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Wild elephants to be ripped from their families!

i Nov 16th by

The Dallas Zoo in Texas, Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo in Nebraska, and Sedgwick County Zoo in Kansas want to rip 18 wild elephants from their families and home in Swaziland to fill their cages.

Please ask the Fish and Wildlife Service to deny permits to import 18 wild elephants to U.S. zoos. Just a few minutes of your time could spare these wild elephants a lifetime of misery in a tiny yard and in a barren barn cell. But hurry! The deadline for comments is Monday, November 23, 2015.

African Elephants

Please politely demand that the Fish and Wildlife Service NOT grant a permit to import these wild elephants. Some say there is no room for the elephants where they currently live. If so, they could be moved to another location in the wild. The elephants need to stay within Africa.

What you can do

  1. Submit a comment to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). Just one line will do. Click here to comment.
  2. Make 3 phone calls to your 2 Senators and 1 representative.  Click here to find their phone numbers.

To learn more read Conservation Charade: U.S. Zoo Propose Importing Wild African Elephants and go to Big Rumble’s Facebook page.

Talking points from Big Rumble

  • I am shocked that these zoos intend to engage in the cruel and archaic capture of wild elephants for captivity. Science has told us about elephants’ sensitivity, their intelligence, and their strong family bonds, which zoos will tear apart.
  • It’s wrong to tear young elephants away from their mothers just to put them on display in zoos where they face considerably shorter life spans than elephants in protected wild areas.
  • Captivity is not conservation. None of the Swaziland elephants or any offspring will ever be released back into the wild to help populations in Africa. Zoos need to help protect elephants where they live — that is true conservation!
  • Culling has not been used in Southern Africa for two decades; non-lethal management alternatives are now considered best practice. Zoos should not be shamelessly exploiting threats to kill elephants and pretend to be “saving” them.
  • If you really want to “save” these elephants, then work with BGP to find space for them in Swaziland or elsewhere in Africa — rather than offering a cash incentive not to.
  • Killing is NOT the only alternative to capture. Even if we believe that elephants confined to a tiny part of Swaziland are doing significant damage to the land, there are other protected areas that they could be moved to.
  • There can be no justification for harming elephants, including conserving rhinos. A humane solution exists: Relocate the Swaziland elephants elsewhere in Africa and keep them wild!
  • Both Omaha and Sedgwick County are cold-weather zoos where the elephants would spend significant time indoors, endangering their health. All three zoos have limited space — nothing like the areas elephants naturally need to thrive.
  • Importing elephants from Swaziland has nothing to do with helping elephants. It is a shameless ploy to increase zoo attendance, at a cost to the elephants’ lives, freedom, and families.

Please share this widely. Let’s do all we can to assure a huge outcry over this barbaric scheme. Thank you!