Oregon Zoo Lies, & So Does KGW

Here is some facts (for a change) from IDA's website....


Sentenced to Life: Elephants in Captivity

"This fascination by the public to see elephants up-close and personal has resulted in disastrous consequences for captive elephants. As a direct result of the public's desire to get closer, elephants live a miserable life: confined to small places, forced to submit to human dominance, fed only processed food due to restricted living space. Elephants deteriorate, both physically and emotionally, in an environment created to accommodate public interaction. If the only way that humans can know and enjoy the gentleness and spirituality of elephants is by interacting with them, then the species is doomed."

- Carol Buckley, founder, the Elephant Sanctuary

Elephants are highly intelligent, social animals who form strong, permanent bonds with their families. The social structure of free-roaming elephant herds is extremely complex and cannot be duplicated in captivity. In nature, females remain with their mothers for life and males until they are 10 to 15 years old. Babies are not usually weaned until they are about 4 years or older.

In the wild, elephants have the freedom to walk many miles a day, swim in watering holes, and interact with their families. Elephants are known to mourn their dead, teach their youngsters proper herd behavior and healthy habits, like caking themselves in mud to avoid sunburn. Males approaching maturity receive guidance and wisdom of other bulls in order to become well-adjusted adults.

In captivity, elephants are held in small enclosures that do not come close to approximating their native habitat. In fact, American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) regulations require as little as one-fortieth of an acre of yard space per elephant. There is little opportunity for the development of normal social structures. Some zoos still chain elephants for long hours and subject them to forceful, coercive training methods that include physical punishment. Although a more humane elephant management technique, known as protective contact, has been developed, the AZA refuses to require its use in accredited zoos.

Even government experts recognize the serious deficiencies of captive conditions for elephants:

"Elephants in captivity have no herd structure because most of our captive situations do not represent natural elephant herd development. Herd size in zoos has rarely grown to a size in which multiple infants have a chance to mature together. This social void can impact an elephant later in life, not knowing or understanding appropriate social behavior if an elephant is moved into a different group adolescent and sub adults will want to spar and even fight to establish their positions. This would obviously be abnormal behavior to a wild elephant and in captivity, sometimes leads to injury and even death, if not observed and controlled." (Emphasis added.)

- Matriarchal Herd Structure, Outline of U.S.D.A. Elephant Course, Seattle, August 3, 1998


"There are no substitutes for walking in a restricted environment, no enrichment strategies that motivate a captive elephant sufficiently, no boomer balls or tire that replace walking and no food dispensers that will create activity patterns in elephants that even come close to being beneficial to the long-term management of captive elephants.
The absence of walking from an elephant program, considering the elephant is genetically programmed to move must have dramatic long-term effect on the elephants physical and mental stability and must ultimately affect it's longevity and propagation."

- Walking, Outline of U.S.D.A. Elephant Course, Seattle, August 3, 1998


The confinement, isolation from family, lack of freedom of movement, and absence of a normal social structure take an intense physical and emotional toll on elephants. Captive elephants commonly suffer from foot and joint problems, stress related disorders such as impaired immune and kidney function, stereotypic behaviors such as weaving, and aggression, sometimes directed at keepers to frequently fatal ends.

Elephants in captivity die young. At least 90 African elephants, most captured in the wild, have died in North American facilities since 1990, and not a single death was from old age. In fact, 92 percent never even reached age 40, far short of their 70-year life expectancy. The statistics for Asian elephants are similarly grim.

Even under the best of conditions, elephants "are actually very poor candidates for life in captivity," according to David Hancocks, former director of the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, WA. Hancocks doubts "if a dozen elephants worldwide are in truly good psychological, behavioral, and social conditions. Their requirements are so substantial—it is probably beyond the capabilities of most zoos to even begin to resolve them."

so another elephant is suffering and dyeing again at the oregon zoo. whaty is wrong with people/ haven't they learned how to take care of these animals yet/ isn't this the third elephant to die? how many beatings did this one have before his death? animals are abused cpntinualy and no one thinks there is something wrong with it? people don't deserve to have these animals if they can't take care of them properly. these animals are totally dependent on humans. they've been taken out of their natural enviornment where they know where of go for their needs. elephants can roam 40 miles a day. at the zoo they stand constantly causing their feet to swell. da!

Mark, the Oregon Zoo doesn't claim elephants normally live to be just 44. At least, that's not in any of the information I've seen there.

Elephants normally live to be about 60 in the wild, not 80. "A few seconds on-line" shows that the life expectancy of an Asian elephant, according to the vast majority of reliable sources, is either 50-60 or 60-70. Only a few sources claim 80, and that runs against everything I've learned in fifteen years of reading up on elephants (and not just from Zoo sources, in case you were wondering.)

The life span of an elephant in the wild is determined by its teeth. Elephants go through six sets of teeth. When the last set wears out, they starve to death. That could be any time between their early fifties and late sixties depending on how good their teeth were to start with and what they've been eating. They don't make it to 80. Their teeth just aren't that good.

They can last a bit longer in captivity; the longest lived elephant on record was a captive elephant who survived to age 82. He was hand-fed soft food for years after his teeth wore out. Normally, zoos euthanize elephants when their last set of teeth goes.

Unzoo, very few zoos are a "money making venture" these days. The Oregon Zoo is a non-profit branch of Metro, supported in part by tax money. Nobody's getting rich off of the Zoo.

destiny, you asked "haven't they learned how to take care of these animals yet/ isn't this the third elephant to die?" The answers are "no, not completely, but we know A LOT more than ten or twenty years ago," and "this is the third elephant at the Oregon Zoo to die of a foot infection since 1990." The zoo has had other elephants die from other problems, including Hugo from a mystery disease (non-foot related) a couple of years back. Two elephants (Me-Tu and Belle) died from foot problems in the mid-90s, about a year apart. That was about ten years ago. Foot infections remain a serious problem, but a lot more captive elephants died of it in the past than today. Pet had problems with her feet (she was pigeon-toed) that made them unusually susceptible to problems.

You also asked "how many beatings did this one have before his death? " That's easy. None. We had ONE keeper who was seen beating an elephant (Rose-Tu) several years ago. Another keeper caught him. He was fired immediately ("immediately" meaning "as quickly as the union contract allowed"). The Oregon Zoo doesn't tolerate mistreatment of animals (and to make it clear, I recognize you and I probably have different standards for "mistreatment" since you may well consider the very FACT of captivity to be mistreatment. I don't.) Pet was never beaten by anyone, as far as I know.

Unzoo, destiny, Mark: you want to get the REAL story of what goes on behind the scenes at the Oregon Zoo? Join the zoo as a volunteer. Go ahead: infiltration is a time-honored tradition among the AR movement, and there's a huge volunteer corps there with lots of opportunities to work with animals. Get on the inside. Once you've been there for a while and proved you are trustworthy and keep your commitments, you could get a chance to work behind the scenes with the elephants on a regular basis. You can see first-hand how the elephants are treated and what the keepers are doing to them. You'll probably be shocked to find that they don't, in fact, mistreat the elephants and do, in fact, love and care for them ... but don't take my word on that. Go ahead. Volunteer. Get your information firsthand. See for yourself.

I'm not going to defend the existence of zoos. You don't agree with them, fine. Go ahead and criticize the ethics of keeping animals in captivity. I understand the view, even if I don't agree with it. But if you must criticize the zoo, do it from a position of knowledge, not ignorance.

Get your facts right, even if KGW doesn't.

I am learning about the fate of Pet here in New England and it saddens me to no end to see how our zoos persists in even keeping elephants in that harsh milieu. I would ask the people of Oregon to demand of the Zoo to move their elephant population to an Elephant Sanctuary. Thank you.