Writing Alert: 7/14/09 Elephant Jenny on the News

July 14, 2009

The Dallas Zoo held a press conference today in which they introduced Gypsy to Jenny. Please contact those news outlets that publish this story and politely comment. Please courteously encourage the media to publish the true facts about the impoverished environment that the Dallas Zoo inflicts on elephants.

I know the following television stations will run a story on 7/14/09, which will be available tomorrow on the Internet:

Channel 33 Contact Info: http://www.the33tv.com/about/station/contactus/

Channel 8 (WFAA) Contact Info: http://www.wfaa.com/contact/

Dallas Morning News Metro Editor (DMN will publish story 7/15/09): metro

There may be other media outlets that run story today or tomorrow on Jenny and Gypsy so be sure to contact them, as well.

Although I request that you do not cut and paste verbatim into your email (please put in your own words or it will hurt the elephant's cause), here are some facts that you may wish to use in your comments:

In the wild, elephants walk 10 - 30 miles a day and must do so to remain healthy. Jenny has been confined to less than 1/4 acre of barren sand for 22 years. The only slightly expanded exhibit of around 3.75 acres the Zoo plans will not be built until at least 2011 and it will not nearly big enough to improve the health and lives of the elephants. Even in the new exhibit, Jenny and Gypsy will be able to walk only a few feet a day, not the miles they need to walk to maintain physical and mental health.

It costs around $125, 000 a year to feed one elephant for one year. The Dallas Zoo now has two elephants, and plans to add three more. All the while, the City of Dallas is closing programs that provide free meals to poor senior citizens, drastically cutting library services, and limiting police and fire protection. We could transfer Jenny (and Gypsy) to The Elephant Sanctuary for free, where they could live out their days in a wonderful environment with other elephants.

Elephants in protected wild environments live two to three times longer than elephants held captive in Zoos as proved in a statistically valid study of 4,500 elephants that was published in December, 2008 in the respected journal Science.

We must not give up on Jenny (or Gypsy), who have only you to speak for them.

Thank you.

Margaret Morin

Founder, Concerned Citizens for Jenny

SaveJennyNow.com