Detroit Zoo to Free Elephants on Ethical Grounds

DETROIT (Reuters) - The Detroit Zoo will become the first major zoo to stop exhibiting elephants on ethical grounds because they can develop arthritis and stress-related ailments in captivity, officials said on Thursday.


The Detroit Zoo has one of the largest facilities in the country, but its Asian elephants Winky and Wanda still have recurring foot problems due to the cold weather, Director Ron Kagen told Reuters.


In the wild, elephants roam vast areas, live in large families, and exhibit some of the same social traits as humans such as forming friendships and mourning for their dead.


"Elephants seem to be intelligent and even social in ways that are similar to humans," Kagen said. "Elephants can suffer from similar things to what we suffer from when we're in difficult environments."

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040520/us_nm/environment_elephants_dc_2

some little kid "Hey Mom, lookit what I found... can we keep him?"

:)

-- they'll be really ETHICAL elephants wandering the streets! (:-)

and wondered if it was ethical to release those elephants to the streets of Detriot.

When they've been held in captivity and separated from their herd?

...one of the "problem herds" that I've heard about. The one that are basically "elephant crips" which have basically juvenile members and are out of control. They have done some work showing that introducing well adjusted mature "Mom" elephants can fix the problems.

I can't tell if you are kidding. What do these bad elephants do?

Let em see if I can remember. Basically it's a herd being led by the eldest juvenile. They are more destructive and aggressive in temperament. They are more often involved in negative human/elephant interactions that "natural herds". If I recall properly it comes from culling herd by killing the eldest ones off, and/or transplanting elephants but taking only the younger ones because they are easier to catch and transport. Or something like that.

I'm the product of a PBS childhood! :) Even today if it wasn't for PBS, Discovery, TLC, History Channel or Sci-Fi I don't think I'd ever turn the damn thing on.

<on edit>

Here's an article.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/08/22/60II/main226894.shtml

I forgot about the rhinos.

<snip>

The problem goes back 20 years to South Africa's largest conservation area, Kruger National Park. Kruger had too many elephants. In those days there was no way to relocate these large adults. So researchers decided to kill the adults and save the children, who were more easily transported to other parks.

The government veterinarian who originally approved the relocations, Dr. Hym Ebedes, said it was a good idea. He said that he considered the possibility that the young elephants might not adjust well, but that there was no other option.

The intentions may have been good but the program created a whole generation of traumatized orphans thrown together without any adults to teach them how to behave.

<snip>

Zoos are so overrated. Kids can learn just as much about animals by taking trips and reading books. I really only think Zoos should exist in a manner that is like a veterinary clinic for those who cannot survive in the wild. Most animals have such horrible lives in zoos, that the negatives outweigh the positives.

I'm a Biologist in large part due to the Toledo Zoo, but I understand why people are so dead set against the style of zoo these days.

You are more than welcome for the info.

Because of the Toledo Zoo, I remain fascinated by penguins. It's just the way I remember it.

I'm ripped up over zoos, too. I do believe that releasing the aged zoo elephants to sanctuaries is a good start, and overdue as well.

ON EDIT: I do hope you meant the Toledo, Ohio Zoo, and not the Toledo, Spain Zoo, in which case I would appear terribly uncivilized in my post. :-)

and once, on a trip to the zoo, saw their elephants become extremely agitated because someone's kid was screaming in the enclosed elephant area. I mean screaming. I was becoming agitated. The elephant tried to pick up his play tire in his mouth, and if he could, I'm sure would have thrown it over the barrier separating us from them, but it was too high.

I believe the Toledo Zoo also did the first study on zoo-related stress in polar bears, but I can't be sure.

they were fine. The kids were killing and attacking
rhinos and it was getting desperate. They were going
to shoot them but putting adults in, big bulls that
kicked their asses made them calm down. Can't have
too much testosterone when someone can kick your ass.

Love elephants. :)

"Basically it's a herd being led by the eldest juvenile. They are more destructive and aggressive in temperament."

Not a crowd I'd like to find myself within 500 miles of. :scared:

Unfortunately the elephant will be extinct in about 30-50 years anyway...sad.

zoo (Defiance Park?...something like that)...they had elephants chained to posts. They couldn't even go more than 4 or 5 feet. One just stood there raising and lowering one of his legs. I watched for several minutes and it made me so damn mad I wrote them a letter when I got home. Nobody ever answered. (They also had a Beluga whale who spent every waking minute -if they sleep at all- making the exact same 'circuit' through a tank that was way too small.)

I hate that kind of shit.

Maybe it's better now, any Sea-Tac DUers know?
:grr:

elephants like these can lead very, very different lives -- thee's room to roam -- large barns and positive human, elephant interaction.

My grandpa runs some farms in the south. I'm gonna see if he will get some elephants. WAY cooler than horses!

Zoos are a true tragedy. So much better that the money was spent to buy preserve areas for their living areas. Like the whales, an intelligent gentle creature thrown away like trash by humans.

has an elephant sanctuary.

Here's a link to their website.

http://www.elephants.com/

I believe it's a true sanctuary and they don't let the public view or interract with the elephants.

I think all zoo's should follow.

I was just there on Friday, I feel honored to have seen them before they go:

They are dumping them in an animal sanctuary where their arthritis and other problems of old age can become someone else's problems. Smooth move, but hardly ethical. I care for my animals in age and in ill health, not just when they're pretty, but maybe I just have an odd ethics, who knows.

Kagan is not getting "rid" of the current elephants to get younger ones, the current elephants are not infirm. He is doing this before they get infirm due to improper living conditions. He stated that elephants need 20+acres of roaming space and the Detroit Zoo has a one acre elephant exhibit and that is one of the largest in the country (in a zoo setting).

Do you think it is more ethical to keep the elephants in conditions that Ron Kagan has concluded are detrimental to the animal's long term well-being?

They may be selling or giving some of them to a game ranch for sick ass exoctic game hunters to kill.

Hunting for food is one thing but for sport it's not right.

But never elephant! Assuming that is what you meant. Fortunately, hunting elephants is sort of out of style now, even with poachers

Might want to mount part of one on his walls or something like that.

chance? Because the bible instructs you to care for these creatures.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

then your defense of the Christian thing was really, really sophomoric and offensive. Being that you broke the rules I could just alert the mods, but that ain't my style, unlike many of the trolls on this board.

But I will say your slip is showing.

<sigh of relief>

We can only hope that more zoos follow suit, and quickly.

Excellent work being done here, at the Elephant Sanctuary of Tennessee:

http://www.elephants.com/

If you have a few extra bucks left to give after the hectic political season, do consider them.

really be supporting elephant farms???

:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick:


(Just kidding, I love pachyderms, too.)

:D

Hey, I support the Great Ass Sanctuary as well, if not more so...

:silly:

I guess there's one in Texas that takes elephants. The Detroit Zoo has really made efforts to provide the closest environmental settings that they can for the animals in their care, ever since the chimp drowning a while back where a visitor to the zoo jumped into the animal area to save the chimp because staff were afraid to. The zoo got a lot of bad press over this incident and has ever since made a lot of improvements.
I think the elephants will be happy at the refuge, and they won't have to fear hunters.

I suppose a state side facility, there's probably no place in their natural range where they would be safe.
They are truly impressive critters, by far the most intelligent herbivore. I was privileged to have 2 in my care when I was a zookeeper long ago. It was a crummy facility even by the standards of the day and foot problems were always a concern.
Elephants due to their size and social structure are unsuitable for zoos. As are the great apes, sentient creatures like us. Zoos are prisons for them and using them for medical research I find nazi-ish.
I am nonetheless very much in favor of well run and funded zoos. Seeing(and smelling!) animals is a great way to awaken the biophilia in a person, more real than passively viewing them on the tube in one's living room. Sensitizing and educating the public is the primary mission of zoos in these strange and terrible times. If we can't get the public to support conservation wildlife is doomed. Breeding programs are good and necessary but represent a last ditch effort.

"Won't somebody think of the children!!!"

Actually, thinking about it, I once had a part-time vacation job in a zoo and it was the kids that were the problem. Evil bastards used to give the elephants lit cigarettes.....they should have been caged themselves.

P.

at the Belle Isle Zoo, seperate from the regular zoo. A friend of my mom's worked there and so we'd go see her and she'd let us ride the baby elephant.

Then one day some evil being fed the baby elephant a tennis ball. If I recall correctly it died. I'm not sure they maintained that zoo much longer, the Detroit riots happened in that time frame and the city was in ashes and broke.

Like a million others, we fled for our lives. Haven't seen Belle Isle since.

Julie

There should be a law against elephants having to live in climates not natural to their habitat. Unless a controlled climate habitat can be reproduced.

greatly improved over the last 50 years or so, when all animals were kept in very small enclosures, so they're not as bad as they used to be. Do they need to exist? I don't know. There is something to be said for people being able to see the animals up close and personal. I guess, in some way, it makes people see the animals as real, living creatures, instead of something in a film or book. But zoos and cages are a form of torture to these animals. Large game or animal parks would be a better alternative, where the people have to be in cages in order to see the animals. There are places like this, where animals live nearly as freely as they do in the wild.