I first
reported about the Oregon Zoo on this blog in January (‘Two “Lily”s at the
Oregon Zoo’). Since then, circumstances
have deteriorated.
Last month
(May), the Oregon Zoo Director, Kim Smith, along with the zoo’s Chief
Veterinarian, Mitch Finnegan, were both fired.
This action came following the death of a 20-year-old Sumatran
orangutan, named Kutai, who died following minor surgery.
Then, on
May 25, “Six cotton-top tamarins—a species of small New World monkey—died of
unknown causes … while in quarantine at the Oregon Zoo’s veterinary medical
center. The six deceased belonged to a
group of nine tamarins that arrived at the zoo May 22,” on loan from Harvard University, according to Jim Middaugh, a
spokesman for the regional government that operates the Oregon Zoo. (1) This occurred after Smith and Finnegan had
been dismissed. And so this incident
reveals that the zoo’s problems are more endemic.
Next, on June
11, it was reported that “Tests have confirmed tuberculosis in Tusko, the third
elephant at the Oregon Zoo in Portland
with the respiratory disease.
Veterinarians are beginning an 18-month treatment regimen for the
44-year-old male Asian elephant. Two
other bull elephants, Packy and Rama, are being treated for TB that was
diagnosed last year at the zoo.” (2)
In addition
to all this, perhaps at the foundation of the controversies involving the
Oregon Zoo, is the management of its elephant herd—especially its breeding
program. The zoo’s “chief claim to fame
is its elephant-breeding program—a project many of its peers have abandoned as
outdated and barbaric.” (3) Part of this
controversy involves Lily, the elephant calf born on November 30, 2012. The Seattle Times revealed that Have
Trunk Will Travel, a California-based elephant rental company, “was to take
ownership of Lily after she was 6 months old, in exchange for the breeding
services of Tusko, a bull elephant that had been loaned to the Oregon Zoo in
2005. …(However,) The following February, the zoo purchased the rights to Lily
and Tusko for $400,000, using money from the Oregon Zoo Foundation.” (3)
While Kim Smith was still director,
it was reported that “the Oregon Zoo had shifted from its plans to use a
voter-funded bond to give its elephants more room to roam in Clackamas County. Rather than simply give the elephants a
second home, the zoo decided to buy a second herd and begin a new, aggressive
breeding program, according to zoo documents.
‘We’ve always been very clear on our vision of breeding elephants,’
Smith (said) at the time.” (4)
Despite the Oregon Zoo’s current
construction of its new, 6.25-acre pachyderm habitat, called Elephant Lands, my
personal views about elephants in captivity are changing. (Six and a quarter acres, are you joking? Together with “a new, aggressive breeding
program”?)
For this blog post, and future
ones, I contacted Dr. G.A. Bradshaw, author of the book, Elephants on the Edge. She
replied to my e-mail with a wealth of information. So in this post, I will share some of her
observations about elephants in captivity.
Her paper, “Inside Looking Out: Neuroethological Compromise Effects in
Elephants in Captivity,” corrected my misunderstanding about “domesticated”
elephants, such as those throughout Asia,
based upon her statements concerning captivity itself: “a psychologically
mediated physical condition that disbars agency—the sense of self as an
instrument of one’s own destiny. …Many zoos make efforts to increase
biophysical and social diversity, but given physical and logistical limitations
of structures and practices of close confinement, elephant life remains
completely or largely determined by the agendas of zoo personnel. There is little opportunity for revitalizing
agency that is, by definition, seriously undermined in captivity. Personal exercise of free will is highly
circumscribed within a narrow set of parameters (e.g., availability of
enrichment toys and activities), time, and space. Quotidian routines with little variety
relative to wild conditions and continued atrophy of agency leads elephants, as
Timerman (2002) describes, to robot-like behavior and numbing which may appear
as loss of appetite, depression, stereotypy and apathy.” For instance, “Dissociative or
dissociative-like behaviors are commonly observed in elephants who are confined
(e.g., somatization, swaying and other stereotypies).”
Dr. Bradshaw continues: “Much is
made of the elephant-human relationship in captivity—indeed, cultivation of
this bond is considered key to successful management of elephants in
captivity. But as traumatologists are
quick to point out, these relationships are psychologically corrosive and
volatile because of the imposed power differential: the human plays the dual
role of agent of captivity or abuse or both, as well as attachment and
survival. Elephant management is by
definition physical (e.g., ankus, chutes) and emotional (e.g., trainer-elephant
relationship) coercion.”
Concerning captive breeding, such
as the Oregon Zoo advocates, Dr. Bradshaw concludes: “Because captivity effects
dramatically decrease overall fitness, the use of captive breeding as a tool
for conservation is therefore contraindicated from both a scientific and
ethical standpoint.” Earlier, she
observes: “After birth, young captive-born elephants typically lack the
traditional allomother-rearing context, are often separated from mother and
live alone or in highly altered social structures—similar to traumatic stress
conditions that have been linked with serious and functional compromise
elsewhere and significantly affect elephant well-being and behavior.”
Captive elephants are prevalent in India. One organization in Bangalore, called Compassion Unlimited Plus
Action, or CUPA, is committed to rescuing and rehabilitating captive elephants. I will write about the work of CUPA Bangalore
in my next post.
To conclude: Why does it matter? A close friend and I recently were discussing
this while having breakfast together. He
posed the question: “Are we only postponing
the inevitable (i.e., their extinction, or elimination as a wild species)? Why not study them in the wild for as long as
we can – perhaps ten more years – but let nature take its course.” I can offer four responses at this point, and
I’ll share more in future posts as they occur to me.
1) They are sentient, self-aware beings like ourselves,
albeit in a different realm, yet we control their destiny. So it behooves us to
do so in a way that respects them and preserves their survival.
2) HEC (“human-elephant conflict”)– Humans are suffering due
to our mismanagement of the Asian (and African) elephant.
3) Must protect them in the wild for what they teach us
about ourselves; the subtitle of Dr. Bradshaw’s book is “What Animals Teach Us
about Humanity.”
4) Elephants represent not so much another species, but
rather another culture, which we must respect as when we visit any other
culture of human society.
Lee Cuesta
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