions.  The elephants are locked in a 2,500 sq. ft. barn for 16-17 hours every day for about 7 months of the year.  Incompatilbility forces one of them to be in solitary confinement.  The 1 acre yard is divided into 5 tiny pens in order to keep the incompatible elephants separated.

WPZ claims having a calf aids the conservation of elephants.  No calf born at WPZ will ever be released into the wild—the accepted measure of ex-situ wildlife conservation.

Furthermore, if a fraction of the $400,000.00 it costs to keep elephants in Seattle each year was used to fund anti-poaching teams or fund organizations working to control habitat loss, real elephant conservation would be advanced.

Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants continues to appeal to WPZ and the Seattle City Council to allow the elephants retire to the 2,700 acre Elephant Sanctuary in TN; it’s a win all the way around:

• Seattle gets out of a law suit.
• WPZ saves about $400,000.000 annually.
• Our children learn a valuable lesson in science and compassion.
• Chai, Bamboo, and Watoto can heal from the traumas of zoo captivity.

Connie and Shaba have been together at the Reid Park Zoo in Tucson for 29 years—Connie was 15 and Shaba was just 2. They have been deeply bonded since the day they were first brought together.

Tearing Connie and Shaba apart is unconscionable.

Reid Park Zoo elephants

A fundamental requirement in elephants is being a bonded member of a social group.  Anyone who knows anything about elephants knows this, yet the Tucson City Council succumbed to Reid Park Zoo and voted to separate them.

Please help these elephants by filling out IDA’s form:  Click here.

It’s fast and so important.

The Toronto Zoo board has directed its staff to prepare to transfer the city’s three aging elephants to PAWS sanctuary in California by April 30, 2012. This endorses the Toronto City Council’s decision to send the elephants.

news.nationalpost.com/2011/11/24/zoo-to-send-elephants-to-california-reserve

Unfortunately, the elephant keepers are still resisting what’s best for the elephants by not allowing Ed Stewart from PAWS to see the elephants. Hopefully the elephant keepers will  sign on to this compassionate move so that PAWS can work with the elephants on training for their transport.

www.thestar.com/news/article/1092744

Ground-breaking initiative on animal circuses announced on Capitol Hill.

“There will be a time when people will be shocked that we ever allowed the suffering of these animals in the name of entertainment to continue so long. Elephants living in chains and being beaten; lions and tigers in small cages on trucks, being whipped to perform tricks; it’s the dark ages. This bill helps bring us out of the dark ages.”   -BOB BARKER

Visit the PAWS website to learn more

Click here to find out how you can help

Tarra’s little dog Bella has died. We hope Tarra will take comfort in the love of her elephant friends. Here is a video which made the unlikely couple famous!

The following message is from The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee…

My dear friends,

I write to you with very sad news. Tarra’s little dog Bella has died. We found her body on Wednesday and have been dealing with the aftermath ever since, trying to work out what happened while we look after Tarra and each other.

We noticed Bella was not with Tarra at breakfast on Tuesday and later that morning she still had not appeared. Tarra and Bella have always spent short periods apart as one goes off exploring briefly on their own, but this longer absence worried us deeply and a search of the property was started which continued into the next day. The search ended tragically when Bella’s body was found close to the Asia barn that had long been home to Tarra, her five sisters and Bella. During the time of the search our usually social Tarra chose to remain alone, watched over by concerned Caregivers.

Dr. Scott, our vet of sixteen years, examined Bella for the last time and, with advice from the experts from the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, determined the probable cause of death was an attack by animals, most likely coyotes. We have sent off samples to see whether there were any other contributory causes.

Having carefully examined Bella’s wounds and the place where she was found, we concluded that Bella had not been attacked near where she was found and neither could she have walked there.

As these investigations were taking place observant Caregivers, even more watchful of Tarra than usual, noticed blood on the underside of her trunk, evidence that pointed us in the direction of what likely happened that fateful night.

The most probable scenario is that during the night Bella strayed from Tarra briefly and was set upon. Tarra arrived too late to save her but was able to stop further damage being done to Bella’s body. With deep sadness and deeper wonder we come to comprehend what likely happened next—that Tarra picked Bella up and carried her home.

Further evidence in support of our belief for what happened comes from Tarra herself. After Bella had been found, Caregivers ensured Tarra had every chance to inspect Bella’s body before it was buried and to come to terms with her death, as this is an important part of the grieving process for elephants. But Tarra was not interested in either Bella or the group of Caregivers who would normally have drawn our inquisitive Girl to see what was happening.

It was only later when we had pieced together the whole picture that Tarra’s behavior at Bella’s grave made sense. Our poor, brave, loving Girl knew what had happened to her beloved Bella and, in the dark hours of the night as she carried her body home, had come to terms with her death.

Tarra’s sisters will help her through her sadness. Although we cannot take away Tarra’s pain immediately or the pain of all those that knew Bella, I do know Bella knew true love and true freedom. It will always be so for animals that find Sanctuary.

Rob Atkinson
CEO

Taking strong leadership, Toronto’s (Canada) City Council voted 31– 4 to allow their elephants at Toronto’s Zoo to live out their lives at PAWS Sanctuary in California.

The Toronto City Council overruled the Zoo’s interests and used science and compassion in making their decision to choose a life that is healthiest for their elephants.

Like Toronto’s elephants, Seattle’s three elephants:  Bamboo, Chai and Watoto spend over half the year locked in a barren barn stall barely large enough to turn around.   Our elephants’ lock up lasts 16–17 hours a day with either Bamboo or Watoto in solitary confinement.

Like Toronto’s elephants, our elephants have less than one acre of outdoor space.

Like Toronto’s elephants, our elephants exhibit repetitive neurotic behaviors called stereotypies due to the trauma of captivity and crushing boredom.

Like Toronto’s elephants our elephants are very costly to house: about $400,000.00 each year.

When the Toronto Zoo looked into expanding the elephant exhibit, they discovered the costs were prohibitive.  The LA Zoo, for example, spent $42.5 million in 2009 on a 3.6 acre display—inadequate the day it opened.