eleblog

“The San Francisco Zoo dropped its elephant exhibit. So have zoos in Anchorage, Detroit, Madison and Chicago. In each case, the zoos could no longer justify their cramped and lonely quarters in the name of education and conservation. ” - OregonLive.com

“Elephant culling at the Kruger National Park is unnecessary and not a last option, the Earth organisation said on Wednesday.” - IOL

“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

“Winky is dead, and I digress today from the usual politics-and-government nonsense in this space to recount her life, mourn her passing and offer her a belated apology.” - The Modesto Bee

“Winky was an Asian elephant. She was euthanized early Monday at the Ark 2000 animal sanctuary operated by the Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) in the rolling foothills near San Andreas.” - sacbee.com

“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

“It is too soon for conservationists to ring the alarm bells over South Africa’s elephant management plan that includes culling, argues Dr Richard Leakey. In this week’s Green Room, he says the measures are necessary and based in animal welfare concerns.” - BBC NEWS

“In this issue of Global voices environment, we check in with various blogs around the world. The themes are varied, and some are of global concern with commentary from Kenya about elephant culling in South Africa, commentary from Europe on “Eco-colonialism” in Botswana, Brazil, DRC, Patagonia and other countries.” - Global Voices Online

“There are 6 billion people in the world, and counting. The planet’s resources are spread dangerously thin among all humans. But despite our conscious overpopulation problem, we’re not going to start systemically killing people to bring down the increasing numbers. Killing isn’t the answer, nor is it the answer for South Africa’s elephant population problem.” - The Daily Aztec

“After 13 years of relative peace, government-sanctioned gunfire will again be heard in the Kruger Park - as will the trumpeting and screaming of elephants as closely knit families watch the massacre of their kin or die in terror as bullets smash into their skulls.” - Star

“Culling of elephants is unwarranted as there is no scientific evidence to demonstrate that the animals are affecting the biodiversity in the Kruger National Park, The Earth Organisation said on Thursday” - IOL

“In South Africa the killing of elephants was outlawed in the 1990s. According to yesterday’s reports, since then the population has soared from 8,000 to 20,000. That’s a lot of elephants. Most of them are in the Kruger National Park.” - Times Online

“Davison seems to indicate that a back-stage pass to the circus would help in some way to inform the issue. This is nonsense, as the cruelty that is at the very heart of the issue itself could have, and likely would have, occurred during the elephants’ training, and not backstage during the circus.” - Star Tribune

“Last Friday, Minneapolis City Council Member Ralph Remington was on his animal rights soapbox, declaring at the council meeting that banning elephant rides was a moral imperative. As inspired orators often do, Remington reached for a prop — an elephant guide, or bull hook — and waved the supposed instrument of punishment about.” - Star Tribune

“But maybe this incident provides an opportunity to re-examine the ethics of confining intelligent, wide-ranging beasts like tigers, elephants and dolphins in zoos, aquariums and circuses. Unquestionably, our treatment of animals in captivity has evolved in humane ways since the days when zoos were little more than rows of squalid cages, an evolution documented in books like “Animal Attractions,” by Elizabeth Hanson, and “A Different Nature,” by David Hancocks.” - ScrippsNews