The shadow of giants

[Guest guest]

The shadow of giants

The Age

Carmel Egan

June 18, 2006

 

A plan by Melbourne Zoo to import Asian elephants has

upset those who claim big animals don't belong in

small spaces.

 

The hungry will eat a horse long before they tuck into

an elephant. Which is probably why the world's largest

herbivore is still living rather than keeping company

with the woolly mammoth.

 

But poor African nations will happily sell an elephant

to anybody. In Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe, officials

claim a surplus 60,000 elephants can no longer be

sustained in their national parks and are offering

them for sale to farmers and private reserves at £1000

($A2500) a jumbo.

 

The going rate for hunter-tourists to join the

not-quite-official cull is £4000 a pop, according to a

report in The Times.

 

Visitors to " Zoo Admin " - an internet site where

exotic animals are valued for their popularity - rate

the African elephant second to the giant panda.

 

Zoo Admin values the African elephant at $US20,000

($A27,000) against pandas at $US50,000. The Asian

elephant earns only $US15,000.

 

" Although scarce, the Asian elephants don't attract

many guests, unlike their African counterparts, " the

site reports.

 

That puts the Asian elephant alongside grizzly bears

and Bengal tigers in their ability to attract cyber

visitors.

 

If the website's results were a reality, Melbourne Zoo

might be a little concerned about its $2.5 million

investment in a controversial plan to import three

juvenile Asian elephants from Thailand. But Zoos

Victoria insists its aim is not about visitor numbers.

 

Captive-bred Asian elephants can be bought and sold

within their home states for upwards of $50,000 a

juvenile, but poachers are much more likely to steal a

calf from the wild than pay such a price.

 

Not that long ago there were 100,000 elephants in

South-East Asia and India. In the past century numbers

have taken a tumble to 34,000.

 

Now, if Australia's two largest zoos have their way,

eight juveniles - three for Melbourne and five bound

for Sydney - will soon be exported from their homeland

for a captive breeding program in Australia.

 

The zoos claim they alone have the money, resources

and expertise for such a project, which will help

ensure the species' survival, raise funds and increase

public awareness of the elephant's plight.

 

But the zoos have become embroiled in one of the

hottest debates on the international animal rights

agenda: Do elephants belong in zoos?

 

Animal welfare groups say they do not - at least, not

in urban zoos where even the most modern enclosures

offer only limited space. They say the large social

animals suffer psychologically and physically from the

lack of freedom, and from isolation and boredom.

 

Several United States zoos have already capitulated to

animal activists' campaigns and closed their elephant

exhibits. The future of the Los Angeles Zoo's elephant

display is being questioned after the unexplained

death recently of a 48-year-old female.

 

The Adelaide Zoo decided in the early 1990s to close

its exhibit and transferred its lone elephant to an

open-plains reserve. The zoo's board decided that the

cost of upgrading the enclosure did not make sense

when measured against the elephant's ability to

attract visitors.

 

Predictions of a slump in numbers proved unfounded and

the zoo, without the elephant, maintained its annual

figure of 350,000 to 400,000 visitors.

 

Melbourne Zoo has had its own problems, with its two

middle-aged elephants having exhibited the classic

physical and behavioural disorders of captive animals.

 

Bong Su, a 31-year-old male, has suffered from foot

soreness, while keepers have had to work hard with the

32-year-old female, Mek Kapah, to break her

stereotypical captive behaviour of swaying from side

to side, which she had when she arrived in Melbourne.

 

The pair arrived at the zoo from Malaysia as

five-year-olds, and have met no other elephants for a

quarter of a century. It will take time for them to

adjust to the arrival of the three youngsters.

 

Yet it is hoped that Bong Su will sire the first

elephant born in Australia - with one of the two

female elephants coming from Thailand - most likely

via artificial insemination.

 

Melbourne Zoo has so far spent $2.5 million on

five-year-old Kulab and his female companions Dokkoon,

12, and Num-Oi, also five. The figure doesn't include

the $10 million spent on the expanded Trail of the

Elephants enclosure.

 

It will cost up to $100,000 per elephant per annum to

feed and care for them.

 

If a baby elephant were born it might be expected to

increase visitor numbers to Melbourne Zoo by 25 per

cent. This would mean about 200,000 extra visitors.

 

At an average $15 a head for admission, this would

bring an additional $3 million in revenue.

 

But it doesn't go anywhere near covering the cost of

the exhibit and ongoing expenses.

 

" If there is a baby elephant you can see a significant

upturn in numbers of people going, but it is

impossible to quantify what a single animal or species

means in terms of visitors, " said a zoo insider.

 

Critics argue that the $30 million spent on the

Australian zoos' new elephant exhibits will never be

matched by their donations to conservation projects in

South-East Asia.

 

They ask why Melbourne Zoo is so determined to keep

the animals at its Parkville compound rather than the

open plains of Werribee Park, which it also controls.

Some predict that growing public unease about keeping

large animals in limited space will see the Melbourne

elephants transferred to Werribee within 10 years.

 

But Zoos Victoria chief executive Laura Mumaw says the

new elephants will be better off in the urban zoo

because a sub-tropical environment with suitable

vegetation has been re-created there.

 

Mumaw agrees the zoo will never recoup what it has

spent but says that was never the plan.

 

The goal of its breeding program is for zoos around

Australia and the world to be able to exchange, secure

and expand their captive-bred population without the

need to transport animals.

 

" The program is about breeding elephants, but it is

also more substantially about community education,

fund-raising, developing skills and expertise in the

management of elephants and sharing those with

partners in range states (of Thailand and Indonesia), "

says Mumaw.

 

Taronga Zoo chief executive Guy Cooper believes his

opponents lack vision.

 

" Asian elephant numbers have collapsed from 100,000 to

34,000 in the 13 range states from Thailand and

Indonesia to India, " he says.

 

" Those 34,000 are surrounded by 1.3 billion people and

every year that number is increasing by 40 million.

That population pressure spells significant danger for

this species.

 

" The things that zoos do best is they have the

capability to breed animals. The goal it is to sustain

long-term genetic security for animals and to enable

communities to engage with the species to gain an

understanding and learn how they can help them.

 

" For anybody to say that will serve no good purpose is

incredible. "

 

And all this is before the elephants chosen by

Melbourne have even left their homeland.

 

Dokkoon, Kulab and Num-Oi should have been settled in

their new home a year ago, but remain in a quarantine

outside Bangkok.

 

For the past 18 months, they have been cared for by

two Melbourne Zoo staff, Laurie Pond and Manu Ludden,

who now have no idea when they will return home.

 

The debate has divided institutions and organisations

that would otherwise be fighting for the same cause:

the elephants' best interests.

 

Animal charities more normally associated with

cat-lovers' bequests have spent hundreds of thousands

of dollars on QCs and solicitors in an attempt to stop

the zoos getting what they want.

 

Witnesses called on behalf of the RSPCA, International

Fund for Animal Welfare and the International Humane

Society to a hearing before the NSW Administrative

Appeals Tribunal last December gave impassioned

evidence against the zoos.

 

Although the zoos eventually won, for Mumaw the court

process was another expensive delay in a long

campaign.

 

The elephants for Melbourne and Sydney were to be

flown by Antonov plane from Thailand to an Australian

quarantine centre on the Cocos Islands two weeks ago.

But a group of 50 protesters led by Thai elephants'

rights campaigner Soraida Salwala halted the convoy as

it left the quarantine compound at Kanchanaburi, west

of Bangkok.

 

Salwala and her supporters, who are opposed to the

export of any Thai elephants, blocked the convoy for

24 hours. They won the day and the elephants were

eventually off-loaded and returned to quarantine

compound.

 

The eight elephants have now become a matter of

delicate but intense diplomatic and ministerial

negotiations between Thailand and Australia.

 

" The key focus at the moment is discussions with Thai

authorities to ensure that when we come to move the

elephants we are guaranteed assistance, " says Cooper.

 

He wants the Thai police who failed to remove the

protesters the first time to ensure a clear route the

next time the elephants are moved.

 

But after seven years of planning and negotiating

there are still no guarantees.

 

" Investigations into this program began in 1999, " says

Mumaw. " It took years to secure a relationship that is

built on conservation principles with the Thai

Government.

 

" Then we had to identify elephants that were

appropriate, have those elephants in quarantine for

that period of time and get them to bond socially.

 

" We are going to get them here. The alternative would

be heartbreaking. "

 

A jumbo-size journey

1999: Melbourne Zoo begins investigations into a

captive breeding program for Asian elephants.

 

2001: Thailand identified as best option because of a

large population of domestic animals breeding well.

 

2004: Dokkoon, Kulab and Num-Oi joined at the

Kanchanaburi quarantine camp by Melbourne Zoo keepers

Laurie Pond and Manu Ludden, who have remained with

the elephants to this day.

 

December 2005: RSPCA, International Fund for Animal

Welfare and the International Humane Society take Zoos

Victoria, Taronga Zoo and federal Environment Minister

Ian Campbell to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

The welfare groups fail in their attempt to stop

importation.

 

February 2006: The tribunal places provisions on the

living conditions of the animals.

 

July 2005: A Thai senate committee on the environment

asks for information on the origin of the eight

elephants, panel chairman Kaewsan Atipho stressing

that the shipment doesn't breach regulations under the

Convention on International Trade of Endangered

Species.

 

June 2006: Protesters block the convoy carrying the

elephants as it leaves the quarantine camp for the

Cocos Islands.

 

http://www.theage.com.au/news/in-depth/the-shadow-of-giants/2006/06/17/114996478\

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