Folks working to keep the masters of Reid Park Zoo from separating longtime-companion elephants Connie and Shaba received a much-deserved dose of good news this week, when it was announced that Bob Barker would kick in up to $500,000 to have the animals resettled together in a bucolic California sanctuary.
His pledge would go into effect only if local volunteers are able to raise an equal amount.
While getting that hefty pledge from the former Price is Right impresario is a big, big deal, it’s only half the fight. The other half is raising that other half-mil to ready the PAWS sanctuary for the elephants arrival—and doing it before zoo officials manage to ship Connie off to the San Diego Zoo.
Other hurdles include prodding stubborn Reid Park officials into acknowledging that a roomy sanctuary might just be a better fit for elephants than cramped zoo quarters, and getting the City Council to go along.
To donate and help get Tucson’s deserving elephants to a better place, email Tracy Toland at tracytoland@hotmail.com
This article appears in Jan 12-18, 2012.
That would be wonderful, if they could live together at the sanctuary. I have been to PAWS and it is a fantastic place for the elephants. The point is that even if they have to stay where they are now, they should do that rather than have to undergo the emotional pain of being torn away from each other. Zoos should not be a place where animals are hurt physically or emotionally. Unfortunately, it seems that there are unfeeling and uncaring people running this zoo and, it seems, the San Diego as well. When the video of keepers tieing up and beating an African elephant named Medundanella, in San Diego, came out some years ago, we should have known what to expect from that zoo and places like it. The zoo was really angry about that video being taken and made public. Keep those elephants together!
Remember folks, have your elephants spayed or neutered
!st, I’m amazed Bob Barker doesn’t want to take them out in the wild & turn them loose, like all the other wild-eyed, anti-zoo bunny huggers do.
2nd, All they need to do is keep Connie & Shaba & put them in the new big enclosure they’re building. There’s gonna be enough room to buy 2 fewer ‘new’ elephants than now planned then rotate them out/in with Connie & Shaba, every other day, like is already done with several other animals there. RPZ has absolutely NO BUSINESS putting a bull elephant in this zoo…there’s nobody here that has experience handling a bull for one & the 1st time 1 goes into musth here, somebody’s gonna get hurt/killed – then they’ll euthanize the elephant for it! BAD IDEAS ALL AROUND!!
correction: the name of the elephant that was beaten at the San Diego Zoo was Medundamelli (also called Dunda) and there are several references to it on the net.
Connie and Shaba could have been sent to the Elephant Sanctuary together in Tennessee several years ago. There was a petition going around trying to make this happen. The zoo and city council said no and that they would build a bigger enclosure for them instead. When they finally build it, they then changed their tune saying they would separate these two lovely elephants. I’m very unhappy with the Zoo’s behavior. I’m not even sure why this Zoo needs elephants. It’s a very small zoo.
I say give the elephants the golf corse……………..Put all that land to productive use, and let us keep our elephants.