In Defense of Animals Blasts Zoo Association For Axing Efforts to Give Detroit's Ailing Elephants Sanctuary

 
San Francisco, CA -- IDA today lambasted the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) for putting business interests ahead of the well being of elephants when the association denied Detroit Zoo's request to send two ailing elephants - Wanda and Winky - to an elephant sanctuary. Instead, the AZA ordered the Zoo to relocate the elephants to the Columbus Zoo in Ohio.

Earlier this year Detroit Zoo Director Ron Kagan announced that he was closing the elephant exhibit based on ethical grounds. Kagan is the first U.S. Zoo Director to decide that his zoo did not have the resources, space, or the climate to provide adequate conditions for elephants. Elephants hail from semi-tropical climates and roam and forage over vast areas, walking tens of miles per day in the wild. 

Kagan's plans were to retire the girls to either of the U.S.'s two sanctuaries in Tennessee and California that offer elephants year-round access to up to 2,700 acres of naturalistic habitat, including rolling hills, varied grasses, and soft dirt substrates necessary for health and well-being. 

"The AZA should be praising Ron Kagan for his integrity and foresight instead of condemning his two beloved elephants to a life of pain, suffering, and early death at another cold-climate zoo," said IDA President Dr. Elliot Katz. "Ron Kagan is on the cutting edge of the evolution of zoos as havens for animals in need and places where the needs and interests of individual animals are given priority." 

Detroit Zoo's elephants, like elephants in zoos across the U.S., suffer from captivity-induced health problems that include severe arthritis and recurrent foot problems, a direct result of inadequate exercise caused by confinement in cramped, unnatural quarters. The situation is exacerbated by cold, snowy winters in cities like Detroit, Chicago, and Columbus, which force elephants indoors, where they stand on concrete for months at a time. The lack of motion and immense weight bearing on hard surfaces worsens joint degeneration (arthritis) and often causes recurrent sores and foot infections.

Katz, a veterinarian, said that in order for Wanda and Winky to heal, they must be given access to a naturalistic environment where they have freedom of movement and the ability to walk 365 days a year. Instead, he noted, the AZA wants to subject the elephants to the very situation - long winter confinement - that Zoo Director Kagan is trying to avoid and the very conditions that will exacerbate the elephants' health problems and further cripple them.

"The AZA's decision has nothing to do with the welfare of the elephants and everything to do with the commercial interests of the Zoo industry," Katz concluded. "We praise Mr. Kagan for making the courageous decision that exhibiting elephants at the expense of their health and well-being is unethical, and we will do everything in our power to ensure that his vision for Wanda and Winky becomes reality."