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10 Worst Zoos For Elephants-Reid Park #2

by on Jan. 16, 2012, under Animal Cruelty, Animal News, Pet Health & Safety

10 Worst Zoos For Elephants – Reid Park #2 – Thank you Tucson! (not)

To for some background, please read Elephants Never Forget.

from the press release

Tucson, Ariz. (January 16, 2012) ­ The 2011 list of the Ten Worst Zoos for Elephants, released today by In Defense of Animals (IDA), once again exposes the hidden suffering of elephants in zoos, where lack of space, unsuitably cold climates and unnatural conditions condemn Earth’s largest land mammals to lifetimes of deprivation, disease and early death. The list is in its eighth year.

A promising trend toward the closure of inadequate elephant displays continued in 2011 and includes zoos that have appeared on IDA’s annual list.

The most recent are the Central Florida Zoo and Southwick’s Zoo in Massachusetts. The Toronto Zoo’s appearance on the 2009 list sparked a campaign that led to the closure of that exhibit in 2012. This brings the number of zoos that have closed or will close their elephant exhibits to 22, and zoo experts expect that number to rise.

The Reid Park Zoo appears for the second time on IDA’s list with the following entry:

Reid Park Zoo (Tucson, Arizona) ­ You can’t get more cold hearted than this.

This zoo has a cruel plan to separate Connie and Shaba, who have been tightly bonded for 30 years. Why? Because Connie, who is Asian, does not fit into the zoo’s new African-themed attraction. African Shaba will remain, but if she doesn’t integrate with the breeding group coming from the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, she’ll be sent to another zoo. Zoos often separate bonded elephants, causing profound suffering, and ship them between zoos like furniture. The Reid Park Zoo prefers to ignore the reams of scientific research attesting to the deep and often life-long connections that female elephants form in favor of driving up attendance and revenue.

The San Diego Zoo Safari Park (California) earns yet another dishonorable mention, and the San Antonio Zoo (Texas) becomes the newest inductee into the Worst Zoos for Elephants Hall of Shame, a special honor reserved for the worst repeat offenders.

Another result of IDA’s relentless advocacy for elephants in zoos has been the creation of an historic management policy by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). The new policy calls for an end to handling that requires keepers to share the same unrestricted space with elephants. If the AZA is serious about enforcing this policy, it will facilitate an end to the use of the bullhook, a weapon used by keepers to threaten and often inflict painful physical punishment.

“IDA’s Ten Worst Zoos for Elephants list illustrates the many serious problems that condemn elephants to lives of misery in zoos,” said IDA Elephant Campaign Director Catherine Doyle. “These include abnormal repetitive behaviors, hyper-aggression, social isolation, and deadly conditions such as foot and joint disease caused by lack of space and movement.”

“Scientific research has shown what elephants need: space to walk miles every day, large families with whom to spend their lives, and rich natural environments,” said Doyle. “Caging elephants in zoo displays is not humane and it is not conservation.”

For more information, please visit the website HelpElephants.

Here’s a list of the 10 worst zoos for elephants.

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In Defense of Animals is an international animal protection organization located in San Rafael, Calif. dedicated to protecting animals’ rights, welfare, and habitat through education, outreach, and our hands-on rescue facilities in India, Africa, and rural Mississippi.

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  • Carolyn Classen

    Ugh, and the Honolulu zoo (which I have visited lots of times) got the distinction of #10 on this list too.

    • Suzanne Carlson

      Then please stop buying a ticket!  Why do you continue to support the zoo?

  • Nicholas Kridler

    This list at times can be bunk let’s prove this:
    1. the reason reid park zoo is separating the elephants is because of AZA standards. Also the facility they are sending Connie to specializes in geriatric elephant care. 
    2. The only reason SDWAP is on the list is because their elephants came from Swaziland in 2003. The reason they came was so they wouldn’t be culled. Here our some facts for that show they are healthy and have enough space:
             A. They are on 6 acres now.
             B. They are thriving there they have actually doubled their elephant herd        numbers wit birthes.
     

  • Response to Nicolas

    You have bought the standard zoo bunk. 
    1. AZA standards are nothing to write home about and include approval of too small  of space for elephants. In the case of the AZA insisting on separation, if done with humans would be called flat out racist.  There is no reason for it except to bring in a herd known to be aggressive.  The SDZoo is hardly known for geriatric care, elephants don’t live in zoos, they live to die in them.
    2. Ask IDA about the culling garbage, it’s smoke and mirrors, you need the real story and it is complicated and sleezy.
        A. 6 acres is hardly enough for one elephant, let alone 18. This is what people have a hard time comprehending – the vastness that elephants are genetically programed to require, and it ain’t a measly 6 acres.
      B. Birth rates to do indicate “thriving,” especially when AI, artificial insemination, is involved – this is rape on an elephant.
    If you understand this as slavery of old, where masters said it was OK because they took good care of their slaves, you begin to understand the ghastly wrong done to these sentient beings.
     

    • Response to Nicolas

      B was to read: Birth rates do NOT indicate “thriving,”

  • Gentry

    IDA is an agenda group with one agenda – to shut down zoos. They’ve chosen elephants as the ‘poster species’ to accomplish that end.  Nicholas – IDA’s list has always been ‘bunk’ and always will be.  It’s nothing more than a fund raising tool for IDA and the media continues to fall for it.

  • http://www.freetheelephants.com Cindy Wines

    Gentry, IDA’s agenda is NOT to shut down zoos. It is to protect elephants and prevent them from being shipped to zoos where humans can gawk at them. They deserve to be left in the wild where they can be free and with their family groups. Reid Park Zoo has 1/3 of an acre where they two elephants were in a dirt barren encloser with a concrete pool in the middle. Theirs has been a life of misery for 30  years. I work With PAWS which has 2500 acres and the 8 elephants they have are allowed to swim in pool, roam the grass and trees and be as free as possible. Also the circus is inhumane especially Ringling w here they are beaten into submission everyday. IDA and all the animal right groups have helped many sad, trapped elephants. They are a good animal rights group.

  • Guest

    Breeding does indicate thriving, as discontent animals won’t breed. 
    And Reid Park just announced they are sending Shaba and Connie to San Diego together.  But I want to reinforce that these magical sanctuaries that the activists want all elephants sent to would actually separate bonded elephants if they were different species.  So, sending Connie and Shaba to a sanctuary would not have helped that situation.
    The main reason sanctuaries are not AZA accredited is because AZA instituitions require medical records to be released about their animals, and then we would learn that TB and EEHV (herpes virus) have infected these facilities, and then AZA would not reccommend sending them to sanctuaries. 
    I’m not saying that these zoos listed couldn’t improve in elephant welfare, but sanctuaries aren’t the magical paradise they claim to be either.  Elephants still die there, some of them mysteriously, and because they are not AZA, we will never know why.  We know next to nothing on how the elephants are handled, how they are treated, and what the elephants do or how they spend their time.  All we know is what we are told by the staff, who have to watch their mouths and can’t share information about their facilities or they could potentially lose their jobs.  That’s out of the mouth of an Elephant Sanctuary elephant handler.  Not allowed to discuss how they work with the elephants, or share any information about what is going on there.  That’s their policy. 
    So, transparent zoos that need us to help them improve, but at least we can learn experience them?  Or closed-off, secluded sanctuaries where the elephants die off and we will completely forget all about them, and how much they need us to save them?

    • response to guest

      First, while Connie and Shaba will be sent to San Diego together, SD Zoo hopes to separate them later. PAWS is prepared to create a home where Connie and Shaba would be able to live together for the rest of their lives. 

      It’s not appropriate to make incorrect and unsubstantiated statements against the elephant sanctuaries in an effort to mitigate the negative information about your zoo. Standards of care are not in question. The main reason that sanctuaries are not accredited by the AZA is because of the AZA requirement that accredited zoos ship their animals to other zoos at AZA request. PAWS and TES are forever homes. No animal there will ever be reclaimed by a zoo. That’s a big reason why the AZA fights so hard to prevent zoos from retiring their elephants to sanctuaries.

      Elephant sanctuaries regularly share information on health problems suffered by the elephants. They are quite open about this. Of course elephants have died there. Elephants in sanctuaries are mostly older, having been retired from circuses or zoos. They typically have health problems that were exacerbated, and often caused, by life in captivity. Experienced caregivers are on site and monitoring the elephants 24 hours a day. No elephant that needs help during the night ever has to wait in pain for staff to return in the morning. It’s a recurring story at zoos of animals discovered down and in distress or already dead when keepers arrive for work in the morning. Umoya’s death at San Diego Safari Park is the latest example of this. The cause of death at a sanctuary is released after results of the necropsy come in. It’s all available to the public. You only need to follow their news. There’s no mystery. People die in nursing homes and hospitals too. Those death records are rarely released to the public. What’s your point again?

      If you don’t know how the elephants live at PAWS, it’s only because you haven’t made the effort to know. There are newsletters, videos and open house dates when you can visit the sanctuary to see for yourself. 

      • noARA

        If you think sanctuaries are transparent think again.  They will only release enough information to satisfy the masses of supporters.  If they released the full details their supporters would be up in arms and donations would drop like a brick off a roof.   Having said that, I agree that, yes, sanctuaries do play an important role in giving homes to abused animals that have absolutely nowhere else to go to keep them safe from harm.  However, most zoo elephants have known nothing but deep love and excellent care from the keepers that care for them.  Note that I said “most” as not all zoos are good zoos just like all sanctuaries are not good sanctuaries.  The main argument for moving zoo elephants to sanctuaries is space to roam.  Now that many zoos are expanding their elephant habitats to address that issue are the activists satisfied?  No.  No surprise there.  Heaven forbid the activists should ever acknowledge that zoos are doing something good for a change.  And before you tell me that the redesigned exhibits are still not big enough let me remind you that the only reason wild elephants travel the distances that they do is because they are searching for food.  They have to be resourceful in a habitat subject to annual droughts – they have to go where there is food to find.  And because those distances could be insurmountable the migratory path is imprinted in their genetic memory.  Both zoo and sanctuary elephants have no need to do search for food.  They just need adequate space to exercise, period.
        Another misconception is the “morning discovery” of a fallen animal when a keeper arrives at work.  Yes, this happens sometimes, even in sanctuaries.  However, there are many occasions where an animal has been monitored and provided health care around the clock from those same keepers in an effort to ease their suffering and keep them alive.  But those stories wouldn’t help the activist cause, now, would they?
        There is no black and white between zoos and sanctuaries.  Both serve an important purpose and the good ones on both sides need to be recognized.  PAWS should be applauded for taking in the broken and diseased elephants that have been cast aside but zoo elephants that have had nothing but the best of care and the best food just because their exhibit is not the size of a small country?  I think not.

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