IDA Writing Alert: Size does matter
December 18th, 2006 5:01 pm by Kelly Garbato———- Forwarded message ———-
From: In Defense of Animals – takeaction [at] idausa.org
Date: Dec 18, 2006 9:11 AM
Subject: Writing Alert: Size does matter
The Chicago Sun-Times published an article about the Brookfield Zoo’s plans to expand its elephant exhibit to an acre to hold “six or so” elephants. Please write a letter to the editor of the Sun-Times about the inability of zoos to provide for elephants’ physical and psychological needs. Send letters to the Sun Times at letters [at] suntimes.com.
Read “Size does matter” online.
Size does matter
Brookfield Zoo has big plans to expand elephant exhibitDecember 18, 2006
BY ANDREW HERRMANN Staff ReporterAs some zoos in the country close their elephant exhibits amid heat from animal rights activists, the Brookfield Zoo is developing plans to go big on pachyderms, possibly quintupling the size of its current exhibit.
Zoo director Stuart Strahl told the Chicago Sun-Times that the state-of-the-art elephant exhibit on the drawing board, which he estimated could cost “tens of millions,” is essential to getting people to understand nature better at a critical moment of population explosion and global warming.
The project is years off, and zoo officials cautioned that the expansion is still in the early planning stages. But preliminary designs feature a neighborhood of five holding areas, one of which includes a small pond.
Space for six
Elephants would be moved from one exhibit to another through the day, giving them additional exercise and, as they cross pedestrian walkways, a kind of pachyderm parade for zoo fans.
Currently, Brookfield has two African elephants in a little more than a quarter-acre exhibit. The new exhibit could hold “six or so” of the 12,000-pound creatures, including an expanded indoor area, said Strahl, president and CEO of the Chicago Zoological Society.
For Strahl, zoo elephants are a key element in helping people stay connected to the environment at a time when “nature is falling off the radar screen.”
Open spaces — once the sole space for animals — are being gobbled up by development, he said.
“If we don’t get people connected with wildlife, the decisions about the future are going to be made by just a few people, and those people have an agenda,” Strahl said. It is an agenda pushed by commerce rather than what’s best for nature, he said.
Strahl, who holds a Ph.D. in biology, bemoaned a “nature deficit disorder” among children, referring to the book Last Child in the Woods.
In the book, author Richard Louv describes an “alienation from nature” by computer- obsessed kids living in increasingly crowded urban and suburban environments.
“This country and other countries are going to have some big decisions to make on the environment,” Strahl said. Without a connection to nature, those decisions will be made by “the uninformed,” he said.
Shrinking resources in wild
Exploring ways to expand the west suburban zoo’s elephant exhibit isn’t a marketing-driven decision, Strahl said. Surveys show people’s favorite zoo animals are lions, tigers and bears –the ones “with teeth” that conjure up danger, he said.
“Elephants are in deep trouble in the wild,” he said. “Their resources are shrinking.”
Word of Brookfield’s plans comes as zoos and animal rights groups clashed last week over elephants in zoos. As the U.S. Agriculture Department seeks public comment on regulations concerning elephants in captivity, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums filed a report arguing that the 284 pachyderms in AZA-accredited institutions are “in very good health.” AZA executive director Kristen Vehrs called on “anti-zoo extremists” to “call off their orchestrated attacks against zoos.”
In a return volley, the group In Defense of Animals, using public records, maintained that 62 percent of elephants in zoos suffer from foot problems and that the animals require large expanses of land to stay healthy.
But do they suffer in captivity?
“Elephants are suffering and dying from disorders directly related to inadequate zoo environments,” said Elliot Katz, a veterinarian who is president of IDA.
“The people who say we shouldn’t have elephants in zoos are marginally interested in conservation,” Strahl said.
Construction of the elephant expansion is more than five years off, and plans could change, Strahl said.
But the project, if approved and funded, would be built on the zoo’s northern edge, roughly in spaces now occupied by hooved animals such as bison, zebras and camels, which would be relocated.
In recent years, at least seven zoos have discontinued elephant exhibits, including Detroit, San Francisco and Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo.
But the AZA said more than 40 of its member institutions have committed to expand and upgrade their facilities in the next five to 10 years to meet new AZA space requirements for elephants.
aherrmann [at] suntimes.com
You can use the following points to help you in your letter or visit www.helpelephants.com for more information.
* Elephants are highly complex, social animals who live in extended family groups and travel tens of miles a day. Today’s zoos are unable to meet the physical and social needs of elephants. These needs include space, adequate exercise, and extended social groups.
* Elephants in zoos suffer from captivity-induced physical and psychological health problems due to lack of space. Health problems include debilitating foot and joint problems, arthritis, digestive disorders, stereotypic behaviors (neurotic behaviors resulting from severe confinement). Other problems include reproductive system shutdown (flatliners), and high infant mortality rate.
* The AZA, a zoo industry trade organization, provides a set of standards that are insufficient for the proper maintenance of elephants. These standards include a minimum outdoor enclosure size of 1,800 square feet for one elephant, the equivalent of six parking lot spaces. The standards also allow the prolonged chaining of elephants.
* As the largest land mammal, elephants are genetically designed to move and forage most of the day; this constant movement is necessary for their psychological and physical well-being.
* Historically elephants have been managed through coercive force, such as chaining for prolonged periods and use of bullhooks and electrical hotshots; this abuse is unacceptable.
* Zoos routinely move elephants, and other animals, from one zoo to another with little to no consideration for their social bonds. In the wild female elephants never leave their mothers and male elephants have complex social structures with other bulls and females. No elephant in the wild lives in constant solitary confinement.
Letters should be less than 200 words. Please do not send attachments and please remember to include your full name, address, and phone number (for verification purposes–street names and phone numbers will not be published) and not to use any wording in this alert.
Thanks and good luck!
Sincerely,
Kristie Phelps
Communications Director
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