Last Saturday fifteen to twenty-five of us at any given time protested the inhumane and cruel housing of elephants at the Woodland Park Zoo, and the reception we got from patrons, especially from parents, was most often annoyance and resentment for interrupting their day, interfering their oblivion, if you will. I understand that they just want a nice day out with their children, but is our personal comfort and entertainment more important than the health, safety, and happiness of elephants, to name just one animal, animals usually stolen from the wild?
If there's one thing we know about elephants it's that they love to roam. They roam for miles and miles, sometimes up to 30 miles a day. We also know they love their families and have tight bonds with each other. We know also they're intelligent and sensitive, sometimes exhibiting a higher consciousness so advanced we wonder how they know what they know. We know they're loving, gentle creatures who love to play in the water, and each one helps parent the babies in the herd. In the wild they live to be much older than those raised in zoos, according to several studies.
I’m willing to discomfit a few patrons, even parents and children, if it raises awareness, and I think we did that. One father replied to my question that the clowns were annoying. Another man, with his 3-year-old in his arms replied, “That clown is a total jackass!! Thanks for ruining my day!!” I was fairly incredulous at his loud anger because he had his son in his arms, and he knew the issue and the reason we were there. But all he could see was the inconvenience to him and his son, an interruption to their day. I responded “Thanks for not caring about inhumane treatment of the elephants,” and I probably shouldn’t have, but you know what? I don’t really feel bad about it. We Americans tend to be very self-absorbed. We have that luxury and privilege; boy, do we have privilege, but we should not be so privileged or comfortable if based in ignorance and if we’re contributing to harm.
Many of the patrons took a flyer I offered when I said, “Can I give you some information about the elephants?” with a smile and a thank-you. But when I added, “We’re trying to get the elephants to a sanctuary because they’re not treated well here,” many if not most patrons changed their mind and some visibly recoiled. Some reached for the pamphlet and then withdrew their hand, shaking their head. I pretty quickly stopped adding that bit of information. It doesn’t take me long to catch on.
For me the day turned into an interesting study of human nature. Many zoo-goers became angry, some hostile, some disinterested or pretending to be, but some were grateful to get the information. A zoo employer and I engaged in a heated debate, his opinion being that what we are doing and will do again is misguided and disruptive. He insisted the eles are treated well and that WPZ is in fact one of the best zoos in the country, so we didn’t know what we were doing, and we should get our facts straight. I was fairly sure we knew the facts but his insistence did make me wonder. In the course of our five-minute discussion, he did admit that the WPZ elephants have about an acre to walk (which they can do in 60 seconds), and when I said they suffer from foot and joint disease and exhibit signs of extreme stress and illness, his response was that -- I kid you not – Well, in Thailand and other countries they are chained and beaten, so they have it much better here.
That was a bridge too far for me. “Are you serious??! That’s your standard?? That’s how you’re going to support your argument?!?” And he got a little red in the face and I got a little red in the face, and I moved away to hand more pamphlets to people coming in, his credibility lost, in my opinion.
I understand how difficult the emotion of guilt is, how powerful it can be. I try very hard to do nothing I feel guilty about because the feeling is poisonous. I imagine a zookeeper can’t feel good about a job that results in mistreatment of animals, not if he’s a good person. I understand the guilt of a parent who merely brought their child(ren) to the zoo to share the animals, to see the world anew through their eyes. I understand the joy of seeing the world anew, through the eyes of a child. That parent, I learned, is likely to become disagreeable if you interrupt that occasion. When one is looking forward to such a day, it’s disappointing to be brought up short; to be made aware that in fact doing the thing you’re looking forward to contributes to harm. Add to that that, as Americans, we tend to feel entitled, and we do not like and in fact resent being denied, but I believe that kind of self-absorption has contributed to the sickness in our society.
And I’m getting off topic, but it was an interesting study, that afternoon out in front of the zoo.
The conditions of elephants and other large animals that traditionally roam for miles and miles are miserable and unhealthy in zoos. Many zoos artificially inseminate animals, certainly elephants, some of whom are unhealthy or ill and/or beyond child-bearing years.
The reason the zoos continue to house the animals is depraved: It is to draw in patrons to make money, in our case, since WPZ is owned by the City of Seattle, money is made for the City. The City should relinquish the elephants to one of several sanctuaries which have offered, free of all costs, to take the elephants to a sanctuary with miles and miles to roam and rivers and lakes to play in with other elephants. Of course, the eles bring in the most crowds and the most money, especially when a baby is born because that is so rare an event.
Which should tell you something.
Beautiful, sensitive, intelligent creatures do not deserve to be kept in the equivalent of a closet for more than half the year because it’s much too cold here for them. Because of the cold temperatures, eles are kept in concrete cages behind bars for more than half of the year. The swaying back and forth and bobbing that they do in that situation isn’t “dancing.” It’s the elephants stressed and unhappy. There is no longer any justification for keeping them here. We now know better.
We should each send an e-mail to the City of Seattle [I’ll get the proper email address in the next few days] to urge them to send the elephants to a sanctuary that offers thousands of acres for them to roam not the single acre they have at Woodland Park.
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| "Free the elephants, please, zoo." |
If we want to educate our children about animals, better to share with them a movie, a beautifully filmed up-close look at happy animals in the wild as they are meant to be and read books about them and enjoy photographs. There is spectacular footage of animals being happy and free in the wild, not mopey, depressed, diseased, and caged behind bars -- animals doing what they are meant to do where they are meant to do it.
First the elephants, then the rest of God's creatures… Please join us for our next outing.
