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#4 Worst Zoo For Elephants: What You Can Do

#4 Worst Zoo For Elephants: What You Can Do

Un-Natural Elephant Deaths at Wildlife Safari in Winston, Oregon

For over five years running, Wildlife Safari, a drive-through wild animal park in Winston, Oregon, has featured on In Defense of Animals’ list of the Ten Worst Zoos for Elephants. Wildlife Safari claims to be committed to the “conservation, preservation, and research of native and exotic wildlife,” but the way the park treats the five elephants who live there reveals its dishonesty.

Visitors do not learn about the wondrous nature of wild elephants — that is not at all what Wildlife Safari promotes. Instead, the zoo sends a damaging message that elephants exist for human entertainment. At a cost per head, the zoo offers elephant encounters that include dangerous elephant “petting” sessions, elephants painting pictures and ornaments for human visitors, and even elephant selfies.

On top of these dangerous stunts, animal advocates object strongly to the park’s training methods, which have included the use of barbaric bullhooks. Handlers have been seen wielding these antiquated and cruel devices to control elephants through fear of painful punishment.

Two female elephants have died at Wildlife Safari over the past five years, at ages 40 and 44 which is just a fraction of their natural lifespans. The zoo claimed that these elephants died of “natural causes,” yet these claims were never, sufficiently investigated or challenged. In nature, female African elephants would be in their prime in their forties, so chalking their deaths up to “natural causes” for elephants leading such unnatural lives in Oregon makes no sense.

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