IDA Blog

Wildlife

On January 12, 2012 it was reported that three teenagers in Boulder County, Colorado sadistically herded four geese into the street so they could deliberately run over them with their SUV. Three of the geese died at the scene, with the fourth succumbing to death a few days later at Greenwood Wildlife Rehabilitation Center.

Victor - the goose that survived being hit by an SUV died on January 6th. (photo credit: CBS Denver)

This comes on the heels of another Boulder incident a few months ago in which three students viciously killed a raccoon with a baseball bat, machete and hockey stick.

Many local citizens believe these teens should be charged with felony animal cruelty and, if found guilty, prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

As long as incidents like these are passed off as “boys will be boys” matters, nothing will change.  In addition, studies and statistics make it very clear that violence to humans quite often follows violence to animals.

In Mississippi in 1997, 16 year old Luke Woodham killed his mother and two students, and injured seven other students.  He had earlier written in his diary about the torture and killing of his own dog, Sparkle.  Diary entries stated, “I’ll never forget the sound of her breaking under my might.  I will never forget the howl she made . . . It sounded almost human.  We laughed and hit her more.”  An adult neighbor witnessed Sparkle’s killing, but never reported it to police or animal control.  Could intervention have prevented the human tragedy that followed?

I agree that this is very difficult to read and you might want to look away, but it’s not as difficult as it was for the tortured dog or the dead and injured humans.

Fortunately, Boulder District Attorney Stan Garnett has stated with regard to animal cruelty cases, “We want to make these cases a priority because they matter to the community on a lot of different levels . . .There seems to be a correlation between people who abuse animals and people who abuse other people.”  The DA’s office has decided to charge two of the teens with, among other charges, Aggravated Cruelty to Animals which is a felony.  The teens will appear before the judge on February 1, 2012.

We strongly believe that violence in all its forms will never stop if we don’t take animal cruelty seriously and treat these cases like the heinous acts they are.

To support our work please click here.

“fear is in your soul – say a prayer for me now”

Caged and deprived of everything that comes naturally to them, kicked, stomped on, bludgeoned, thrown to the ground, gassed, anally electrocuted, SKINNED ALIVE!  Does this sound like an entertaining music video to you?  This is Duran Duran’s latest video, “Girl Panic,” featuring five supermodels clad in fur, snakeskin, goat hair, feathers and leather.

I’ve always enjoyed Duran Duran’s music, so I was very disappointed to hear about their new video.  C’mon guys this isn’t 1982, it’s 2012, surely you’ve heard about the extreme cruelties of fur production?  The animals live in terrible conditions and are then killed in horrific ways.  A typical fur coat requires the slaughter of 35 – 125 animals.  Tragically, more than 50 million animals are killed for fur each year.  Over 2 million of them are dogs and cats.

Naomi Campbell in Duran Duran's "Girl Panic" video

Please scroll to the bottom and add your name and comment if you’re against Duran Duran’s promotion of fur.

We also request you contact Duran Duran to ask them to promote compassion towards animals, rather than extreme cruelty in the name of vanity.  We recommend you approach them in a respectful manner, so your message will be heard.

• Duran Duran on Facebook

• Duran Duran on Twitter

• Simon Le Bon on Twitter
• John Taylor on Twitter

• Email Duran Duran: media@duranduran.com, Askkaty@duranduran.com, customerservice@duranduranmusic.com, info@duranduranmusic.com

PLEASE NOTE:

A person that worked on the video and helped source the clothing confirmed that all of the fur garments appearing in the video are made from actual animal fur.  Information on the furs is also available in the printed UK version of Harper’s BAZAAR December 2011 issue.  We have reached out to Duran Duran, politely asking the band to stop promoting the use of animal fur and inviting them to participate in an IDA anti-fur public service announcement.  If they respond, we will post an update immediately.

Additionally, please politely ask the models to stop wearing fur:

Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Yasmin Le Bon: info@models1.co.uk

To help fur bearing animals please go to our Fur Campaign.

To support our work please click here.

Work every day of your life to right what is wrong.

On July 10, Chico, the oldest bull elephant in captivity in North America died in the Caldwell Zoo in Tyler, Texas. Information is exceedingly sparse: Like so many other elephants in zoos, he was “found unresponsive” in the morning when keepers arrived for work. No one knows how long he had been down or what he went through before they arrived and euthanized him. He was only 46. Chico’s death marks the end of a tragic and disgraceful chapter in captive elephant history, but one that is in constant danger of being repeated.

In 2003, Chico was one of four elephants living at the San Diego Wild Animal Park (now called San Diego Zoo Safari Park). He, along with females Peaches, Wankie and Tatima, had been there for around three decades. Though all originally had been taken from the wild.

Between the four elephants, they had managed to produce five calves for the zoo; two died within a month of birth, and the three that survive to this day were wrenched from their mothers at the ages of one and two years, and shipped to other zoos. Moja is in the Pittsburg Zoo, and Tavi and her half-brother Tsavo remain the only two African elephants at the Canton Zoo in China.

In 2001, San Diego joined forces with the Lowry Park Zoo in Florida to import eleven young, wild-born elephants that were captured at the zoos’ request. They were part of a group of 37 cull orphans and their offspring who had been relocated to Swaziland and were living as established herds in protected parks there – the entirety of Swaziland’s small elephant population at the time. International elephant trade by zoos had been suspended for a decade when San Diego first contacted Swaziland authorities to arrange for the shipment of these elephants.

Despite the best efforts of IDA and the Coalition to Save Wild Elephants, the young Swaziland elephants were brought to the zoos in 2003, but not before San Diego had moved its four long-term resident elephants Chico, Peaches, Wankie and Tatima out to make room for them. Already ailing, Peaches, Wankie and Tatima were shipped out of sunny San Diego and into Chicago’s frigid winters at the Lincoln Park Zoo.

The three elephants did not last even two years there. Tatima died in October 2004; like Chico she was found collapsed on the floor when the keepers arrived in the morning. Cause of death was infection with a bacterium similar to tuberculosis (Mycobacterium szulgai). Peaches followed only three months later, purportedly due to “old age.” She was 55; African elephants can live to be 65.

During the ensuing uproar by elephant welfare advocates, Wankie was secretly loaded onto a truck during the last chilly night of April 2005 and shipped to the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City, Utah, despite the fact she was recovering from colic (a painful condition that can cause an elephant to collapse). She was found kneeling in the truck, a potentially dangerous situation, somewhere around the midway point of the 22-hour trip, with temps in 20 to 30 degree range and no heat. After one more stop, the decision to continue driving sealed her fate, and she was euthanized upon arrival at the zoo. A final report showed that Wankie died of the same bacterial lung infection that killed Tatima, and that the infection coupled with “stress of shipping” may have caused her collapse.

All these elephants – Chico, Peaches, Tatima and Wankie – were victims of a zoo industry that values female elephants over males, babies over adults, and, always, money over the animals that they claim to care for. Their story should never be forgotten. Nor can we let our guard down when it comes to the capture of wild elephants for the purpose of restocking zoos – a practice that continues today.

Check back for IDA’s blog on the recent import of African elephants to the Pittsburgh Zoo’s breeding center, and how the public never had a clue!

Join IDA’s Elephant Task Force to find out what you can do to help elephants!

Photo: via unforth (Flickr)

For months, the answer to the question of whether New York City will again kill Canada geese this spring has gone unanswered when IDA and other activists contacted the city offices. We were told to call another office, or to call back on another day, or to just wait for return calls. Those calls never came.

And while the city refused to divulge this information to animal advocates, claiming it just didn’t know, it turns out that it has been planning all along  (perhaps plotting is more like it) to justify the massacre of the geese by donating their bodies to a food bank in Pennsylvania.

Yes, you heard right.

Apparently, the big brains in City Hall think this will shield them from having to face the kind of mass outrage that resulted last July when Prospect Park woke up to the disappearance of its beloved geese—murdered before dawn by USDA agents commissioned by the city.

But they fail to understand a number of things.

The first is that the public is not that stupid. We see this immediately for what it is—a pathetic attempt to mask a despicable deed by parading it as a charitable and noble act.

The second is that they didn’t do their homework. Donating dead geese to a food bank for the poor is a commonly used justification for animal murder, but it is fraught with controversy.

Free-roaming geese in urban and suburban communities are exposed to a whole range of toxins. PCBs, pesticides, and heavy metals contaminate their flesh. You won’t find this meat on the table of any reputable (or for that matter) disreputable restaurant. But apparently these doltish city officials feel justified—unashamedly—in heaping it on impoverished citizens.

Every year there is some community that tries this little trick and most often the food bank ends up rejecting it. Often the dead flesh never even makes its way to the food bank, intercepted by any decent inspection process along the way. Last year in Bergen County, NJ, the food bank recipients themselves rejected the goose flesh, insulted and repulsed that this is what was offered them.

Can you blame these poor folks? Will they be able to afford the medical treatment they might need from eating tainted food, many already suffering from poor health and a compromised immune system?

What folly. To act as if donating the flesh of tortured birds could possibly cover up the crime of snuffing out the lives of these majestic geese. Carrying out the mass murder of wildlife while hiding behind a  false show of goodwill  is clearly and unambiguously the height of cynicism and cruelty.

This year’s International Day of Action for Elephants in Zoos (IDAEZ) on June 11^th was an outstanding success, featuring events in 27 cities and a virtual protest that used social networking technology to circulate more than 9,000 messages about the suffering and premature deaths of elephants in zoos. Thanks to everyone for your involvement!

Elephant advocates held demonstrations from the U.S. to Canada to the UK and Spain, educating thousands of people attending their local zoos. Media reports on IDAEZ events carried our message to even more of the public. Scores of colorful banners and posters, and the 30,000 informative flyers that were handed out, opened people’s eyes to the lifetime of misery elephants endure in inadequate zoo displays.

We welcome the many IDAEZ events in new cities this year, including the Houston Zoo, Fresno Zoo, Honolulu Zoo, Rosamond Gifford Zoo, Birmingham Zoo, Milwaukee Zoo and Ft. Worth Zoo.

We’re also pleased to report that events could not be held at the Central Florida Zoo and the Brookfield Zoo near Chicago because those zoos no longer have elephants! And it looks like there will be even fewer zoos holding elephants in the years to come.

The virtual protest, also held on Saturday, was a great success. This special cyber-demo allowed everyone to participate in IDAEZ by Tweeting zoos and posting enlightening messages on zoos’ Facebook pages about the physical and psychological suffering that Earth’s largest land mammals endure in cramped zoo enclosures. Rather than allow their members to read the truth, at least seven zoos shut down their Facebook pages in different ways.

IDA thanks everyone who participated in IDAEZ in person and on-line. You helped educate people around the world about the terrible plight of elephants in zoos, bringing us a step closer to ending their suffering. And we also thank this year’s celebrity supporters, Lily Tomlin, Jorja Fox and Mariana Tosca, for their commitment to helping the elephants.

You can visit www.HelpElephants.com to read more about IDAEZ and our campaigns for elephants in zoos and circuses.

Don’t forget to join IDA’s Elephant Task Force to learn what you can do to help elephants year round!

Please replace your profile pictures with the Virtual Demo "Sign"

Saturday, June 11, is the International Day of Action for Elephants in Zoos, when activists around the world will be sending a message that elephants just don’t belong in cramped, unnatural displays that shorten their lives by decades.

This year, everyone can help the elephants, no matter where you live, by participating in a virtual demonstration on Facebook and Twitter. It’s easy to do and a great way to spread the word that it’s time to stop the elephants’ suffering.

Here’s how it works:

Facebook Instructions – Speak up for Elephants in 3 easy steps!

1. Make sure you have your protest “sign“. All you have to do is right click on the “Elephants Suffer” image and choose “Save” to get this “sign”. Replace your profile photo to your “sign” and keep it up all weekend!

2. Go through the zoo list and “Like” the promotional pages for these zoos. This will allow you to post comments on their pages:

United States

• Albuquerque Biological Park, Albuquerque, NM
• Audubon Zoo, Audubon, LA
• Birmingham Zoo, Birmingham, AL
• BREC’s Baton Rouge, Baton Rouge, LA
• Bronx Zoo, Bronx, NY
• Buffalo Zoological Gardens, Buffalo, NY
• Busch Gardens, Tampa Bay, FL
• Buttonwood Park Zoo, New Bedford, MA
• Caldwell Zoo, Tyler, TX
• Cameron Park Zoo, Waco, TX
• Chaffee Zoological Gardens, Fresno, CA
• Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, Colorado Springs, CO
• Cincinnati Zoo, Cincinnati, OH
• Cleveland Metro Park Zoo, Cleveland, OH
• Columbus Zoo, Columbus, OH
• Dallas Zoo, Dallas, TX
• Denver Zoo, Denver, CO
• Dickerson Park Zoo, Springfield, MO
• Disney Animal Kingdom, Lake Buena Vista, FL
• El Paso Zoo, El Paso, TX
• Fort Worth Zoo, Ft. Worth, TX
• Greenville Zoo, Greenville, SC
• Hogle Zoo, Salt Lake City, UT
• Honolulu Zoo, Honolulu, HI
• Houston Zoological Gardens, Houston, TX
• Indianapolis Zoo, Indianapolis, IN
• Jacksonville Zoological Gardens, Jacksonville, FL
• Kansas City Zoo, Kansas City, MO
• Knoxville Zoo, Knoxville, TN
• Lee Richardson Zoo, Garden City, KS
• Little Rock Zoo, Little Rock, AK
• Los Angeles Zoo, Los Angeles, CA
• Louisville Zoological Gardens, Louisville, KY
• Lowry Park Zoo, Tampa, FL
• Maryland Zoo, Baltimore, MD
• Memphis Zoo, Memphis, TN
• Miami Metro Zoo, Miami, FL
• Milwaukee Zoological Garden, Milwaukee, WI
• Montgomery Zoo, Montgomery, AL
• Nashville Zoo, Nashville, TN
• Niabi Zoo, Coal Valley, IL
• North Carolina Zoo, Asheboro, NC
• Oakland Zoo, Oakland, CA
• Oklahoma City Zoo, Oklahoma City, OK
• Oregon Zoo, Portland, OR
• Phoenix Zoo, Phoenix, AZ
• Pittsburgh Zoo, Pittsburgh, PA
• Point Defiance Zoo, Tacoma, WA
• Reid Park Zoo, Tuscon, AZ
• Riverbanks Zoo, Columbia, SC
• Roger Williams Park Zoo, Providence RI
• Rosamond Gifford Zoo, Syracuse, NY
• St. Louis Zoological Park, St. Louis, MO
• San Antonio Zoo, San Antonio, TX
• San Diego Zoo Safari Park, Escondido, CA
• San Diego Zoo, San Diego, CA
• Santa Barbara Zoo, Santa Barbara, CA
• Sedgwick County Zoo, Wichita, KS
• Seneca Park Zoo, Rochester, NY
• Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, Vallejo, CA
• Smithsonian National Zoological Park, Washington, DC
• Toledo Zoo, Toledo, OH
• Topeka Zoological Park, Topeka, KS
• Tulsa Zoo and Living Museum, Tulsa, OK
• Virginia Zoo, Norfolk, VA
• Wildlife Safari, Winston, OR
• Woodland Park Zoo, Seattle, WA
• Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, GA

Canada

• Bowmanville Zoo (Ontario)
• Calgary Zoo (Alberta)
• Granby Zoo (Quebec)
• Toronto Zoo (Ontario)

3. Starting on Saturday June 11th, start posting your comments! Remember that your comments will be seen by followers of all ages and comments that include profanity or can be interpreted as “abusive” will probably be removed before the general public gets a chance to read them and may result in your profile being reported and/or deleted by Facebook. IDA is not responsible for any comments you may leave or action that results.

Twitter Instructions:

1. Make sure you have your protest “sign“. All you have to do is right click on the “Elephants Suffer” image and choose “Save” to get this “sign”. Replace your profile photo to your “sign” and keep it up all weekend!

2. Go through the zoo list above and “Follow” these pages. This will allow you to send them direct messages and Tweets using the @. here’s an example of how this works – you Tweet : @ZooAtl Elephants need more space than urban zoos can provide. It’s cruel to keep elephants in zoos!

And that Tweet goes directly to the Zoo Atlanta Twitter page.

3. Encourage your friends to join your Twitter Demo! Tweet to them to also change their profile image to their “sign”. Here is an example of a Tweet you can use to encourage them to Tweet the zoos you are Tweeting: FF! Follow these zoos ( Then list a bunch of Twitter pages for zoos with elephants and put a @ before their address. Example : @ZooAtl ) & Tweet about what you think of zoos!

4. Starting on Saturday June 19th, start sending direct messages and Tweeting to the zoos you are following using the Reply function. Here is are some examples of a great Twitter Demo Tweet: @ZooAtl is no fun for the Elephants who live there. OR Elephants belong in the wild not @ZooAtl

5, You can run your Twitter Demo all day – Rain or Shine! But remember messages and Tweets that include profanity or can be interpreted as “abusive” may result in your profile being reported and/or deleted by Twitter. IDA is not reasonable for any messages or Tweets sent or action that results.

Here are some quick messages you can send (but feel free to create your own):

Elephants are suffering and dying prematurely in zoos.

Elephants should not suffer for our entertainment!

Elephant captivity does not equal conservation.

Elephants need more space than urban zoos can provide.

It’s cruel to keep elephants in zoos.

The largest zoo exhibit is still not big enough to meet elephants’ complex needs.

Inadequate conditions for elephants cause them to suffer painful foot disease and arthritis, infertility, and high infant mortality and stillbirth rates, and aberrant behaviors.

Repetitive rocking, swaying and head bobbing are signs of psychological distress; elephants don’t do this in the wild!

The life of an elephant in a zoo = misery, disease and early death.

Think about it: Elephants have a natural life span of 60-70 years, yet they are dying decades before their time in zoos. You call that conservation?

Time to ban the bullhook in zoos! Stop cruel, circus-style training!

Think about it: North American zoos will spend about half a billion dollars on remodeling exhibits that still will be too small for elephants. That money could protect entire populations of elephants in Africa and Asia!

Think about it: Zoos spend more than $25million a year to display fewer than 300 elephants. That money could protect entire populations of elephants in Africa and Asia!

The world’s leading elephant experts say elephants don’t belong in urban zoos. Why aren’t zoos listening?

Think about it: Scientific research shows that elephants in zoos have far shorter life expectancies than those in the wild.

Keeping elephants in zoos will not save them in the wild.

Elephants don’t belong in cold weather zoos!

To find out how you can help elephants year round – CLICK HERE to Join IDA’s Elephant Task Force!

A close look at a Bullhook.

In a great win, the Fulton County Commission in Georgia voted 4-1 to ban the use of bullhooks on elephants. The ordinance covers unincorporated south Fulton, and it would apply primarily to smaller circuses that visit the area, effectively stopping them from using elephants in performances and rides. Unfortunately, it does not stop the use of bullhooks by the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which performs in Atlanta.

Bullhooks are steel-tipped rods resembling fireplace pokers that are used to train and control elephants through physical punishment and intimidation (see accompanying photo). Handlers prod, hook and strike the elephants, often causing puncture wounds, lacerations and abscesses. There is abundant evidence showing that circuses routinely abuse elephants with bullhooks.

The perfect example of this training is seen in the footage recently released by Animal Defenders International, showing a typical training session for the elephants at Have Trunk Will Travel. The footage includes shots of Tai, the elephant featured in the movie Water for Elephants, being shocked with a hand-held electric device, and other elephants as they are hooked and viciously hit with the bullhook. (This company hires out elephants for rides, weddings, films, photo shoots, and parties, including some pretty seamy Hollywood soirees — just about anything that will make them money.) In one shot, the trainer tells the cameraperson not to show her hooking the elephants. That’s because this is the side of elephant training that’s never meant to be seen by the public, no matter if it’s a circus, a zoo, or an outfit like Have Trunk Will Travel.

What most people don’t know is that about half of zoos holding elephants use bullhooks, even though it’s inhumane for the elephants and extremely dangerous for keepers. Just this year, a young zookeeper was killed by an elephant at the Knoxville Zoo. And last year a seasoned keeper was nearly killed by a young male elephant. What makes these incidents even more tragic is that they were entirely preventable. Zoos can use a more progressive and humane training method that uses positive reinforcement and requires a barrier between elephant and keeper.

Please help IDA keep up the fight for elephants in captivity! You can start by taking part in our International Day of Action for Elephants in Zoos (IDAEZ) on June 11, a global event aimed at educating the world about the suffering of elephants in zoos. Click here for more information. If there isn’t an event planned for your zoo, it’s not to late to organize one! Contact IDAEZ@idausa.org to learn how. And stay tuned to this blog for a special announcement next week about action you can take for elephants.

This year’s International Day of Action for Elephants in Zoos (IDAEZ) – on Saturday, June 11 – is quickly approaching. IDA is pleased that Lily Tomlin is again supporting this global event and the actions of advocates around the world who will hold outreach events and demonstrations to educate the public about the tragic affects of confining elephants in small, urban zoo enclosures.

Lily is urging everyone to participate:

Elephants were never meant to be confined in zoos, where they are suffering and dying prematurely. Please help me share this important message by participating in the International Day of Action for Elephants in Zoos on June 11, a unique event that brings the world together to stop the suffering of elephants in zoos.

Last year there were events in more than 30 cities worldwide that educated thousands of people around the world. You can help make this year’s Day of Action an even greater success by organizing or participating in an event near you.

Events are already scheduled in California, Florida, South Carolina, Massachusetts, Texas and Washington, and internationally in Canada, Spain and the UK. Click here for a full list of scheduled events. (New events are being added all the time so check the list often – or add your own event!)

If your city isn’t yet listed for an event, we can help you organize one. See the IDAEZ Get Started page for more information. IDA provides flyers and posters, issues alerts to advocates in your area so they can attend your event, and sends news advisories to the media.

The elephants need your help. Please join IDA and Lily Tomlin in putting an end to their suffering by taking part in the International Day of Action for Elephants in Zoos.

For more information on IDAEZ click here or email IDAEZ@idausa.org.