Activists not giving up on Seattle’s elephants; disrupt zoo meeting

Activists who pushed for Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo to shut down the elephant display are trying to persuade the zoo to move the pachyderms to a sanctuary.

Activist Alyne Fortgang tells KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson that they were about 75-strong at a protest outside the zoo’s board meeting on Tuesday night.

While the activists did score some semblance of a victory with the Woodland Park Zoo’s announcement last month that it will find a new home for its two endangered Asian elephants, Fortgang explained they’re not happy with the plan to send the animals to another zoo.

“The ACA accredits zoos and their standards are very low so it’s inclusive of all the zoos – even the ones that are really not good at all,” Fortgang said.

“We’ve done a review, looked over the data and pictures of all the ACA zoos that hold Asian elephants, and you would feel like you’re stepping back into the 1950s. They’re small. When Bamboo and Chai [the Woodland Park Zoo elephants] would be added to any of these zoos, they would have less space than they have now.”

Fortgang said they would like to see the elephants go to a PAAWS Sanctuary in California.

“They would have a side of a wooded hillside where they would live in nature, live on their own time, do what they want. They would essentially be elephants, which they’ve never had the opportunity to do.”

For those who say that elephants in zoos increase the awareness regarding conservation and threats to the animals, Fortgang doesn’t think the animals being held in zoo displays are worth those potential benefits.

“They say they have to display elephants so people will care about the elephants being poached in the wild,” Fortgang said. “I heard someone say this from Born Free, that poaching causes elephants a horrible death, but zoos cause elephants a horrible life.”

She said sanctuaries just have a different idea of how the animals should live.

“Sanctuaries have the philosophy that elephants should be left to become elephants again and live as free as possible.”

Monson surprised himself, saying he’s totally in agreement with the elephant activists.

“I think your cause is a right one, a just one. If Woodland Park Zoo says it’s going to get rid of the elephant display because of the pressure, I don’t know how sending them to an equivalent zoo is doing the animals any favor. If they do care about the animals, I think they should follow what you guys are pushing for and get them to a sanctuary where they can just be free.”