Help Elephants (IDA) - Top Ten Worst Zoos for Elephants - 2010 Interesting list, and id say their most reasonable one yet. This is also the first time they actually give a zoo credit!
I posted this link on a photo of the awful San Antonio elephant paddock, and I agree that it is the "most reasonable one yet" of all the annual top 10 lists. Many of the choices are perfectly adequate, and there are a few more (Louisville, Audubon, Baton Rouge, Fort Worth, etc) that could easily be added to the list.
So the WAP gets a "dishonorable mention" because its doing too good of a job breeding? I'll let the keepers at the WAP know that they should start telling their elephants to give birth to females so IDA can be happy.
It does seem stupid, I haven't been anywhere near America, but SDWAP's Elephant exhibit's look great!
SO happy that Dallas was the first to be praised! The WAP one does seem a little unreasonable. Elephants are elephants, whether male or female.
You do realize that the IDA just barely complimented Dallas. They have to look good somehow, even though their end game is to have no elephants in any zoo. If there was a 50 acre elephant exhibit built at a zoo, the IDA would probably still bash it.
This list comes across as nothing but yet another bag of emotional statements through which they hope to reach to the sorry and shallow-minded with money to spare to sponsor their work so they don't have to get real jobs. It's 2 AM so I can't be bothered much with this list. Indeed I will only comment on the exhibits I have seen myself. From the San Antonio listing: "It crams two of the Earth’s largest land mammals into a space smaller than many backyards, creating an unhealthy and dangerous situation: Boo has been terrorizing Lucky, who has no escape route" The exhibit is not overly big but not that small, though they do use an interesting trick to make it look small by posting a photo showing the two elephants very close together. Saying it is smaller than most people's backyard is the best; if I had a backyard, I'd be pleased if it was a portion of that exhibit. Can't comment on if bullying has been taking place but the two seemed peacefully co-existing in the exhibit at the time of my recent visit. I'm not sure why they had to include San Diego Wild Animal Park. They try to justify it by refering to their surplus bull breeding but it is just a shot in the foot as I see it to include a park with the space and resources SDWAP has. And how hard must it have been to compliment Dallas Zoo on their new 'Giants of the Savanna', even if in such a reserved manner. Why did they? My guess would be that they're trying to come across as an organisation that fights for better living condition for elephants, not one that is trying to ban their keeping alltogether. Unfortunately, for them, it fails, as anyone in his right mind can see. If this list would be in print, it would go straight in the garbage bin.
Sad to see my local Topeka Zoo on there. But as poor elephant exhibits are something that greatly annoy me, I'm glad they are being recognized for this poor exhibit. But I agree this website is crap, and they need to give some better reasons than just insults and slander. May I point out that the very good elephant exhibit at St. Louis mad their "Hall of Shame."
Anyone else watch Penn and Teller's Bull$*** (the actual name of the show) on Showtime? They did an excellent one on the animal rights movement and how it has gone so far out of wack. They mentioned these guys and used the St.Louis Zoo as an example.
