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U.S. Zoos Launch Major Effort to Import Wild Elephants Faced with early deaths, unsuccessful captive breeding programs and the prospect that their elephant "collections" will die out over the next 50 years, U.S. zoos have launched a major effort to restock by importing young elephants from Africa and Asia. Zoos condemn
elephants - many captured from the wild - to a life of captivity under
conditions that do not come close to approximating life in the wild for
these complex and intelligent animals. A second legal battle waged by IDA and the Save Wild Elephants Coalition, an international coalition of animal advocacy and wildlife organizations, forced the San Diego Zoo and the Lowry Park Zoo of Tampa, FL, to relinquish permits authorizing the import of 11 juvenile African elephants from Swaziland. Unfortunately, the zoos applied for renewed permits, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was only too happy to grant them. Our coalition again filed suit, but sadly, a conservative Republican federal judge denied our motion for a preliminary injunction to stop the import of the elephants. The 11 pre-teen elephants – two of whom were pregnant – were airlifted to San Diego and Tampa in August 2003. Click here to read more about the elephant capture. IDA and the Save Wild Elephants Coalition are now focusing our efforts on a destructive Fish and Wildlife Service plan to rewrite the Endangered Species Act to make it easier for U.S. zoos and circuses to import endangered species, including Asian elephants, from overseas. Please
read on to learn about the detrimental effects of captivity in elephants
and our efforts in the campaign to keep elephants wild. |
IDA
has been at the forefront of efforts to stop the zoos' import plans so
that endangered and threatened elephants remain with their families in
the wild where they belong. These efforts have included a successful lawsuit
to prevent the Six Flags amusement park company from importing two baby
Asian elephants to a Northern California amusement park.