NEW BEDFORD, Mass. (October 24, 2024) — In Defense of Animals urges Buttonwood Park Zoo to immediately send its ailing and elderly elephant Ruth to a true sanctuary where she can receive expert veterinary care, and have a chance to experience some joy, peace and comfort following the zoo’s announcement it is placing her in hospice for end of life care. 

Buttonwood Zoo lacks the facility, staff, and equipment to adequately provide care for a senior elephant, and does not even have a hoist to lift Ruth if she falls down — a common occurrence and life-threatening event for older and ill elephants. 

Ruth spends most of the winter confined indoors in a stall barely big enough for her to turn around, while the long hours of confinement standing on a filthy dirt floor caused severe foot infections, a leading cause of death in captive elephants. 

Buttonwood Park Zoo is currently losing a federal lawsuit that seeks to compel the zoo to transfer Ruth and her companion Emily to a sanctuary. According to Joyce Rowley, Founder of Friends of Ruth & Emily, the zoo is likely taking this action now to avoid a potential loss in federal court where they face a second Endangered Species Act lawsuit. With no clear end to the legal proceedings and the zoo claiming Ruth’s health is in rapid decline, immediate transfer to sanctuary is needed.

“It is imperative to get Ruth out now, before more damage is done to her legs and feet,” said Rowley. ”She has been confined to the barn for 20 hours each day. She lost 1,200 lbs, and her confinement has affected her muscle tone. Ruth needs to get to the Elephant Refuge in Georgia, a warm climate, 850-acre sanctuary where she can heal and be healed.”

Ruth was born in the wild in 1960, captured, and exploited for entertainment. She was forced to suffer painful and disfiguring rides, perform circus tricks, and was rented out for parades. In 1986, she arrived at the Buttonwood Park Zoo where she is forced to live out her life with an incompatible partner, Emily, who bit off Ruth’s tail. Both elephants deserve life in a sanctuary, far from the pathetically miniscule and desolate zoo exhibit they currently endure.

Decades of enduring the frigid Massachusetts climate and the confines of an inadequate enclosure have taken their toll on both elephants, especially their feet. Like most zoo elephants, Ruth and Emily both suffer from chronic foot abscesses and arthritis. But the combination of a poorly managed sand floor system, installation of steel bars making it difficult to remove waste-contaminated soil, and a leaking barn roof created the perfect storm for Ruth's nail lesion in 2021. Both elephants contracted pododermatitis, a painful condition that causes excessive tissue growth around their feet. But Ruth's was aggravated by weeks of stall rest, or forced confinement in the barn, a practice not recommended by elephant experts. While the zoo provides some foot treatments, it has reportedly ceased certain treatments as Ruth enters hospice, further compounding her suffering.

Buttonwood Park Zoo has appeared seven times on In Defense of Animals’ annual list of the 10 Worst Zoos for Elephants due to the ongoing suffering of Ruth and Emily.

Despite the rapid aging captive elephants suffer, Ruth and Emily could live and heal in a natural sanctuary environment which is designed to meet elephants’ complex needs. Examples like Delhi, a 59-year-old elephant who was rescued and sent to the Elephant Sanctuary in 2003, demonstrate that even elderly elephants can thrive in sanctuaries. Though plagued with a host of conditions and predicted to only live for six months, Delhi lived for six more years, enjoying roaming, foraging and forming social bonds that are critical for elephant wellbeing. Elephants in Asia are also routinely rescued in their 70s and 80s.

It is time now to send beleaguered Ruth to a sanctuary so she can enjoy some quality of life. Emily too should also be given the same opportunity of joy and dignity. Buttonwood Zoo has pledged to close its elephant exhibit when the elephants are gone, and will join the list of 38 zoos that have already made this compassionate choice. 

“Growing old in a barren zoo exhibit without proper care or opportunities to roam, forage, and experience some semblance of life as a real elephant is akin to animal cruelty. Elephants don’t live in zoos — they die there. Before they die, we dearly hope that Ruth and Emily can escape their life of deprivation and find a new life of tranquility in a natural setting with hills, grass, trees, and ponds to soak their aging joints, all in a warm, spacious and peaceful sanctuary. They deserve no less,” said Courtney Scott, Elephant Consultant for In Defense of Animals.

Over 22,000 In Defense of Animals supporters have contacted Buttonwood Park Zoo, urging it to urgently release Ruth and Emily.

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CONTACTS: 

• Joyce Rowley, Friends of Ruth & Emily, info@friendsofruthemily.com, 774-526-9669
• Courtney Scott, In Defense of Animals, courtney@idausa.org, 503-288-6142

IMAGES & VIDEO of elephants are available on request.

In Defense of Animals is an international animal rescue and protection organization with over 250,000 supporters and a 41-year history of defending animals, the environment, and their guardians through education and campaigns, as well as hands-on rescue facilities in India, South Korea, rural Mississippi, and California. www.idausa.org/elephants

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