The plight of elephants in zoos
(click here for Part 1: Circuses)

Please research your local zoo to see if it has elephants and if so, do some research to see if their exhibit meets the elephant's needs.

Zoos as well can be abusive environments for elephants. Some zoos train them, circus style, to perform for their patrons. Others are just way behind the times and have archaic exhibits for these magnificent animals. These animals, in the wild, roam up to 30 miles a day. When a zoo confines them in a small space with a concrete substrate, their feet breakdown and they are subject to numerous foot infections, arthritis, and eventually osteomyelitis, a slow painful death.

They are social animals that travel in herds in the wild, and are even sometimes displayed alone, depriving them any socialization or interaction with their own kind. Zoos often remark how they are so attached to their keepers but an elephant alone, interacting only with a member of another species is not in an environment that can psychologically sustain it. This deprivation leads to stereotypical behaviors such as head bobbing and swaying back and forth leading little kids to giggle and remark "look, she's dancing." This so sad and is so far from the truth. Elephants in zoos are provided for our "entertainment" and "education." It is merely an education in the suffering of a magnificent animal but most people are not aware of what they are seeing.

There are a couple of zoos that have raised the bar and have good elephant exhibits: the Oakland Zoo, and the North Carolina Zoo. Many others are painfully behind the times and are ignoring all the data that tells them they are essentially killing these magnificent sentient beings. You can read why the Detroit Zoo closed its elephant exhibit LINK.

Elephants in captivity live much shorter lives than their counterparts in the wild. Often zoos will remark that their elephant lived to a ripe old age and people will buy the zoo's story line. It's just not true.

The photos above are of Clara, an elephant that lived a miserable life at the St. Louis Zoo, one of In Defense of Animals 10 WORST zoos. ( If one of these zoos is in your area, please become an advocate for the elephants there. ) Her incarceration in this substandard enclosure caused her painful foot problems and the zoo tried to put sandals on her to alleviate this problem. Of course, that did not work. You can see the expression on her face. Poor Clara was finally euthanized only a couple of days after telling the public that she was just fine.