posted September 01, 2006 01:04 PM         

I e-mailed the council members as was requested in your info....

I am pretty active in several civic organizations here where I live, which do ALOT of fundraising for our local Zoo (one of the best in the country...thanks to good ole' Jack Hannah)..
I have also e-mailed several people locally who, may, have some additional ideas, funds and or pull to help these magnificent creatures... I will let you know what i find out.

posted September 01, 2006 05:39 PM         

I'm skint at the moment but I will certainly be giving my family gifts of sponsoring an elephant for a day for Christmas and I've also just signed the petition.

I hope you don't mind but I've also taken the liberty of sending a link to your post to Heather Mills McCartney who is a very successful animal rights campaigner.

Just recently she managed to get the Chinese government to pledge to do everything in its power to ban the Cat and Dog fur trade and she has several American & British celebs on her side to help sway public/political opinion.

Fingers crossed that she sees the message and lends her support.

Here's her site addy www.heathermillsmccartney.com/index.php

posted September 01, 2006 09:58 PM         

AG- yeah, you would think right? Unfortuantely, there's a lot of animal abuse and neglect (as wellas child abuse/neglect) in this area already. So if they were born and raised here (as I suspect Mr Seidon has) they are likely to have grown up around such poor treatment of animals as the norm.

What's worse is the American Zoos and Aquariums Association (AZA) still ok's the use of bullhooks and other clearly inhumane tools for controlling elephants in zoos. If you read the petition, you'd see why the AZA has their hands in this mess too - if El Paso Zoo surrenders the elephants, the zoo will lose its standing with the AZA and could close down. Actually, I think that would be a good thing. A sad thing for the city, as this is a very poor place and many children here have very limited opportunities to see things beyoind their neighborhoods. But if the zoo won't care properly for its animals, it shouldn't be open. Period. And if they'll do this to such high-profile, "star attraction" animals like elephants, god knows what they do to other animals.

I personally have never set foot in our zoo out pure disgust. I've been to good zoos, and I've been to animals rescus and sanctuaries. When I drive our zoo, it's a depressing site, even if you didn't know it's history. I have run into their glowing, pamphlet-waving volunteers at the mall when they had a PR run to keep the elephants last year - it made me so mad all I could do was tell them "The elephants belong in a sanctuary" and walk off.

posted September 02, 2006 07:06 PM         

Sometimes when I drive from Montana to Utah and back, I dream of having a Zoo out in the middle of nowhere, where animals live in peace,but then I come to the reality of my view: its all still a form of Slavery for the benefit of others.