Foremost Authority on Elephants Weighs in on Jenny's Plight

[Guest guest]

http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2008/07/elephant_talk_the_worlds_forem.phpElephant Talk: The World's Foremost Authority on the Subject Weighs InDallas Observer "Unfair Park"

Thu Jul 24, 2008 at 04:55:59 PM

 

 

 

 

 

Jenny

At last, Joyce Poole has responded. Who, you're wondering, is Joyce Poole? "She is to elephants what Jane Goodall is to chimpanzees and Dian Fossey was to gorillas, their savior." Also: She is the author of 1996's Coming of Age With Elephants: A Memoir and 1997's Elephants for the World Life Library. The woman profiled in 2003 by National Geographic

is also, at the moment, director of ElephantVoices in Norway.

Earlier this week, I asked Poole if she could take a moment to watch the videos council member Angela Hunt shot of the three elephants currently at the African Safari Zoo

in Mexico, where the Dallas Zoo is going to send Jenny the elephant. Not only did she watch them -- and, apparently, she also saw the videos with the soundtrack

-- but she sent back a profoundly moving missive, along with her

thoughts about what the Dallas Zoo needs to do with Jenny. It is after

the jump. Before then, this note: Several Friends have pointed out that

tomorrow night, 20/20 will feature a lengthy segment on elephants ("They're Like Us," Elephant Researchers Say), much of which was shot at The Elephant Sanctuary

in Tennessee, which is where Hunt and many others wish zoo officials

would send Jenny. A sneak peak at the episode, with a slide show from

Tennessee, is available now on ABC's Web site. Now, though, Poole's note. --Robert Wilonsky

 

Dear Robert,

The music is hauntingly beautiful and, put to the swaying of

confined elephants, brought tears to my eyes. Why do we humans feel

such a need to confine and control other animals? Is our pleasure in

seeing them worth the cruelty that we inflict on them? Elephants are

intelligent, socially complex individuals who have the same basic needs

that we have: Freedom and autonomy, companionship and affection, just

to name a few.

The first elephant in the video looks very unhealthy; she is too

thin. All of the elephants in the video are swaying -- a behavior only

seen in confined elephants. Like so many captive elephants they are

bored and frustrated with nowhere to go and no one to see, no new

smells to investigate and nothing to strive for. The result is standing

in one place and rocking, slowly losing their mind. Well, wouldn't we

do the same given similar circumstances?

I often try to put myself in the elephants' shoes, so to speak. Ever

had to stand for hours and hours alone waiting for that bus that never

comes? Feet and back aching? I, too, start to step from one foot to the

other. I, too, rock back and forth; I sway. But I don't wait for a bus

for days, for weeks, for months, for years. I have the freedom to

choose to go.

We need to wake up to the reality of what we are doing to other

creatures and stop hiding behind a lot of constructed arguments for

keeping elephants in this way.

Jenny should go to a sanctuary.

Regards,

Joyce Poole