Saturday, May 7, 2011

Toronto Zoo to Close It's Elephant Exhibit


Find elephants a new home, zoo report recommends


Courtesy of Toby Styles

I'm curious. I believe one of the "elephant deaths" accusingly mentioned in the article above occurred during an "accident" when two of the elephants were fighting, and one was killed. I wonder if incident's like that are figured into the equation when touting the success of a protected contact program?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, in free contact, it`s often enough the keeper who ends up dead or injured. And the keepers are only there for about 8 hours a day. Unless the elephants are locked into single stalls when the keepers leave, they have plenty of time without supervision to kill each other. Even during the working hours - which zoo has keepers standing next to the elephant enclosure all the time, ready to jump into action if a fight should occur?

Nicci

Wade G. Burck said...

Nicci,
Your kidding, right? Elephant's don't kill keepers, enclosures kill keeper's, if you believe the "experts". You don't want to whack a wall at 200 miles an hour, stay out of the race car. You don't want a dislocated shoulder, a concussion, and broken face bone's, stay off the the bull. The PBR isn't your game. You want to be a part of something cute and cuddly, raise rabbit's. Elephants aren't it. Single stall's!!! Shoot, it's as easy as chaining them up in the evening, with neutral blockers between the aggressor's. It's been done since time immortal, with incredible success. Elephants are pretty tough and I promise during working hours a keeper could get there long before it goes fatal. I don't care what it is you have ever done that you thought was the scariest, most exciting thing in the world, because unless you have been between two raging elephants, better yet, three or four, you have no idea how scary and exciting a moment in life can get. Unfortunately there is no book or school that teach's pachyderm refereeing. The only way to become real good at it is to get downed and browned enough time's and eat enough dirt to learn the little nuance's which put you in a good place to be proficient and end the fight quick without injury to anybody.
Wade