IDA Joins Local Effort To Move Injured Elephant at Philadelphia Zoo To Sanctuary

Elephant Attack at Philly Zoo Jeopardizes Safety of Elephants – Demonstration Today at Zoo

Philadelphia – Today, local grassroots group Friends of Philly Zoo will be joined by In Defense of Animals (IDA) to voice their grave concerns about the well-being of Asian elephant Dulary, who was reportedly “attacked” by another elephant in August and has been kept in solitary confinement for the past six weeks due to the incident. Members of Friends of Philly Zoo elephants learned that Dulary was gored near her eye by one of the African elephants and underwent surgery for the injury. Zoo officials have refused to let anyone – including members of the media – see Dulary, despite numerous requests from concerned Philadelphia residents, animal advocacy groups, and local media outlets.

Local residents will demonstrate today outside the Philadelphia Zoo in response to the six-week confinement of Dulary, the only Asian elephant at the Philly Zoo. Because of concerns for Dulary’s safety, the groups are urging the Philadelphia Zoo to immediately transfer her to The Elephant Sanctuary (TES), a 2,700 acre natural habitat dedicated to elephants in Tennessee.

What: Protest at Philadelphia Zoo To Transfer Injured Elephant To Sanctuary

When: Thursday, October 6, 11:00 am to 1:00 p.m.

Where: Public sidewalk at entrance of Philadelphia Zoo, 34th Street and Girard Ave.

Today’s event will educate Zoo patrons about the devastating effects of keeping elephants at the Zoo and why the Zoo’s planned elephant exhibit expansion is inadequate and already outdated. The Philadelphia Zoo’s current ¼-acre elephant enclosure is not large enough to allow Dulary the space to avoid another encounter where she could suffer even more severe injuries, possibly death. In 2003, an elephant at Brookfield Zoo in Illinois was euthanized after sustaining severe injuries during an encounter with another elephant. To avoid this horrible and very real possibility, Dulary must be transferred to TES for her own safety and well-being.

The Philadelphia Zoo houses Dulary, the only Asian elephant, with three African elephants (Petal, Kallie and Bette) on less than one quarter acre. African and Asian elephants are not usually housed together for health and temperament reasons. African elephants are believed to possess a form of the herpes virus that is transferable and lethal to young Asian elephants.

“Philadelphia Zoo’s misguided plan to replace the elephant enclosure with a $20 million, 2.5-acre exhibit does not provide nearly enough space for the elephants, so we will continue to see dangerous incidents in which elephants can be severely injured or even killed,” says Rowan Morrison of Friends of the Philly Zoo elephants. “The proposed exhibit will still be woefully insufficient for the world’s largest land mammals who are designed for almost constant movement and in the wild can walk tens of miles a day; there are 640 acres in just one square mile.”

Philadelphia Zoo, like other urban zoos, is incapable of providing the vast acreage necessary to accommodate elephants’ social, spatial, and psychological needs. Elephants in zoos spend their time inactive which leads to psychological and physical health problems including painful degenerative joint disorders, lethal foot infections, digestive and reproductive problems. Because of these captivity-induced conditions, elephants in zoos are dying at half their natural lifespan 60 to 70 years.