Every concerned commenter will be feasting on other animals raised in windowless cages and tiny pens. Then SLOG and commenters will talk shit at vegetarians.

It's rather amusing.

I did write a letter to the zoo. I had noticed, even before reading this article, that the elephants looked sad. I love seeing elephants and all, but i'd much rather watch them looking happy or at least content than the way they are at the zoo. speak out people! maybe they'll listen this time!

@110 You ARE either a moron or soulless.

Anyone who has actually been to Serengeti or Masai Mara could not come back and look at a zoo as anything but a prison for animals (I'd argue the Mara is essentially a people zoo where the whites can come to hoot and screech at the Masai). Even in their natural environment elephants are facing problems from poaching, sprawl and deforestation running up to and around the Mau Escarpment. Historically Kenyans and elephants have battled for land and resources, raids by elephants of neighboring houses and fields are still an issue, they'd probably love to just lock-up all the elephants. The oldest female of a herd is the leader, it usually has a detrimental effect on the rest if she's killed because of her wisdom and knowledge, but here are these three poor ladies, forced to be on top of each other in such a confined area.
Your blathering is definitely anecdotal, at best misguided, at worst blatant sock-puppetry.

"The Stranger has finally done an article about the inhumane existence of Bamboo, Chai, Watoto and Sri (on loan at the St. Louis Zoo). Please take a minute to write – even just one line – showing your support for the release of the elephants to the 2,700 acre Elephant Sanctuary.



Thousands of acres of freedom and being able to choose companions (from 14 elephants!) will allow them to heal physically and psychologically from the traumas suffered at Woodland Park Zoo.


The article:
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/cash_…


Bamboo, Chai, Watoto and Sri need your help. Thanks!"

DEFINITELY not 'comment bombing'.... right?

http://tinypic.com/r/2ik2u5g/7

inb4 "sure we comment bombed but that doesnt make us wrong"

echoes of that period last year when the space needle people bombed the posts relating to choosing a new use for the fun forest space in seattle center in support of the chihuly option - what a fun time that was...

Thank you for writing this article. This topic is near and dear to my heart. Writing to the zoo, going to the zoo board meetings, and even handing out information in front of the zoo hasn't seemed to work. I hope that this article gets more attention to the issue. Thanks again!

Wow, what a hit piece. This didn't start out as journalism and shouldn't even pretend to be.

59 is absolutely right. This article has definitely been comment-bombed. Most of the bemoaners are first time posters. I've seen this before; they use the same "facts", patterns, and tactics on phinneywood.com and, because of it, I can't take them seriously. I'm sure the elephants would hate them too. Nice going, saboteurs.

Thank you to any and all people who speak out against the imprisonment of elephants in zoos. We supporters of animal rights and elephant rights plead to have the Woodland Park Zoo elephants released to a sanctuary where they can live out their lives in peace, which they deserve. Seattle, take the lead, make a stand, set an example, show the country we are a humane and animal rights community and release these beautiful, sensitive and intelligent elephants. We need to stick together and make it happen. Imprisonment = Abuse.

Thank you to any and all animal rights supporters and supporters of elephant rights. Imprisonment of elephants in zoos is both inhumane and abusive. We, as a community, need to continue to speak out and fight for the release of the Woodland Park Zoo elephants. Let's show our children about true humanity. Seattle, let's set an example to others that we are a humane,compassionate and animal rights community. These elephants deserve living the rest of their years in the safety, peace and freedom of an elephant sanctuary.Imprisonment = abuse. It is time for it to end!

Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants has always acknowledged that the elephant keepers at WPZ take as good care of the elephants as they can under the circumstances. Over 3 ½ years of observing the elephants, we have documented that they are locked up for 16-17 hours for about 7 months of the year: AZA guidelines require this because of our climate. Using the numbers taken directly from the barn’s blueprints, we have told the WPZ and the Zoo Board that the human equivalent of the space in which the elephants are locked – one being in solitary confinement – is a square cell 4 feet on each side. It is the zoo environment that kills animals prematurely: in the past 11 years, half of the 76 elephants who have died in AZA accredited facilities, like WPZ, never reached the age of 40. The natural lifespan of elephants is 60-70 years. In other words, zoos are killing elephants prematurely just as poachers and loss of habitat are doing but in zoos they suffer every single day.

The Zoo Board can be leaders in education and heroes of compassion by voting to release the elephants. It’s a win all the way around:
• The city gets out from under a law suit.
• The zoo saves about $400,000.00 which is based on the last time WPZ released figures in 1995. (The zoo knew how much it cost to run the Nocturnal House last year. It would be financially irresponsible to not know how much it costs to keep elephants)
• Bamboo, Chai, Watoto and Sri get the life we owe them.

Alyne Fortgang, Co-founder, Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants

Thanks for writing this article and helping educate the public on the elephants' plight. So many people who attend the zoo are unaware how much the elephants suffer from lack of companionship, space to roam and freedom (not to mention the awful repeated artificial insemination attempts). I can't visit the zoo anymore knowing these beautiful creatures are receiving so little of what they need to live long, healthy lives.

So what's the distinction between animals who need to be in sanctuaries and animals who need to be in your mouth...ability to display sadness?

I love that bashing vegans is hilarious to the Stranger and its readers, but when it comes to elephants, zOMG OH NOES!

Why do you hate inner city children so much?

@134 so when it comes to animal cruelty, its an 'all-or-nothing' deal?
Let me know how that extremism works out for you and your cause.

Kept in a tiny confine. Don't these animals walk miles everyday? Looks like a scene from Girl, Interrupted in there. They are "so cute" as an animal social experiment. Not!

@59, @128, what the hell are you talking about, "comment bombing"?

For starters, this article isn't on Slog, it's on The Stranger, which is a different thing.

Second, all of these supposed "comment bombers" went to the trouble of signing up for an account, which satisfies 100% of the requirement for posting here. It's the same process by which all of us got here. It's the same process by which YOU got here.

Did these people come here just to comment on the elephant story? WHO CARES? They're people just as much as you are. Maybe more, since they're not going around criticizing others not for their views but for the very fact that they have posted those views. That's baloney.

If you have a problem with the article, let's hear it. What's your argument? Cienna's made hers, and I think she's made it pretty well. I've been following this elephant story for several years now, and I started off 100% on the zoo's side, but I'm about 90% switched over by now. That's because the "move the elephants" side is making a pretty good case, while the "keep them here" side ISN'T. Instead you're just going on the personal attack.

As for the zoo's handling of the critters, I haven't heard ANYONE suggest that they don't care for them deeply and treat them as kindly and respectfully as possible. That's not the point. The point is whether a bunch of these huge, mobile animals can live well in such a tiny enclosure or not.

I'm old enough to remember when the zoo pavilion first opened. It was considered state of the art at the time; before that they were kept in basically a room, like all the other animals in the bad old zoos of the 50s and 60s -- remember Bobo, in his concrete cell? This was a big step forward. But time has shown that it's not enough.

If you disagree, that's great -- let's have it. But don't go telling people they shouldn't be commenting at all. Everyone's voice here is as good as anyone else's.

My suggestion is to take them out for walks up and down Aurora every day -- across the bridge, back up and around the lake and home. There's your 20 miles.

That guy who says he's a photographer? He sure ain't doing the Zoo any favors here.

@138

Absolutely no opinion on the piece or the issue on which the piece focuses; I certainly don't consider myself sufficiently well-informed about the issue to make a conclusion about what ought to be done re: these elephants.

What I don't understand is why you would come to the vocal defense of a person or people using this tactic. I read (daily) and participate (less frequently) on thestranger.com and slog because it seems like a good place to discuss the issues of a city I care deeply about with likeminded and intelligent people (for the most part). Commenting and discussing the ideas found in stories and posts is a vital part of that process to me because I feel like I have come to know want to hear the opinions of other people (including you, who I consider one of the most clear headed and generally awesome characters of slog) whose insight I have come to value.

Simply signing up an account, coming on here, posting on one issue per a script provided to you by an organization of some sort is to me an equivalent to the kind of tactics (seen more often in our culture these days) of groups who support one position attempting to shout down or drown out any opposing opinion by shear force and volume rather than through reasoning and debate ("townhall" meetings, that forum regarding what to do with the Fun Forest, etc.). And although I sometimes agree and sometimes disagree with the ideas and opinions conveyed by these groups, I recognize that these tactics are the enemy of the concept of an articulate, informed and civil public debate; a concept which I think is essential.

Maybe that is the way the world works now, but I continue to decry it, and I will bring attention to these tactics if and when I see them used. Yes, even on the internet.

Maybe folks in Seattle should reach out to Bob Barker of "The Price is Right" fame. He just convinced the powers that be at the Toronto Zoo to re-locate its elephants to a sanctuary. I believe the gist of Barker's argument was "Canada is too fucking cold for elephants!" Persuasive.

@141: Not entirely true. They're relocating the elephants, and have said they'll send them to the California sanctuary only if they are unable to find space for them in an AZA zoo.

The zoo was already in discussions about what to do with the elephants. The choices were $16.5m facility improvements or moving them to another locations, and Barker offered to help pay for them to move.

Why move them from one zoo to another? They'll be living under the same circumstances as they were at the old zoo. The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee is the best place for them. They have a full time vet and 10 caretakers. The elephants are free to be elephants and no visitors are allowed. They have 2700 acres of fields and lakes to roam around in and also warm, cozy barns if it gets a little chilly and they want to go inside.

Canadian Nurse - Hi! Thanks for the fuller picture of the elephant situation at the Toronto Zoo. Have you ever been to the T.O Zoo? The Polar Bears will blow your mind! They've got paws the size of couch cushions!

I go to the zoo a few times each year, Animal. Some artist friends of mine have memberships and we go and they'll take pictures to take home and sketch. I *love* the polar bears. They seem much happier in Toronto in the winter than the elephants do!

I went to the Woodland Park Zoo for the first time in a decade and I couldn't stand to look at the elephants. I remember seeing them standing on a concrete slab caged in by a chain link fence. That is not living. What is being done is far worse than simply walking up and putting a bullet through their brain. They are suffering, and anyone who argues that is inhuman.

I thank you for writing this article and bringing this issue to the fore. Elephants are intellegent, feeling animals and don't deserve a life like this. I didn't know about the artifical inseminations or the plight of Sri, and both disgust me. How can you keep doing that to those poor animals who didn't have a choice? How shameful and creul to keep doing it again and again, when nature obviously doesn't want it to happen! I'm sure it's painful at least physically, or they are drugging her that many times. The last time I saw that exhibit and Pt. Defiance, both struck me as patches of fenced-in dirt, and those same thoughts occurred to me as are in the article. I feel so badly for them. I recently bought a membership to the zoo because I have a 6-year old, and am now having regrets. It's also hard to explain to the 6-year old why I won't let him go to the circus. I don't think those elephants have it much better. We as humans need to do better for the earth and its creatures, and I hope humankind will realize that and change.

At first, I was just going to write about how dumb and unimportant elephants are and that their captivity is irrelevant to anything. But now, after reading about the psychology of these big fuckers, I find the Woodland Park Zoo a sad place to visit.
I could care less about most animals, because I like to eat most animals. There ought to be a little more respect shown to these elephants though. We should care about something like this, shit. But do we? And what will happen to the Woodland Park Zoo? (The questions are both rhetorical: No and Nothing.)

There's a reason the only people who go to the zoo are bored breeder moms and their offspring. Everybody else finds the place repugnant and depressing.

Here's an idea: why doesn't Woodland Park leave the poor pachyderms alone and go after the GOP!

Nice article. Now, would it be possible to have the same about cattle? Animals well being should not depend on how cute or impressive they are to us. Cash cows or cows, if you think one deserve a decent life why not the other?

For all who justify the existence of zoo for the need of "connecting" with animals: if you really connected by looking at them, you wouldn't stand what's done to them. On the contrary, we look at all this depressed and bored animals that barely move at all and we get used to think that they're just like zombies; walking and eating. If you want to connect to animals, get a pet and treat him well or look at a documentary, which is the only real way to see them in a wild state (aka, living, playing, traveling, reproducing, giving birth, hunting, dying,... ) for 99,999% of us.

Some of us may have forgotten (or are too young to remember) that in June of 2002 a senior elephant keeper admitted in an email to another keeper that he had physically punished young female elephant Hansa with the blunt end of a hooked pole (an ankus) for what he perceived as misbehavior. PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) acquired the email, forwarded it to reporters in Seattle, and the story headlined the news in virtually all Seattle media.

Just in case anyone thinks this is unsupported fabrication or "comment bombing," here is an excerpt from The Seattle Times, 7/23/2002:

"He said Hansa was reprimanded June 22 because she had pushed him with her head after he tried to stop her from eating dirt, one of her nasty habits. Her move knocked him off balance, and then she moved her rump toward him.

He said he smacked her with his ankus and that when she ran away, he smacked her twice more.

Then Hansa dashed into the viewing area and bellowed loudly, and her mother came running.

The incident lasted three minutes, but the repercussions are continuing. The zoo received hate mail, and Shrake worried about wearing his name tag in public."

This was probably an isolated incident and not nearly as significant as the ongoing stressful environment in which the elephants at WPZ are trying to survive today. Still, in honor of Hansa's memory, it should not be forgotten. She died at the zoo when she was only 5 years old.

please do something woodlands zoo, they do not deserve this

Another sad Elephant Story - Tai - from the movie Water for Elephants. I was just wondering if you had seen this video - pls ck it out - and let me know what you think - IF what is stated in this article and what reads on the screen of the video - I find it terribly disturbing that American Humane stands behind the training of Tai the elephant. I would truly welcome your thoughts and comments. ck this out: (pls feel free to share with others - I don't think this is getting the recognition it deserves) www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/8505…

@59 and others - I'm a constant internet lurker; while I constantly read and enjoy blogs, I rarely am interested to share an opinion. This piece (while obviously remaining one-sided since WPZ refused to participate in any real way) moved me to write the Seattle City Council, WPZ President, and share this comment. I am NOT affiliated with any animal rights group (for or against WPZ), government agency, or other political/social group. I'm just a Seattle resident/taxpayer that cannot stand to see such a reckless disregard for animal rights supported by MY tax dollars. So, yeah, let these elephants be moved to The Elephant Sanctuary (FOR FREE)and then this comment thread (and any perceived bombing of it) can really be closed. And by the way, the fact that you comment a lot doesn't make you more qualified than anyone else--it just means you feel the need to share more than most.

We visited the zoo reluctantly (family gathering) a week prior to this story being published. My husband and I were sick to our stomachs most the time we visited.

We felt the elephants didn't look happy one bit. There was a fence (electric?) that was popping the whole time we walked the area around the elephants. How soothing for them.

I am glad this article was written.

I've tried writing 2 comments, but both disappear when I try to write my name, but here goes for the last time. Elephants are wonderful and highly intelligent creatures. These captive elephants need to be sent to the 2700 acre Elephant Sanctuary in TN. where they will have free roam, they can swim in large lakes, they're fed the diets they love and can hang out with the particular elephants they bond with. They don't "dance", as one child thought the elephant was doing. They sway from side to side and bob their heads up and down when stressed out. If all animal lovers wrote to newspapers in the cities that have zoos and circuses, we could get the truth out as to how these poor animals are treated. Get the networks in on it like CNN, Animal Planet, Planet Green, etc. We'd get alot more of the public informed than is informed at present; and I bet that kids would get the word out. They are much more sensitive than their adults.
Give these wonderful creatures a chance at having a good life.
They deserve it. To live with their sisters and play and enjoy life like it was meant to be. We have no right to think they are ours to entertain us. Some of those fees the zoos have made on showing them should be used to transport them to the Sanctuary.
If the zoos are opposed to this, I bet The Sanctuary might be willing to transport them. Do what's right for them. They've given their whole lives to live in Hell. Now, it's their time to enjoy the good life for the rest of their lives. Forget about reporting their situation to the USDA. The might take up the cross, but I doubt it. I haven't seen them do anything for 1 elephant sice I have loved them and I've e-mailed, faxed and called. The Taxpayers pay his salary, but just like everybody in Washington, he's forgotten what he's supposed to do for its citizens. Let me finish by saying that unless those of us do what we can for the elephants, it's not going to get done. Who, with a heart and compassion is going to let an elephant continue to carry around a dead fetus for 4 years and not remedy the situation no matter what the cost? What about some of that $6.5Mil?
Thanks for listening and thinking about all of this. It's way past time.
Posted by: Mars.Bees

Thank you for this story, Cienna. Hard to believe that you wrote it over two years ago and a lot of the same conversations are continuing. Thanks, again.