In Defense of Animals joins our partner, Free the Oregon Zoo Elephants, to urge you to vote no on Metro’s wasteful spending measure on the May ballot. This vast expenditure comes at a time when Portland is in dire need of other vital services, including affordable housing, homeless shelters, and programs to address crime and drug use. And most important, this bond, though three times as costly as the 2008 zoo bond, does little to nothing to help animals. The bond does not even specify precisely how the money will be spent!

We opposed the $125 million zoo bond in 2008 because its vague language made us wary that the Oregon Zoo would develop the offsite elephant preserve it promoted with Metro. Eight years after the bond passed, Metro canceled the plan to build the preserve, failing the elephants who continue to suffer from zoochotic behavior and zoo-related diseases in their new "improved" 3.5-acre onsite exhibit, Elephant Lands.

We have placed the Oregon Zoo a record-breaking 13 times on our annual list of 10 Worst Zoos for Elephants. 

In 2022, the Oregon Zoo infamously became the number one worst zoo for its disregard for the high number of injuries to the elephants from bullying and aggression, which is often exacerbated in zoos due to lack of space and stimulation. The fact is elephants, due to their size, intelligence, and complex social needs, are uniquely unsuited to captivity. 

The Oregon Zoo has refused to allow its besieged Borneo elephant Chendra to be released to a sanctuary, despite the fact that a sanctuary offered to take her at no cost to the zoo. The tigers, lions, giraffes, and polar bears lead miserable lives in an unsuitable climate. They are squeezed into the zoo's puny, inadequate exhibits, often pacing back and forth in frustration and boredom.

We recommend that the Oregon Zoo immediately send Chendra to sanctuary, retire all the elephants, and close the elephant exhibit, as 35 zoos have already done. We urge the zoo and all zoos to look to the future by planning to develop holographic and animatronic displays to replace the old, outdated concept of confining wild, far-roaming animals for life.

In the meantime, please vote no on Measure 26-244. Find out more. This wasteful boondoggle of a  bond does nothing to help humans or other animals.