Los Angeles Elephant Sanctuary » Los Angeles Zoo

26-10-2008

you didn't offend me, I was just saying how the zoo probably wants everyone to work faster after the proposal.

Nothing has been approved yet, there will be a council meeting on Nov. 6 to review the new sanctuary plan.

26-10-2008

mstickman,

The LA Zoo receives - I suppose - a council and/or state subsidy. What is your angle and hunch on this sanctuary plan? Will they really discuss it at any length?

Personally, I think it is a waste of public space and money to discuss a plan that is only designed to take elephants off public view and scrutiny. Why is the future of LA elephants and in turn the AZA/SSP breeding programme decided within a council meeting - where no-one has any prior or considerable knowledge of zoo inspection standards, wild animal management and exhibit planning and design process?

The zoo inspection process is already regulated through the AZA system of accredition of zoos. Same goes for the design/enclosure planning process - these structures are build by professionals and not politicians. It is perhaps illustrative that councilman Cardenas publicly announces that the building process has not started yet, where in reality it is well advanced?

Third and foremost, I think it is a rather serious matter that major inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the Cardenas proposal are not "killed" stone dead under media scrutiny.

Finally, I am very concerned that this sanctuary proposal is exactly that ... a diversionary tactic ... to prevent public exhibition and maintenance of breeding elephants in the US. The elephant sanctuaries - save for the reknowned ... who invest heavily in breeding their elephants - all sanctuaries are off-limits to the general public, one has to pay top dollar to view the elephants and no effort is made to preserve them in captivity let alone breed and increase their numbers and nor do these sanctuaries promote in situ conservation activities and funding for elephant conservation. Now if anything should be discussed publicly it is this whole sanctuary ethos and where it is leading .. (to me that answer is: a dead end)!

Again, I would appreciate your angle and that of our other respected forumsters from the US?!!!

26-10-2008

@jelle

Personally I would not like to see the the plan to be approved, but if they decide on building a second facility that would work like San Diego Wild Animal Park instead of only an elephant sanctuary, then I'm up for it. Of course, all that councilman Cardenas wants to do is get rid of elephants at the zoo and send them to a sanctuary.

Nothing has been said yet, other than the fact that there will be a city council meeting on November 6th so the plan could be reviewed.

I also think that all this is a plan by the animal activist instead of the councilman's plan. Most of his info is the same exact info given by the activist in past years.

The questions regarding AZA, should be asked to both okapikpr and zooplantman since they know more about it than me.

Sorry if I left you with more questions, but I personally don't have that many answers to the whole problem. Everyone I've asked at the zoo does not have answers either or are not allowed to talk about it.

29-10-2008

@ Jelle: I think you need to learn more about the 2 big elephant sanctuaries in the US and what they are doing. Yep, they don`t breed and the owners are against captive breeding - but all their elephants exept maybe 1 or 2 are way too old and/or sick for breeding. There is no way these elephants would have ever bred (again), not even at the best zoos (and none of these animals has ever been in a good situation in a good zoo!). By the way, there are still a good number of US zoos which boycotted the breeding program in the last years by keeping females which have a good chance to breed in a situation without a bull. Although now, most of these females are likely too old too...

It is not true that the sanctuaries don`t support in-situ conservation. The sanctuary from Carol Buckley has donated to in-situ conservation and maybe more important, they have a fanctastic website with tons of information not only about captive, but also about wild elephants which makes a great contribution through education. Actually, I`ve learned more on their website about elephants and wild elephants then through any single zoo visit.

Third, these sanctuaries operate on donations only and have a far, FAR smaller budget then any zoo or Ringling circus. So it is just fair to expect that big zoos give more for in-situ conservation, especially if you consider that zoos justifice their existance at least in part with the fact that they contribute to conservation. The 2 sancuaries, in contrary, exist mainly for animal welfare purposes, to give elephants who have been brought in captivity by others a good home until they die, after having suffered terribly in zoos and circusses. We don`t talk about elephants who lived in a good zoo in a bonded group with other elephants and in a reasonable spacious enclosure - most of these elephants have spend many years alone or in a bad social situation and/or in totally inadequat enclosures, or in a circus where they were grossly neglected.

29-10-2008

I want to add that I think zoos can give elephants a good life if they have the space to keep a good-sized family group, with a breeding bull, and keep the female family members together. But what shall happen with all the old, non-breeding females, many of whom are not very social or even agressive? Most of them can`t be integrated in family groups, and keeping them in substandard zoos in small enclosures in bad social situations (and a group of just 2 IS a bad social situation for any female elephant) is not the answer, especially since most elephants which live in small, substandard enclosures get life-threatening foot problems sooner or later. There is simply no good option for any of these females in Europe, thankfully in the US things are different!!

29-10-2008

I just uploaded more pics of the exhibit to the gallery from my visit this past saturday.

29-10-2008

I think West European zoos matched all such females in larger groups. Heidelberg and Arnhem, for example, have groups of old non-breeding females.

29-10-2008

Neither Heidelberg nor Arnheim keeps a large group - Heidelberg has 2 females, and Burgers Zoo 4, no space for more elephants. Thankfully the individuals which are kept in both zoos are compartible and not fighting - but there are always females who are agressive, and you just can`t put them to an existing group in a small space without risking major trouble. I think both Heidelberg and Arnheim are doing the best they can, but lets be honest, none of these zoos is great for elephants. Not much space (less then 2000 m²), not the social environment female elephants need, and as a consequence, the eles are bored most of the time. I`ve been there, seen that. And at both zoos, the eles don`t walk much and are at grave risk of foot diseases. There is no better solution in Europe for them, sadly. Things will improve in Heidelberg soon when the new barn is build (with more indoor space and sand floor for better foot health), but it will still be very, very far from the quality of life the elephants at both US sanctuaries have.

30-10-2008

I agree, though like humans there will always be social problems. Take example the elefantenpark in colonge with Kreeblamduan and Thi Ha phyu had a series of fights. Yet that was probably due to a group of 5 adults cows coming into an already established herd.

Though I think older cows should be also kept in a large group, as long as one is a distinct leader, and so there isn't many arguements, a senior herd,

30-10-2008

You are right, social probelms will always occur in captivity when unrelated elephants are put together in a relatively small space - that`s one mayor point why keeping elephants in captivity is so diffcult and why it`s so darn important to keep bonded elephants together. The 2 big US sanctuaries are much better equipped to deal with these problems, they have enough space to keep uncompartible eles apart without having to lock one indoors or in a small seperation pen; they have the space to keep a larger group (not just 2 or 3) females so that it is much more likely that an elephant which arrives newly will find at least one friend. And the eles have the space to go completely away from each other outdoors which helps to avoid fights.

Zoos in contrary can just hope that the elephants they put together come along with each other, or move one animal out. Which is stressful and traumatic for a female elephant with the result that the integration in the next zoo will be even more difficult.

30-10-2008

If you have agressive elephant who doesn't form social friendship with others, than putting it into sanctuary will not change it. OK, maybe bigger number of females helps find two individuals who finally get together. But alternatively, it can simply result in more fights because there is more elephants who don't like each other and want to establish hierarchy.

30-10-2008

Yeah, but if you have outdoor paddocks of that size (dozends in case of the californian sanctuary and hundred of acres in Tennessee, these are the numbers I just found), you can way better deal with the consequences of agressive, unsocial elephants and keep them apart from the others without denying them space to walk around, graze, a pool ect. And after reading the elephant biographies on The Elephant Sanctuary : Hohenwald, Tennessee, I was amazed to see that far most elephants that had been unsocial and problematic in a zoo will find one friend or even two when they have space and can choose.

30-10-2008

You seem kind of Anti-zoo

30-10-2008

The bottom line is that the massive, absolutely enormous elephant sanctuaries in California and Tennessee offer elephants about a hundred times more space, ten times more options for social networking, and an all-around healthy lifestyle than even the largest zoo on the planet.

30-10-2008

So you think all zoos should close their elephant exhibits and send their elephants to sanctuaries?