“Elephant polo, a fan favorite in South Asia, remains one of America’s least popular and slowest-growing sports. ” – CBS News

“Six people were arrested by the US Department of Justice on Wednesday, accused of taking part in a trans-Atlantic ring that routinely sneaked ivory, much of it elaborately carved, out of three African countries – Uganda, Ivory Coast and Cameroon – that prohibit such exports, and then slipped it past customs agents at Kennedy Airport in the elaborately disguised packages. In the US, importing elephant ivory was made a crime in 1976.” – TopNews

“Jenny, the elephant, has made national headlines, and a woman at the heart of her story is coming home to Lawton. The 32-year-old elephant currently lives at the Dallas Zoo and is ready to retire. However, people are in disagreement about where she should live in her remaining years.” – KSWO

“Representatives from a Mexican animal welfare group joined the debate on the future of Jenny the elephant at City Hall today, arguing for the aging star of the Dallas Zoo to stay in the United States. ” – allas Morning News

“A Canadian woman was sentenced to five years in federal prison this week for smuggling elephant ivory from Africa to Northeast Ohio and other places in the United States.” – Cleveland.com

“The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee is the nation’s first natural-habitat refuge specifically developed to provide a haven for endangered African and Asian elephants. There are currently sixteen Asian and three African elephant residents. It is a non-profit organization, licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. It is the only sanctuary in America to offer the setting, climate, and native vegetation that parallels habitat in the elephants’ native wetlands. We provide sanctuary for captive elephants that are old, sick or needy. Our primary objective is to provide a spacious and rich environment in which elephants can freely exercise their sensitive, intense socially gregarious, complex, and remarkably intelligent natures. We believe that all elephants should be treated with respect and minimal intrusion. Utilizing more than 2700 acres, The Elephant Sanctuary provides three separate multi-hundred acre protected, natural habitat environments for Asian and African elephants. Phil Snyder, regional director emeritus of the Humane Society of the United States has stated, “The Elephant Sanctuary” represents the future of enlightened captive elephant management.” – Zoo and Aquarium Visitor
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“Sale of most elephant ivory is banned by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES); even the sale of ivory from culled or naturally deceased animals is strictly regulated. Since 1973, most sale of elephant ivory has been prohibited in the United States under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, under which Asian elephants are listed as endangered and African elephants as threatened.” – allAfrica.com

“The Denver Zoo will start building a $50 million exhibit for its elephants next year at a time when five major U.S. zoos are closing their pachyderm houses.” – VailDaily.com

The city of Dallas is on the verge of losing one of its valued citizens through “Extraordinary Rendition” to a foreign facility where she will be subjected to solitary confinement, social isolation, emotional stress, and public humiliation. Jenny has worked selflessly for the benefit of Dallas and its residents for the last 22 years and deserves a better fate.

Jenny, a 31 year old female African elephant has been on display at the Dallas Zoo since 1986. She was forcibly separated from her mother in Africa when she was only 2 and spent the next 7 years at a “training” facility where she was routinely chained, beaten and humiliated to modify her behavior before placing her on display. The elephant enclosure at the Dallas Zoo has always been very inadequate – elephants are highly mobile and require adequate space to roam as much as 30 or more miles each day; her enclosure was measured in square feet when it should be measured in acres.

Elephants are intelligent, social, and self aware. They require a herd to have the social interactions and friendships that are vital to their physical and emotional well being. Jenny spent many years alone and that contributed to her emotional problems that led to self-mutilating behavior which had to be controlled with medications. Her mental condition has been described as “Zoochosis” and as PTSD. Several years ago, a second female African elephant, Keke, was added to the exhibit and she and Jenny became close friends. Unfortunately, Keke passed away earlier this year and Jenny is once again alone. She is extremely depressed (yes, elephants do suffer from depression) and the zoo has determined they can no longer care for her.

Without any input from the citizens of Dallas, the zoo decided to send Jenny to an African Safari Park located in Puebla, Mexico, 80 miles southeast of Mexico City and 950 miles from Dallas. Concerned citizens in Dallas have recommended that rather than shipping her out of the country where she won’t have the protection of U.S. animal care and anti-cruelty regulations, that she be sent to The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, where should would join 3 other female African elephants on 300 acres within a 2700 acre private reserve dedicated to the care of elephants rescued from zoos and circuses.

http://www.elephants.com

The zoo has refused to accept any input and remains resolute in their intention to send Jenny to the Mexican amusement park.

The zoo’s decision is wrong on many levels and their refusal to listen to the citizens of Dallas is unconscionable.

The Africam Safari Park in Puebla, Mexico is a drive-through amusement park that offers tourists the opportunity to drive their own cars through the various animal habitats. They have only 4.9 acres dedicated to their elephants which currently include 1 male and 2 female Asian elephants. Unfortunately, Asian and African elephants cannot be commingled as they have different social structures and behaviors. Worse yet, there are diseases that are harmless to African elephants while potentially fatal to Asian elephants. The bottom line is that Jenny would be alone in Mexico and all authorities in the subject agree that elephants should never be kept singly.

The idea that Jenny would be on public display and exposed to the noise, fumes, activity of cars and tour buses constantly moving through her environment represents the worst possible conditions for this sensitive creature already suffering from PTSD and depression. In contrast to this commercial exploitation, Jenny deserves the tranquility offered by The Elephant Sanctuary, with their focus on the preservation of the privacy, dignity and well being of elephants who have suffered years of mistreatment.

What can we do? Within the last several years, the zoos in Philadelphia and San Francisco have both determined that elephants cannot be humanely kept on display and have closed their elephant habitats by relocating their elephants to sanctuaries in Tennessee and California. We must join the citizens of Dallas in a public outcry against the “extraordinary rendition” of Jenny to a Mexican amusement park.

Please address your concerns and support for keeping Jenny in the U.S. and sending her to The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee by emailing, calling and writing to:

The Dallas Parks and Recreation Department:

Paul D. Dyer, Department Director
Dallas City Hall
1500 Marilla Street, Room 6FN
Dallas, TX 75201
Phone: (214) 670-4100
Fax: (214) 670-3205
http://www.ci.dallas.tx.us/forms/form_pkr.htm

To Tom Leppert, Dallas Mayor at:

Dallas City Hall
1500 Marilla Street, Room 5EN
Dallas, TX
75201-6390
Main Phone: (214) 670-4054
Fax: (214) 670-0646
tom.leppert@dallascityhall.com

The following is a link to coverage by a local Dallas news report.

http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/tv/stories/wfaa080630_mo_elephant.f65c159.html

“56-year-old Michael Francis Elliott of Gravesend has been found guilty and given a two year suspended sentence on charges of illegally trading in elephant ivory, hippopotamus ivory and sperm whale teeth. This follows a lengthy investigation by the Met’s Wildlife Crime Unit that led police to enquiries in China, Latvia and the United States.” – Wildlife Extra

“An African elephant in Philadelephia’s zoo died recently at age 52. While wild elephants sometimes live into their 60s, that left a 48-year-old in Salt Lake City as the oldest African elephant in a U.S. zoo. ” – seattle pi

“The oldest African elephant living in the United States, 52-year-old Petal died yesterday morning after collapsing in her sleep at the Philadelphia Zoo.” – metro

“Regular readers of Environmental Graffiti will recognize that I was, as I usually am, totally, completely wrong. America, as it turns out, is the second largest consumer of Ivory in the world, and contributes heavily to the poaching and black market trade.”- Environmental Graffiti

“A male Indian elephant eats bamboo. Nearly one-third of ivory items for sale in the United States may have been illegally imported after a US moratorium on the trade imposed in 1989, conservation groups said in a report Monday.” – Yahoo! News Photos

“The United States is the world’s second-largest retail market for elephant ivory products, behind only China, a new study says.” – National Geographic News

“An outbreak of a human strain of tuberculosis (TB), called mycobacterium tuberculosis, is infecting and killing captive elephants in the United States. The number of elephants harboring TB is unknown. Several elephant handlers have tested positive for the disease.” – Mt. Vernon Register

“The proposed massacre of thousands of wild elephants in South Africa has sparked international outrage, yet the zoo community has been strangely silent. Zoos tout their elephant conservation efforts, yet not one U.S. zoo has joined the many respected scientists publicly opposing the large-scale killing of a species already threatened with extinction.” – News Blaze

“The Humane Society of the United States and its international arm, Humane Society International, today applauded new regulations on elephant management announced by the South African government on Monday.” – African Path