IDA Blog

Wildlife

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

Saturday 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 our first-ever 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:

• Albuquerque Biological Park, Albuquerque, NM
• Audubon Zoo, Audubon, LA
• Baltimore Zoo, Baltimore, MD (Maryland Zoo in Baltimore)
• BREC’s Baton Rouge, Baton Rouge, LA
• Bronx Zoo, Bronx, NY (phasing out)
• Brookfield Zoo, Chicago, IL
• 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
• Central Florida Zoological Park, Lake Monroe, FL (may not replace elephants after they die)
• 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, Dickerson, 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
• Jackson Zoo, Jackson, MS
• 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
• 37.  Lowry Park Zoo, Tampa, FL
• Marine World, Vallejo, Vallejo, CA
• 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
• Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo, Omaha, NE
• 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
• Saint Louis Zoological Park, St. Louis, MO
• San Antonio Zoo, San Antonio, TX
• San Diego Wild Animal Park, San Diego, CA
• San Diego Zoo, San Diego, CA
• Santa Barbara Zoo, Santa Barbara, CA (phasing out)
• Sedgwick County Zoo, Wichita, KS
• Seneca Park Zoo, Rochester, NY
• 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
• Calgary Zoo (Alberta)
• Toronto Zoo (Ontario)
• Granby Zoo (Quebec)

3. Starting on Saturday June 19th, 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.

Zoos are entertainment, not education, and elephants should not be used for our entertainment.

Elephant captivity does not equal conservation!

No one has the right, or the need, to see elephants in person, especially when keeping them in zoos causes them so much suffering.

Elephants need more space than urban zoos can provide.

It’s cruel to keep elephants in zoos.

Elephants in zoos suffer painful foot disease and arthritis that cripple and kill them, infertility, high infant mortality and stillbirth rates.

The repetitive rocking and swaying you see elephants doing are signs of psychological distress. Elephants don’t do this in the wild.

Misery, disease and early death: what an elephant gets in a zoo.

Think about it: Elephants have a natural life span of 50-60 years, yet more than half of elephants who died in zoos didn’t live to age 40. You call this conservation?

Elephants in zoos live on a few acres at best; in the wild they live in enormous home ranges of hundreds of square miles. It just isn’t right!

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

Think about it: U.S. zoos will spend close to half a billion dollars on enlarging exhibits that still are too small for elephants. This money could protect entire elephant populations of animals in Africa and Asia.

Think about it: Annually, zoos spend more than $16 million to display fewer than 300 elephants. This money could protect entire elephant populations in Africa and Asia.

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

Think about it: Scientists have found that elephants in zoos are dying far younger than those in relatively protected wild populations.

Justice for Queenie: Tell the USDA It’s Time to Protect Elephant Welfare Instead of Zoos’ Interests

The International Day of Action for Elephants in Zoos (IDAEZ) takes place this Saturday, with more than 30 events in five countries. You can help the elephants, even if you don’t live near a zoo, by sending a message that the USDA must put animal welfare over zoos’ interests.

The first step is to ensure the USDA is held accountable for its actions in sending Queenie to the San Antonio Zoo, which does not have the space needed to properly care for elephants. If you’ve been following this elephant’s tragic story on www.HelpElephants.com and this blog, you know that IDA has been fighting for Queenie for the last three years, and that we’re not giving up the battle for her life. Thanks to the thousands of you who have called and written so many times on her behalf, hope remains alive.

But it’s time to use our voices again for Queenie, who is the victim of an apparently all-too-cozy relationship between the USDA and the zoo and circus industries.

Consider the facts: After multiple violations of federal animal welfare law; having two elephants, Tina and Jewel, seized because they were in grave condition; and after having federal charges pressed against him, Queenie’s former circus trainer, Will Davenport, ended up $20,000 richer and paid no fines! That’s just not right.

Yes, we wanted Queenie freed from her misery, but the USDA failed in its mandate to protect animal welfare by directing her to the wrong place. An elephant who has suffered abuse and neglect for more than 50 years, purely for the sake of public display, should have been sent to the peace and solitude of a natural-habitat elephant sanctuary, where she could get the special rehabilitative care she needs.

At a time when the American public is fed up with the lax oversight of federal agencies that are far too enmeshed with the industries they’re meant to regulate, we need to speak out and demand justice for Queenie.

You can take action now. Send a quick message to your elected members of Congress by clicking here.

Stay tuned this week for information on more ways you can help elephants even if you don’t live near a zoo with an IDAEZ event on Saturday, including a secret action to be announced later this week.

Christopher Richter for SWSS (MMS, ONR, Oregon State, Texas A&M)

Who is affected when our politicians allow oil rigs to tear ever deeper into our earth to suck out more precious black life force? Who will suffer when the oil companies push past scientific reasoning and into the no man’s land of drilling, throwing caution to the wind for a few more gallons of crude oil? Before tragedy strikes, no one wants to answer these questions, but now we can all see that it is our precious ocean’s irreparable ecosystems and innocent wildlife who have and will pay the price for one oil company’s deadly mistakes.

More than a month ago a fireball went up in the Gulf Coast signaling the beginning of the worst oil spill in our nation’s history. Eleven men lost their lives that night, and since then death has seeped out into the waters along with the toxic sludge. With 500,000 to one million gallons leaking into the Gulf every day, I do not think that any of us can begin to wrap our heads around the sheer volume of this colossal, devastating spill.

The suffering endured by marine wildlife and the destruction to their habitats is beyond comprehension.  Some of the animals wash ashore bloated by death, having lost their brief battle with the sticky, suffocating oil. Others struggle to survive, gasping through thick masks of the filthy liquid. Oil coats the feathers of the unfortunate birds, destroying their insulation. Other birds try frantically to clean themselves, ingesting the toxic oil and dying slowly from poisoning.

The effects of the oil spill on wildlife materialized slowly at first, but now there is a veritable gush of death and destruction on the shores of four Gulf States. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service  (USFWS) reported Wednesday that the wildlife rescue center in Fort Jackson, La., had received more than five times as many oiled birds in the past few days than in the previous six weeks combined, bringing the total to more than 400 birds.

As of June 10, the USFWS has reported more than 1,500 birds, sea turtles, marine mammals, and reptiles collected alive and dead in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida combined. This can only be a small fraction of the total number of animals suffering and dying underwater or on remote shores.

The USFWS further reports a total of 35 National Wildlife Refuges at risk from the BP oil spill.  Imagine these once-pristine beaches and grassy marshes covered in stinking, putrid oil. They were a sanctuary for some of the most endangered species in our country, and now they are annihilating, toxic wastelands.

Currently, BP has mandated that only paid BP employees may touch any oiled surface (this includes wildlife). So in order to enter the scene a responder must be a BP employee or contractor with hazmat training, oiled wildlife training, and many other qualifications. Only a few small groups of highly trained individuals are permitted to clean and care for affected animals. This leaves most of us feeling powerless to help during a tragedy of such magnitude.
In Defense of Animals has already come out against offshore drilling, but we must all find ways in our everyday lives to fight the paths that lead to this cruel tragedy. I also urge you all to reach out to your local representatives and state senators and demand that they pressure BP to open affected areas to qualified wildlife rescuers. Those who are qualified to save these animals’ lives must be allowed to gain access to them.

Going forward we must funnel our frustrations into breaking down the barrier that is keeping much-needed responders from helping and voicing our concerns over excessive drilling and unsafe practices. And when the time comes, IDA will be there to do whatever we can for the animals affected by this infernal abyss.

Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary/photo credit: Karla Goodson

Throughout my 20 years in the animal protection field I have admired the work of In Defense of Animals, and I’m truly honored to accept the position of President of this esteemed organization. I feel very fortunate to have inherited a solid foundation created by Dr. Elliot Katz, and look forward to building on this platform of excellence in order to expand IDA’s positive impact for animals.

More than two decades ago I realized the common thread in the network of animal cruelty – the cage. The cage represents the imprisonment and mistreatment of the animals of this world. I have focused my career on tearing down these cages in their many forms and uses.

The cage is a fundamentally flawed contraption that causes rapid emotional, social and physical decline of its inhabitants. In my experience any animal confined to a cage goes through three phases of decline; typically starting with high anxiety, leading to depression, and resulting in psychological turmoil. Putting an animal in a cage is a violation of that creature’s innate right to live naturally and without suffering. This type of confinement also forces animals to eat, sleep and defecate in a space often only a few times the size of their body. This causes human and animal health problems and can ultimately lead to death in some species.

I conceptualized and built a revolutionary cageless animal shelter that set global humane standards. I lobbied for the adoption of guardian language to change people’s ideas concerning our relationships with animals. I lead the rescue of tens of thousands of animals from puppy mills, dog and cock fighting, hoarding cases, equine farming and countless other cruel instances of confinement and mistreatment. I have liberated hundreds of thousands of animals from the confines of cages and the grip of man-made cruelty.

Read the rest of this entry »

Two wild caught eighteen-month-old baby elephants will be sent from Zimbabwe to North Korea, as part of a sale that includes a variety of wildlife, including pairs of giraffe, zebra, antelope, hyenas, monkeys and birds. News sources are also reporting that as many as five other countries, including Japan and Mozambique, are requesting similar purchases of wild animals from Zimbabwe.

According to experts, the elephant calves may be too young to endure the cruel trauma of capture, separation from their mothers, and the 7,000-mile trip to North Korea. If they do survive, they almost certainly will not be held in conditions that meet their physical and psychological needs, ensuring a lifetime of suffering and a premature death. Other wild animals involved in the transfer are not expected to fare any better, compounding this unnecessary tragedy.

Elephants’ profound social bonds make separation of calves from their mothers highly traumatic for the baby and remaining family members, causing enormous suffering. In the wild, elephant mothers fiercely protect their young, whom they nurse until they are four years old. Calves never stray far from their mothers, and they enjoy the nurturing attention of other females in the family who help care for and rear them. Female offspring remain with their mothers for life.

IDA is a signatory, along with conservation groups, elephant experts, animal protection groups and biologists around the world, in support of a letter sent by world-renowned elephant authority and ElephantVoices co-director Dr. Joyce Poole to Zimbabwean leaders. In it she states:

“We urge you not to underestimate the impact on world opinion of the distressing sounds and imagery of elephant calves and juveniles being forcibly separated from their families, captured and then undergoing inhumane taming and training methods, and a lifetime of captivity in a country that is not known for its adherence to international standards and norms. These practices are totally unacceptable for an enlightened public and continuation is bound to lead to public petitions, campaigns, and increased negative publicity for Zimbabwe.”

Please help stop Zimbabwe from transferring these elephant calves and other wildlife to North Korea by writing a polite letter to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, urging him to do the right thing and cancel the sale. Tell him that you strongly oppose the export of baby elephants and other wildlife from their natural habitats, and urge him to show that Zimbabwe truly cares about preserving and protecting its wildlife heritage by halting the sale. Respectfully let him know that the world is watching.

To contact Prime Minister Tsvangirai, please:

1. Go to the website www.zimbabweprimeminister.org

2. On the horizontal menu near the top of the page, click on “Contacts” at the far right.

3. Send an email to the Prime Minister.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Last weekend the CBS Sunday Morning news program aired breathtaking video of “Wild Horses of Nevada” at the end of the program. Filmmaker and burro and wild horse advocate Carl Mrozek recently took this video of the beautiful, healthy mustangs in the wild. You can watch the video by clicking here.

Please take a few minutes to post a brief comment to urge CBS News to do a news segment on the wild horse issue.  We hope that if CBS gets a huge response it may trigger broader coverage of the mustang/ burro story. The response over the next several days will be key. This is a prime & rare opportunity for advocates to make their case directly to CBS producers, via the CBS website so please take full advantage of it.

To post a comment after the video:

1) Go to the link, find the mustang video right there, and watch the piece — it’s only about one minute.  It was mostly rough/tough macho mustang stuff, but it definitely shows the healthy, beautiful horses, and Charles Osgood says these are the “… vanishing mustangs…”

2) Directly under the video – click on “[number] Comments” or click on this webpage to add a comment.

3) Next, click on “Add a Comment” and then click on “Log in or Create An Account.”

Below are some ideas to that you may consider when writing your comments. Please write original comments as they will likely be more compelling to producers who read them.

• Great video on wild horses – would be interested why Charles Osgood said the wild horses are vanishing.
• I would like to learn more about these wild horses – could you please do a news story on what is happening to them?
• More information please.

Thank you.

There is a high cost for our government’s wild horses and burro program, it starts with the waste of tens of millions of tax dollars each year but ends with the devastation to wild horses who have their freedom, family and homes stolen from them.

This tragedy has befallen hundreds of thousands of wild horses over the years.

The latest victims are the Calico horses. Their tragedy continues today at the short-term holding facility in Fallon, Nevada. We wanted to share with you the American Wild Horse Preservation Coalition’s (AWHPC’s) report BLM Calico Complex Roundup: A Case Study of a Broken System for Horses and Taxpayers which outlines the high costs of death, injury and suffering for wild horses rounded up at the expense of every tax payer. Supporting this report is “Wild Horses — The Stress of Captivity” a paper written by Dr. Bruce Knock, Associate Professor at the Washington University School of Medicine and expert on the physiological effects of stress on animals. For a summary on the report check out AWHPC’s blog.

In Defense of Animals is proud to be a member of the American Wild Horses Preservation Coalition.