New Action to Take For Jenny! Cross Post Please

[Guest guest]

WE MUST STOP THE DALLAS ZOO FROM SENDING JENNY TO A SAFARI DRIVE-THRU ANIMAL DISPLAY PARK IN MEXICO. HERE’S WHY. 1. JENNY WILL BE ALONE AND ISOLATED IN MEXICO. At

the Mexican Safari Amusement Park, Jenny will be completely isolated.

Keeping a female elephant in isolation is extremely cruel due to her

intense need for the society of her own kind. Jenny is an African

elephant and she will not be able to associate with the two female

Asian elephants, who live there. Here's why -- Asians and Africans do

not blend herds and do not associate well. Their behaviors and

language are different. Additionally, African elephants in North America

have been infected with a herpes virus that is fatal to Asians, so

Jenny will NEVER be allowed to associate with the Asians. The Zoo is

claiming Jenny the two females at the Safari Park will be company for

Jenny. We now know this to be untrue. 2. JENNY WILL HAVE NO LEGAL PROTECTION IN MEXICO. There will be NO U.S. USDA, Animal Welfare or Anti-Cruelty Laws covering Jenny in Mexico.3. JENNY WILL HAVE A SMALL AREA IN WHICH TO LIVE IN MEXICO.The

sanctuaries who will accept Jenny have thousands of acres versus 4.9

acres at the Safari Amusement Park. The 4.9 acres is subdivided

further, so Jenny may actually have far less than 4.9 acres. She may

end up with a smaller area in which to live than she has now. We know

the bull is presently segregated from the two female Asians. And,

Jenny will be separate from them all. By contrast, the

Elephant Sanctuary (http://www.elephants.com/) is a state of the art, 2,700 acre elephant refuge. It is the largest natural habitat refuge in the world. PAWS Sanctuary (http://www.pawsweb.org/)

in California has hundreds of acres and is also a state of the art,

internationally recognized facility. Both U.S. sanctuaries are

excellent and Jenny should be able to retire to one of these and be in

the company of other African elephants. 4. AZA ACCREDITATION IS MEANINGLESS. The

Zoo is touting the reason for transferring Jenny to the Safari

Amusement Park it that it is Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA)

accredited. The AZA is just a trade association. Their standards are

minimal and voluntary. AZA standards allow zoos to lock a six ton

elephant up for life in a very small space and that meets AZA

standards. AZA facilities have been cited for breech of animal

welfare law in the past, so AZA accreditation is no guarantee of

quality of care. Exposing

Jenny to cars full of tourists will create great stress for

her. Her veterinary records show that she is much upset by noise and

negative changes in her environment. When she gets upset, she

self-mutilates and becomes aggressive to protect herself. AZA's

primary focus is to manage

Jenny as a money making resource, not as a highly intelligent, sentient

being, who suffers from her life in display and confinement.

PLEASE TAKE THESE ACTIONS FOR JENNY NOW!1. ON & AFTER JULY 1 -- CONTACT DALLAS PARKS AND RECREATION DIRECTOR.

The Dallas Zoo is under Parks and Recreation. Please politely telephone and write Parks and Recreation Director (talking points below) as many times as you can:

 

Paul D. Dyer, Department Director

Dallas City Hall1500 Marilla Street, Room 6FNDallas, TX 75201

Phone: (214) 670-4100Fax: (214) 670-3205

Email the Park Department

2. CONTACT THE DALLAS MAYOR AND THE DALLAS CITY COUNCIL BEFORE THEY RECESS (ON JULY 1).

We must convince the Mayor and the City Council to stop this transfer

to Mexico and send Jenny to an elephant sanctuary instead. Please keep

calling them until they do the right thing by Jenny. TELEPHONE MAYOR LEPPERT. Whether of not you live in Dallas, making a polite phone call is the most important thing you can do. Here is Mayor Leppert's contact information:Mayor Tom LeppertDallas City Hall1500 Marilla Street, Room 5ENDallas, TX

75201-6390Main Phone: (214) 670-4054Fax: (214) 670-0646tom.leppertTELEPHONE YOUR CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE, if you live in Dallas. Council contact info is available at:http://dallascityhall.com/government/government.htmlEMAIL DALLAS MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL, whether or not you live in Dallas. You may email ALL at one time by copying and pasting the

web

address immediately below into your search field (if you click on it, you will email the mayor alone):http://www.ci.dallas.tx.us/forms/mcc/MCC_Mail_Form.htm

3. WRITE A LETTER TO THE EDITOR TODAY! We

must keep Jenny's plight before the public by gaining access to the

media. Letters to the editor is our best option, as we do not have a

PR firm like the Zoo does. Please write a LTE to the Dallas Morning News

advocating that Jenny go to a sanctuary rather than to an amusement

park in Mexico, where she will have no protection of U.S. animal

welfare and animal cruelty laws.Letters should be between 50

and 200 words. Letters are selected for publication based on their

clarity and brevity. They require the writer's name, city and telephone

number.Reference the DMN story “Dallas Zoo's lone elephant to

move to Mexican wildlife park” to get the best chance of getting your

LTE published. (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/city/dallas/stories/062408dnmetelephant.3564425d.html) Send your letter objecting to Jenny's transfer to Mexico to:Letters From ReadersThe Dallas Morning NewsBox 655237Dallas , Texas 75265Or submit your letter online at http://www.dallasnews.com/cgi-bin/lettertoed.cgiHERE IS JENNY'S STORY:On

Tuesday, the Dallas Morning News ran a story entitled "Dallas Zoo's

lone elephant to be moved to wildlife refuge in Mexico" about the zoo's

controversial decision to dump Jenny, a 31-year-old African elephant,

at a safari amusement park in Mexico . Since the death of Jenny's

elephant companion, Keke (39), in May, Concerned Citizens for Jenny has

urged the zoo to send Jenny to The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee.The

Mexican park offers an unnatural, confining exhibit of only 4.9 acres

-- a small fraction of the 2,700-acre Elephant Sanctuary, where Jenny

would share a spacious, 300-acre natural habitat with three other

African elephants. It is shocking that the Dallas Zoo is

moving Jenny to a distant facility in a foreign country where she will

not be protected by U.S. animal welfare and anti-cruelty laws,

especially when there is a nearby U.S. facility with hundreds of acres

that is prepared to take her.After being torn from her mother's

side in Africa at the age of two, she was forced into seven years of

brutal training. Jenny has been at the Dallas Zoo for 22 years, where

she has had a traumatic and troubled stay. Between 1996 and 2001, the

Dallas Zoo

medicated her with the tranquilizer Acepromazine because of aggression

and self-mutilating behaviors. Federal regulators characterized

Jenny's long-term treatment with this psychotropic drug as "highly

unconventional." In human health care, this is called "chemical

restraint."Jenny

is an abused, emotionally fragile animal. She

rocks back and forth, a sign of her extremely stressed mental state or

"zoochosis," caused by her living conditions in the Dallas Zoo, an AZA

accredited facility. Jenny ekes out her existence in a small, barren

prison at the Dallas Zoo, where she has nothing to occupy her time or

her mind. We believe that the Zoo did not act in Jenny's best

interests in the past

and they are not acting in her best interests now. Jenny's veterinary

records, which are on-line, show how much she has physically and

emotionally suffered. She is beyond child bearing age and emotionally unstable in

a Zoo setting (including the park in Mexico). Jenny is not suitable

to the Zoo's future expansion plans. They are sending her in another

country where we will not be able to track her and where she will be

beyond our help.In Mexico, Jenny will have no US animal law

protection and she will be constantly viewed by tourists in cars. She

deserves to retire to a world-class sanctuary where she may roam in

peace with other elephants.While African elephants in the wild

are known to reproduce into their 50s and live into their 60s, in zoos

they commonly die decades short of their natural time. In short, the

Dallas Zoo's decision is a matter of life and death for Jenny.THE ZOO MAY SHIP JENNY TO MEXICO BEFORE THEY THINK WE ORGANIZE ACTION TO STOP THEM. PLEASE ACT FOR JENNY TODAY!IMPORTANT!

If you live in Dallas and will consent to your name being listed as a

member of Concerned Citizens for Jenny, please email me your name,

address, phone and in which Dallas district you live. The more Dallas

Citizens, who are listed as members, the more influence we have for her.Here is a district map: http://dallascityhall.com/government/council/adopted_map.htmlIf you want to work with me to save Jenny, please contact me ASAP by telephone. CROSS POST WIDELY, PLEASE! Thank you.Margaret MorinChair, Concerned Citizens for JennyContact: dogs_good or 972 578 0370