IDA TO METRO COUNCIL: OREGON ZOO ELEPHANTS NEED MORE ROOM TO ROAM THAN ZOO CAN PROVIDE

Portland, Ore.—The directors of In Defense of Animals’ Portland office will tell the Metro Council in a meeting on Thursday (October 4 at 2:00 p.m. at the Oregon Zoo’s Educational Classrooms, 4001 SW Canyon St., Washington Park, Portland) that elephants at the Oregon Zoo need more room to roam than the zoo can provide in any on-site exhibit. During the public comment period, IDA will release information documenting the poor condition of the Oregon Zoo’s elephants, and challenge the Zoo to build a natural habitat refuge for Portland’s beloved pachyderms.

Preliminary information indicates that the Zoo is recommending a three-acre elephant exhibit.

“While we commend the Zoo for acknowledging that earth’s largest land mammals need more space, there just isn’t enough room within the Zoo to properly accommodate these large and vigorous animals who can walk tens of miles a day in the wild,” said Matt Rossell, IDA’s Northwest Regional Director. “If the Zoo can’t provide the space and natural conditions elephants need to thrive, then it should not hold elephants at all.”

Rossell noted that a three-acre exhibit (necessarily divided into four yards) would be inadequate to accommodate the Zoo’s current elephant residents, let alone any new elephants born at the Zoo. The recent announcement of Rose-Tu’s pregnancy and the Zoo’s intent to breed more elephants heightens the immediate need for much more space than the Zoo can provide, Rossell said.

Only a spacious, off-site natural habitat refuge can prevent elephants from suffering the degenerative and chronic foot infections and deteriorations and/or joint disease that have plagued the Oregon Zoo elephants for decades. At the meeting, IDA will issue a three-point challenge to the Zoo, urging it to:

  • Provide elephants with a minimum of 50 acres of natural habitat;

  • Vow not to separate elephant families or bonded females; keep mothers and daughters together for life and allow males to remain with their mothers into their teens;

  • Eschew its inhumane elephant training method that relies on force and domination to control elephants, in favor of protected contact, a newer, safer, and more humane method.

“For the Oregon Zoo to truly be a leader in the care of elephants in captivity, it first must meet the complex needs of elephants, and that includes providing vast space, a rich and complex natural environment, and stable social groups,” said Rossell. “Oregonians should oppose wasting precious tax dollars on any elephant exhibit that does not meet elephants’ needs.”

For more information, please visit www.helpelephantsinzoos.org.