India bans keeping elephants in zoos & circuses

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2009:

 

 

India bans keeping elephants in zoos & circuses

 

NEW DELHI--The Central Zoo Authority of

India on November 9, 2009 sent a rumble

throughout the world with a decree that elephants

may no longer be exhibited by zoos and circuses.

Rumored to be coming for more than 18

months, the order came from the government of

the nation with the most captive elephants,

about 3,500 in all; the oldest history of

elephant use and exhibition, about 3,500 years;

the largest population of wild Asian elephants,

approximately 28,000; and the longest record of

protecting both elephants and elephant habitat,

beginning about 2,240 years ago.

While many Indian zoos are notoriously

substandard, several others are among the

best-regarded in Asia. In effect, the CZA has

concluded that even the best zoo elephant

exhibits are incapable of providing elephants an

acceptable quality of life.

If zoos in Asian elephants' native

habitat cannot keep elephants in adequate

conditions--and Asian elephants are believed to

adjust much more comfortably to captivity than

African elephants--then by implication no zoo or

circus anywhere can humanely display elephants.

Zoos worldwide are not expected to

quickly or easily accept the CZA message,

especially since elephants are by far the most

popular species commonly kept by zoos and

circuses. Only a third of the zoos accredited by

the American Zoo Association have elephants, but

those zoos attract two-thirds of total U.S. zoo

attendance.

If the CZA decree withstands legal and

political challenges, elephant exhibitors in

other nations are likely to have increasing

difficulty defending their practices. Especially

difficult will be making a case that zoos and

circuses should be allowed to import more

elephants to replace the rapidly aging and

dwindling captive populations they already have.

The arguments for keeping elephants in

captivity were already undercut by a 2008 study

published in the journal Science which found that

among 4,500 female elephants residing in European

zoos, Burmese logging camps, and Amboseli

National Park in Kenya, the zoo elephants had

the shortest life expectancy, less than 17

years, while wild elephants had a life

expectancy of just under 36 years--56 years if

not killed by humans.

 

Ringling et al

 

The future of elephant captivity is

especially keenly debated in the U.S., where the

verdict is pending in a lawsuit alleging that

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus use of

elephants violates the 1973 Endangered Species

Act.

Brought by the American SPCA, Animal

Welfare Institute, and a coalition of other

animal charities, the case was outlined in a

six-week trial that concluded on March 18, 2009

at the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C.,

after eight years of preliminary legal

skirmishing.

The antagonists and their antecedents

have fought almost since the day sea captain

Jacob Crowninshield brought the first elephant

seen in the Americas since the ice ages to New

York City on April 13, 1796. Customs inspector

Nataniel Hathorne, father of author Nathaniel

Hawthorne (who spelled his name differently),

logged the arrival.

Named Old Bet, the elephant was sold to

farmer Hackaliah Bailey, of Somers, New York.

Bailey formed the ancestor of the Ringling Bros.,

Barnum & Bailey circus with Old Bet, a trained

dog, a trained horse, and several trained pigs.

Bailey and Old Bet toured the east coast together

for 20 years. Eventually Bailey also founded a

Zoological Institute, which was among the first

zoos.

Old Bet was reputedly shot by a religious

fanatic in either Maine or Rhode Island (accounts

differ) in 1816. Clergy from New England to the

Carolinas had denounced Bailey's activities from

the beginning, primarily as a distraction from

churchgoing, but also on occasion as cruel

exploitation of one of God's most magnificent

beasts.

American SPCA founder Henry Bergh clashed

with Bailey's partner and successor, P.T.

Barnum, as early as December 1866, initially

about Barnum's practice of feeding live prey to

snakes, but soon Bergh was confronting Barnum

about elephant use and misuse too. An 1884

confrontation described by The New York Times

involved Barnum's use of a skin-whitening bleach

designed for sale to African Americans to change

a grey elephant into an alleged sacred white

elephant.

A national hue and cry rose against

elephant exhibition after Thomas Edison

electrocuted an elephant named Topsy at Luna Park

on Coney Island in 1903, and distributed film of

the killing to theatres. Topsy had killed three

handlers in three years.

The Sparks Circus elephant Mary was

hanged from a railroad crane in Erwin, Tennessee

in 1916, after killing one handler, amid

rumors, later disproven, that she had killed 18

people including a child. Her death produced a

further outcry, including from Jack London, who

denounced elephant exhibition in specific and

circuses in general in his last novel, Michael,

Brother of Jerry (1917), published two months

after London's suicide.

Many other elephant rampages produced

sympathy for the elephants, including the

car-smashing exploits of the A.G. Barnes circus

elephant Tusko.

Editorialized the Portland Journal,

after Tusko died in 1933 at the Woodland Park Zoo

in Seattle, " He was a vivid example of

inhumanity. He was the product of the jungle.

He belonged to the jungle. And there could be no

place for him in civilization. To keep him as he

was kept, by chains, hobbles, enclosures, and

other implements of force and tyranny, was

cruelty, brutality, inhumanity. He was untamed

and untamable. He had a right to resist fetters

and shacklesŠIn his own heaven, if elephants

have a Valhalla, Tusko is back in the jungle,

entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of

happiness. "

Walt Disney exposed circus elephant abuse

yet again in Dumbo (1941). But, though Dumbo

remains among the most enduringly popular

animated films ever, the elephant exhibition

industry has for more than 200 years retained an

economic and political advantage against all

opponents.

Few elephants, however, have entered

the U.S. since the U.S. ratified the Convention

on International Trade in Endangered Species in

1973 and adopted the Endangered Species Act. In

consequence, the U.S. elephant population is now

superannuated and rapidly declining. About a

dozen national animal advocacy organizations are

actively campaigning to end elephant exhibition.

The rate of attrition suggests they might succeed

within 10 to 20 years.

There are currently about 290 elephants

in U.S. zoos. The American Zoo Association

reportedly hopes to boost the U.S. zoo population

to 532 within the next five years, through

births and acquisitions. As the U.S. zoo

elephant birth rate is far below the death rate,

most of the projected increase would appear to be

through anticipated imports. Eleven African

elephants imported from Swaziland in August 2003

were the first wild-caught elephants to reach the

U.S. from abroad in 30 years. The San Diego Zoo

received seven of the Swaziland elephants. The

Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa received the other four.

Altogether, according to the USDA Animal

& Plant Health Inspection Service, there are 488

elephants now in the U.S. The Ringling Bros.

Barnum & Bailey Circus has 54, the Elephant

Sanctuary in Tennessee has 15, the Performing

Animal Welfare Society has nine, fewer than half

a dozen are at smaller sanctuaries, and about

120 are scattered among small circuses and other

exhibitors.

Elephant exhibition in Canada moved

closer to extinction with the November 30 death

of Tara, 41, matriarch of the Toronto Zoo herd.

The Toronto Zoo still has three elephants, ages

40, 40, and 30. Other Canadian zoos have 17

Asian elephants and 10 African elephants among

them. There are no elephants in Canada who are

not part of zoo collections.

African Lion Safari in Cambridge,

Ontario, has 16 elephants, and has had 12

elephant births since 1991, the most of any

North American zoo. The Calgary Zoo has the next

largest Canadian herd, with just four. The

Granby Zoo, with two elephants, and the

Edmonton Valley Zoo, with just one, have fewer

than the minimum of three that the American Zoo

Association recommends for zoo herds.

European zoos and circuses have among

them about 600 elephants. Britain has the most:

about 75 elephants, distributed among 13 zoos.

Slightly more than 100 elephants are believed to

exist in captivity in other nations without wild

populations.

European zoos and circuses have

encountered intense opposition to attempts to

import elephants from Asia and Africa in recent

years. British activists who hoped that circus

acts using elephants were history in the U.K.

were disappointed in February 2009, however,

when the Great British Circus bought three

elephants from Germany. The only other living

circus elephant in the U.K. had last performed a

decade earlier.

 

What did CZA say?

 

" Provided that certain safeguards and

animal welfare measures can be guaranteed, we

welcome the decision of the CZA, and call upon

governments in other countries to follow India " s

example and end confinement of elephants in zoos

and circuses, " said the Born Free Foundation,

PETA, and the Royal SPCA of Britain in a joint

statement.

" Importantly, the CZA confirms that

there is little or no benefit to the in situ

conservation of wild elephants derived from

keeping elephants in zoos and the like, " the

statement added. The statement was endorsed by

34 other animal advocacy organizations in 14

nations, and by nine prominent individual

elephant advocates.

But what exactly the CZA said, in full,

remained unclear. The actual text of the CZA

order was not immediately disclosed, either by

the CZA itself or by recipient zoos. The Animal

Welfare Board of India was not sent a copy.

ANIMAL PEOPLE requested a copy, but the CZA did

not respond.

According to BBC News, whose November 12

summary of the content remained the most complete

available several weeks later, the CZA order

stated that zoos and circuses are " not the best

places for the large animals " who " require a

large area to move about freely. "

Reported BBC News, " A spokesman for the

authority said a binding directive had been

issued by the authority for the animals to be

sent to national parks and sanctuariesŠas soon as

possible. "

According to BBC News, the CZA directive

said that circus and zoo elephants potentially

have " great use " in eco-tourism and patrolling

national parks and tiger reserves.

The directive applies to both Asian

elephants and African elephants, who are kept at

the Delhi and Mysore zoos. However, CZA

jurisdiction does not extend to either temple

elephants or working elephants, who are about

95% of the Indian captive population.

CZA evaluation and monitoring officer

B.K. Gupta told Neha Lalchandani and Deeksha

Chopra of the Times of India News Network that 26

Indian zoos and 16 circuses had among them 140

elephants, as of March 2009. " Of these, Mysore

and Trivandrum have the largest number at nine

and eight respectively, " Gupta said.

" The decision [to banish elephants from

zoos and circuses] was taken, " Gupta added,

" after evaluating conditions of elephants at

various zoos and circuses. We found that

circuses especially were not following the

standards set under the Recognition of Zoo Rules,

1992. "

Explained Punjab State Board for Wildlife

member Sandeep K. Jain, " The CZA had laid down

certain conditions for circuses like

microchipping of elephants, possession of

tranquilizing instruments and keeping treatment

records, but these were not followed. "

" The elephants currently living in zoos

or circuses are to be moved to 'elephant camps'

run by the government's forest department and

located near protected areas and national parks, "

reported Associated Press writer Nirmala George.

" There they would be able to roam and graze

freely, but mahouts, or traditional elephant

trainers, would still keep an eye on them, "

George said.

" There is merit in this decision, " World

Wildlife Fund India TRAFFIC trade monitoring

program chief Samir Sinha told George. " It is

best for elephants to be as close to their

natural habitat as possible. Elephants needs a

lot of space to exercise and move about, and

they are deprived that space in zoos and

circuses, " Sinha said.

The Delhi Zoo reportedly is soon to

transfer two Asian elephants and its African

elephant--a presidential gift from Zimbabwe --to

Jim Corbett National Park.

" There are close to 20 elephants in the

Mysore Zoo and the Bannerghatta Biological Park.

We will shift them as soon as we get orders from

Delhi, " said Karnataka additional principal

chief conservator of forests B.K. Singh.

" The animals are used to a certain

lifestyle in the zoos, " Singh told Jayashree

Nandi of the Times of India News Network. " I am

not sure how quickly they will adapt to their new

life in the open. They will have to be fed

regularly because they are used to eating at

regular hours, " Singh anticipated.

" If we have to act according to the CZA

decision, the zoo would no more have the regular

visitors, especially children who come in large

numbers " to watch elephants, predicted R.K.

Sahu, superintendent of the Kamala Nehru

Zoological Garden at Kankaria, near Ahmedabad.

Sahu told Times of India News Network

correspondents Pooja Bhatt and Krishna Vyas that

there would no longer be elephants anywhere

nearby, since elephants are not native to the

region.

But not every zoo objected to the CZA

order. " The Zoological Park at Vandalur on the

outskirts of Chennai is set to shift the four

elephants in its collection, " reported P. Oppili

of The Hindu, " and zoo officials seem not too

unhappy about the move, for some of the

elephants have in the past shown violent

tendencies and their upkeep is expensive. "

Praveen Bhargav of Wildlife First,

however, told Oppili that relocating zoo

elephants to national parks, sanctuaries and

tiger reserves would become an example of solving

one problem by creating another.

" Domesticated elephants invariably suffer

from diseases which, despite screening, may get

passed on to wild elephants and other endangered

species, " Bhargav warned.

Tuberculosis, which passes readily

between humans and elephants, has killed about

100 elephants in Kerala state since 2005,

reducing the state captive elephant population to

695, veterinarian K.C. Panicker told Ignatius

Pereira of The Hindu.

Also of urgent concern is elephant

herpesvirus, which has caused about 20% of the

deaths of Asian elephants at U.S. zoos since

1983, according to the International Elephant

Foundation, and has occurred at other zoos

around the world.

However, elephant herpesvirus may

already afflict wild Asian elephants, since a

Cambodian elephant calf who died in 2006 was

apparently already ill when confiscated from

traffickers.

" First of all, elephants in zoos should

undergo proper and detailed medical checkups and

they have to be observed closely. Then there

should be an acclimatisation programme for these

zoo elephants before they are finally let into

the parks and sanctuaries, " recommended Kerala

state forest department veterinary officer Arun

Zachariah.

Beyond the health issues, Bhargav

alleged that existing elephant camps at wildlife

reserves are already causing forest degradation,

and attract development that encroaches on

protected habitat. Since logging within wildlife

reserves is completely prohibited, Bhagav added,

there is no longer much work for the elephants at

elephant camps.

" Special facilities have to be created,

perhaps outside the wildlife sanctuaries, " said

Indian Institute of Science ecology professor

Raman Sukumar, of Bangalore.

Releasing elephants who are already

habituated to humans into wild habitat might

escalate conflicts which in the past five years

have already brought the deaths of 301 people and

304 elephants in Orissa state alone, warned

Satyasundar Barik of The Hindu. Seventy-three

deaths of Orissan elephants since 2001 have been

by electrocution, Barik added. Some have

resulted from accidental collisions with wires,

but in some cases wires have been hung to keep

elephants from raiding crops or trampling huts.

Assam state forest minister Rockybul

Hussain has recently asserted that his agency

needs to " acquire wild elephants and domesticate

them for government duties, " according to the

Times of India News Network, but the claim has

been denounced by Project Elephant director A.N.

Prasad, among others, as just an alleged

pretext for pressuring the federal government to

lift a ban on capturing crop-raiding elephants.

Prasad is also the current Indian federal

Inspector General of Forests. " The Wildlife Act

permits the capture of wild elephants only if

they threaten human life. No such permission has

been given to Assam in recent times, " Prasad

said.

Now dozens of already trained elephants,

many from Assam, may be available for the

asking--but Hussain is not expected to ask for

any.

 

Sanctuaries

 

The most likely fate of the 140 Indian

zoo and circus elephants may be transfer to

relatively spacious off-exhibit Animal Rescue

Centres, featuring semi-natural habitat, but

still in captivity, still under the jurisdiction

of the CZA.

More than 280 lions, 40 tigers, and

scores of aging ex-performing bears are already

living out their lives at CZA-accredited Animal

Rescue Centres near Agra, Bangalore, Bhopal,

Chennai, Jaipur, Tirupati, and Visakhapatnam.

Some of the Animal Rescue Centres are

operated by animal welfare charities. Wildlife

SOS built the first of those, opened in February

2002, and now manages four. Several others are

operated by major zoos, including the Indira

Gandhi Zoo in Visakhapatnam, whose prototype

Animal Rescue Centre opened in February 2001 as

an intended captive breeding facility. The

mission changed after the Supreme Court of India

on May 1, 2001 moved to enforce provisions of

the Wild Life Protection Act 1972 which prohibit

the capture for exhibition of lions, tigers,

bears, and monkeys.

Zoos with documentation of captive

breeding were allowed to keep lions, tigers,

bears, and monkeys, but circuses and other

exhibitors were not.

Bears still often arrive at Animal Rescue

Centres, confiscated from dancing bear

exhibitors, often in relatively remote rural

areas, but the numbers of lions and tigers are

diminishing. Some of the facilities built to

house them could be adapted to house elephants

who are deemed unlikely to adjust adequately to

less constrained situations.

Wildlife SOS also expects to be involved

in housing ex-zoo and circus elephants. " We are

currently collaborating with the Haryana Forest

Department, with whom we signed an agreement in

July 2008 for the establishment of an elephant

rehabilitation and research center in the Ban

Santoor Forest, adjacent to the Kalesar Wildlife

Sanctuary, " said Wildlife SOS cofounder Kartick

Satyanarayan. " This center will provide a much

needed sanctuary for abused, exploited, sick

and handicapped elephants requiring retirement,

convalescence and medical care. "

 

Temple elephants

 

Other Indian animal welfare charities are

looking ahead to a culturally more difficult

struggle. " We must now focus our efforts on

getting elephants out of temples and other

'religious' places, " said Blue Cross of India

chief executive Chinny Krishna.

The tradition of keeping temple elephants

originated in ancient times as a means of

retiring and honoring former working elephants,

but long ago degenerated into something closer to

a tradition of temples operating as

quasi-roadside zoos. In recent years temples in

southern India, especially Kerala, have often

become dumping grounds for problematic ex-working

elephants brought from the north--and illegally

captured wild elephants.

There are hints that some Kerala

authorities are becoming fed up with the influx

and frequent mistreatment of elephants.

Responding to a petition from Compassion

Unlimited Plus Action, the Kerala high court,

for example, in November 2009 stayed a September

2009 order from a forestry official that returned

an elephant bull to one Jacob Abraham, of

Kottayam, Kerala. Abraham earlier donated the

elephant to the Sree Ayyappa temple in Jalahalli,

but the forest department--in response to earlier

CUPA complaints--impounded the elephant due to

neglect.

While the case was pending, four captive

elephants died of abuse in Kerala, three in

private custody and one at the Pullukulangara

Dharmasastha Temple in Alappuzha on October 14.

That elephant was reportedly beaten to death by a

new mahout.

" Kerala chief conservator of forests K.P.

Ouseph has written to his Bihar counterpart

Basheer Ahmed Khan not to issue permits for

transport of elephants " sold at the annual

Sonepur livestock fair, reported Ignatius

Pereira of The Hindu on November 6, 2009.

" Ouseph informed Khan that Kerala has enough

captive elephants and it does not intend relaxing

the order in the immediate future, " Pereira said.

Kerala has officially prohibited elephant

imports since August 2007. Ouseph's action

signified that the prohibition will now be

enforced.

Use of elephants by private mahouts to

beg on city streets is also common in India,

particularly in the relatively affluent cities of

Maharashtra state, including Mumbai.

Maharashtra state banned elephants from urban

areas in July 2007, but the ban is poorly

enforced, Plant & Animal Welfare Society founder

Sunish Subramanian Kunju charged in a public

complaint to several state agencies with

jurisdiction on November 23, 2009.

" These elephants are made to walk for

long distances without adequate food and water on

tar roads, they are made to walk long distances

at night too, they cause traffic jams on already

congested city roads, their stress level

increases due to the noise from vehicular traffic

and firecrackers [at weddings and festivals],

they do not get proper medical treatment, and

minor children are made to sit on the elephants

and beg with these animals, which is an offence

as per the Child Labour Law, " Kunju alleged.

" Often concerned citizens and animal lovers

complain to the police and the wildlife

department against the ill-treatment meted out to

the elephants, " Kunju continued, " but seldom

has any action been taken against the offenders, "

suggesting that bribery of public officials may

be involved.

" The elephants need to be rescued and

sent to wildlife sanctuaries, " Kunju concluded.

This would be a tourist attraction, " Kunju

hoped, and could " even earn revenue for the

state. " Adequate sanctuaries for all the begging

elephants in Inda may not exist yet. But if the

CZA directive is enforced and followed up, it

may become the impetus for creating such

sanctuaries. --Merritt Clifton

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

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Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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