Hey, elephant lovers: Happy is happy

By Jim Breheny

|NEW YORK DAILY NEWS|

Aug 28, 2015 | 5:00 AM

The zoo is her home (MARY SCHWALM/AP)

There's a petition on change.org started by a woman named Joann Burrows demanding the Bronx Zoo send one of our elephants to a sanctuary. I have never to my knowledge met Burrows. I don't know what she knows about the Bronx Zoo, the Wildlife Conservation Society that operates it, the health of our elephants or, for that matter, elephants in general.

But I know she has an opinion, and based on that opinion, she wants others to join her in insisting that Happy, an approximately 45-year-old Asian elephant, not live out her life at the zoo where she has spent the last 35-plus years.

Advertisement

The language in her petition — which is on the cusp of having 200,000 supporters — echoes the language in a 2012 New York Post story that contained many inaccuracies about the Bronx Zoo elephants. We provided the Post with correct information, but the paper opted to ignore the facts.

The inaccuracies have been repeated many times, despite attempts to correct them. In Defense of Animals has groundlessly named the Bronx Zoo one of the worst zoos for elephants — repeating the Post's report that Happy is kept inside in "solitary confinement."

These claims — in the Post story, in the petition, in the IDA statement — are all false.

Happy is not isolated.

Happy is not in solitary confinement.

Happy has equal access to outside areas as our other elephants.

According to our animal care professionals, Happy is healthy and exhibits no signs of physiological or psychological stress. While Happy does not share the same physical space with our two other elephants because they do not get along, she is in tactile and auditory contact with them. Our elephants touch and "talk" with one another. And Happy spends several hours a day interacting with the people who care for her.

Happy has strong bonds with her keepers, and she's comfortable in the home she has known for more than three decades. We don't think moving her from familiar surroundings and people to whom she is bonded is the right thing to do.

We are not alone. Andrea Turkalo, a world-renowned WCS conservationist who has spent 25 years protecting elephants in the wild, says: "On a social level, zoo animals are accustomed to their keepers and a rupture in that relationship could be traumatic for the animals. Elephants are very sensitive and we should keep that in mind instead of rearranging their lives thinking that is better for them."

In 2005, we at WCS announced that we had no plans to exhibit elephants beyond our current animals and would increase our investment in protecting elephants in the wild. Today, we spend over $24 million annually on elephant conservation. By founding the 96Elephants campaign — named after the number of elephants killed by poachers every single day in Africa — we have led the charge to help stop the ruthless slaughter of 35,000 African elephants each year for the ivory trade.

Advertisement

In addition to fighting to save elephants as a species in the wild, we also provide the best care for our individual zoo elephants.

I have no doubt that the petitioners have Happy's best interest at heart, but I wonder on what information they base their opinion.

Have they fully researched what the Bronx Zoo and sanctuaries can offer elephants? Do they know about the funding, staffing, disease issues, safety record and level of veterinary care available to animals at those facilities?

Most people don't really know what sanctuaries can or cannot provide to elephants. What they do know is a default mantra: "sanctuaries good, zoos bad."

The integrated plans we develop for our elephants are based on expertise in animal husbandry, curatorial science, veterinary medicine, behavioral enrichment and training — and, most of all, on an intimate, in-depth understanding of our animals.

We evaluate and review their status on a regular basis. If at some time, we determine it is in the best interest of our animals to make a change, we will.

Breheny, a zoologist, is director of the Bronx Zoo and executive vice president of the Wildlife Conservation Society's zoos and aquarium.