Hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent on elephant zoo exhibits in the U.S., yet these funds are desperately needed to avert the extinction of elephants in the wild. Where they still exist, elephants are facing severe threats from ivory poaching, human encroachment, and collections by zoos. The wild is the only place where true conservation of elephant families, their habitats, and their rich cultures can take place.
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Despite all the progress that has been made for captive elephants
over the last few years, including Ringling Bros. closing its doors
for good and new state laws that ban the use of elephants for
entertainment, one misperception continues unabated. Zoos
relentlessly promote the idea that keeping elephants in captivity
helps to conserve them in the wild. Nothing could be further from
the truth. This oft-repeated PR message is a way for zoos to cling
to respectability, but the fact is zoo tickets fund a conservation
con.
In Defense of Animals produces an annual list of the 10 Worst Zoos
for Elephants in North America to expose how elephants suffer
silently in captivity, even when confined in pricey exhibits.
Elephants live longer in the wild than in captivity, even when
droughts and poaching are taken into account. Elephants do not
reproduce well in captivity either; they die faster than they can be
born. That is why in 2015, 18 elephants from Swaziland were brutally
removed from their home and sent to three U.S. zoos.
Captivity in zoos is not conservation for elephants
The zoological industry is trying to distort the public's definition
of “elephant herds” by implying that captive elephant “collections”
in North America can still be called herds. It is misleading and
dangerous to fabricate elephant societies with groups of mostly
unrelated individuals who are deprived of their real families,
choices, cultures, and ecosystems.
Hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent on elephant zoo
exhibits in the U.S., yet these funds are desperately needed to
avert the extinction of elephants in the wild. Where they still
exist, elephants are facing severe threats from ivory poaching,
human encroachment, and collections by zoos. The wild is the only
place where true conservation of elephant families, their habitats,
and their rich cultures can take place.
On the good news front, following international condemnation, a
historic resolution was reached at the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) of Wild Fauna and Flora’s 18th
Conference of the Parties held in Geneva in August 2019, supported
by an overwhelming majority of governments. It introduced a
near-total ban on live elephant exports from Zimbabwe and Botswana
to zoos.
African elephants from other states and all Asian elephants are
considered to be “threatened with extinction” and are therefore
listed in Appendix I of the CITES Convention. This means that the
import of live animals for “primarily commercial purposes” is not
allowed so as not to “further endanger their survival.”
Though China and Zimbabwe managed to manipulate their way around the
ban and shipped 32 elephants that were being held in quarantine to
Chinese zoos prior to the ban, this new ban puts up a roadblock that
makes it much more difficult for zoos to import wild elephants. The
Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA) voiced its fervent objection
to the new restrictions on exporting wild elephants. It is now up to
CITES and member governments to protect elephants with ironclad
enforcement policies.
Zoos will persist in promoting the conservation con—as long as the
public buys it. That's where you can take action by turning the con
into conversation. Speak up to inform friends and family about the
conservation lie perpetuated by zoos, and encourage them to boycott
zoos with elephants, until the elephants are released to sanctuary
and the zoo pledges to shut down its elephant exhibit as 44 zoos
around the world have already done. We encourage all zoos to take
this same humane, and historic step.