New Commerford Zoo Records Highlight USDA Failures - Elephants: Beulah, Karen, Minnie
An Entertainment Abuses Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM NonHuman Rights Project
June 2021

The 303 pages of documents shed light on the USDA’s failure to protect our clients, the ineffectiveness and insufficiency of existing animal welfare laws, and the appalling details of the Commerford Zoo’s imprisonment and exploitation of Karen, Beulah, and Minnie.

Elephant Beulah
In one record, a USDA inspector refers to the grassy parking lot median where Beulah was listlessly lying the day before she collapsed multiple times and died as a “hillside.”

Last month, eighteen months after we submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the USDA for records related to Beulah, Karen, and Minnie, we finally received the responsive records. The 303 pages of documents shed light on the USDA’s failure to protect our clients, the ineffectiveness and insufficiency of existing animal welfare laws, and the appalling details of the Commerford Zoo’s imprisonment and exploitation of Karen, Beulah, and Minnie.

Since Beulah and Karen’s deaths in 2019, we have obtained extensive records on the lives of all three elephants, with Minnie now the sole surviving elephant. Last year, with the assistance of Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal, we learned Karen died in March 2019 from kidney disease, and Beulah died of septicemia caused by a uterine infection while being exhibited at the Big E fair in Massachusetts.

Please read the ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE (PDF)

Return to Entertainment Abuses Articles