Zoo to add elephants; animal group upset

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals says neither Lowry Park nor any U.S. zoo can give the 4 animals the spacious habitat they need.

By BABITA PERSAUD, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published August 14, 2002

TAMPA -- Within a year, four African elephants will make their way from Swaziland in southern Africa to Lowry Park Zoo, crossing the Atlantic in a jumbo jet.

They will be housed in a 2.5-acre elephant exhibit that is part of the zoo's $24-million expansion. It is scheduled to open in 2004.

Elephants are "zoo favorites," said Lex Salisbury, the zoo's president and chief executive. "When people go to a zoo, they expect to see elephants, giraffes and zebras, and we have none of those animals."

The elephants -- two males and two females -- live in a fenced preserve, where they are protected from poachers and predators.

But when the number of elephants in the preserve gets too large, wildlife managers must either kill or relocate them.

"There is an overabundance of elephants in Africa," Salisbury said. "These animals are in an area fenced off by hot wire. Their numbers have to be controlled, so they are shot."

He said the parents of the four elephants suffered that fate.

"I went to Africa and visited these elephants," he said. "They came right up to our open-top truck."

In a zoo, the young orphaned elephants would be perfect, he said. And welcomed.

But not by everyone.

People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals, an animal rights organization, sent Lowry Park officials a letter Tuesday condemning what it calls the "abduction" of these elephants from their families and their homeland.

In Africa, these young elephants "have the freedom to walk many miles a day, swim in watering holes, play in mud pits and interact with their loved ones," said PETA spokeswoman Jane Garrison.

"No zoo in this country comes close to providing these intelligent, complex animals with a spacious habitat that is vital to their well-being," she said.

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