North American Asian Elephant Population

marvinjonesIII said:
Well I can assure you with Pacelle being me tooed that is off the table.

It's important to remember not all "critics" are the same. HSUS has not always been great on its opinions of zoos but that does not mean they are militantly anti-zoo and they do have some common goals (wildlife preservation, fighting illegal pet trade, ensuring animal welfare, cracking down on roadside zoos and other inappropriate homes for animals) with AZA. They are very different from PETA and IDA, which just want to end animals in captivity and make the entire world vegan.
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HSUS has the same goals at PETA. Many of their higher-ups have worked for peta, and vice versa, while others are married to each other. It's naive to think they are different from one another.
 
Yi Qi said:
Maybe Have Trunk Will Travel's Hill Country Elephant Preserve will be included too?
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Lol. Well, I've cast aspersions on them in past posts as well. What would it mean if my views on something were in line with IDA?o_Oo_O:rolleyes::rolleyes::eek::eek:

Interestingly, since the list has always been about zoos, Have Trunk, Will Travel was spared IDA's venom when it surely may have been warranted for making elephants work and allegedly abusing them. If anything, the Preserve is a step in the right direction for a better life, but if IDA discovers that the animals are still being rented out or used for rides, they may jump on those "transgressions" as a segue into a scathing indictment of their past.

Are there any African pregnancies out there?
 
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AmbikaFan said:
Lol. Well, I've cast aspersions on them in past posts as well. What would it mean if my views on something were in line with IDA?o_Oo_O:rolleyes::rolleyes::eek::eek:

Interestingly, since the list has always been about zoos, Have Trunk, Will Travel was spared IDA's venom when it surely may have been warranted for making elephants work and allegedly abusing them. If anything, the Preserve is a step in the right direction for a better life, but if IDA discovers that the animals are still being rented out or used for rides, they may jump on those "transgressions" as a segue into a scathing indictment of their past.

Are there any African pregnancies out there?
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An Elephant Calf Is Due At Reid Park Zoo In 2020, Reid Park Zoo
 
I saw from Yi Qui's post that the IDA 2020 list had been published--but all I can find is articles from zoos responding immediately to their placement on the list. It's great that so many zoos seemed to have planned an immediate onslaught of response, but can anyone find the actual IDA list?
 
Wow, this year's list is very different than last year's. Not only is there only one Dishonourable Mention--instead of the multiple DMs and multiple Hall of Shame recipents--this document is written in a much different tone. Past lists were written in dramatic hyperole, using terms like "solitary confinement" and "cruel separation" repeatedly, supposedly to get people to sympathize, but in effect totally reducing IDA's credibility. As we all know, overstatement and highly dramatic rhetoric border on "tall tales" and exaggeration, which is just one tiny step from out-and-out lies. They need to be taken seriously and believably, and until this year, their tone put that in serious doubt.

This year, the volume and heat have been turned way down by a clearly-different writer. In the past the charged rhetoric like "solitary confinement" was used repeatedly, and the writer just left those terms hanging out there, assuming the reader would just take their word. IDA has taken a good look at this strategy and has realized that it led straight to not being taken seriously, possibly being dismissed entirely.

This year, the prose is not only calmer--and after all, wouldn't we associate the best animal care--or those to care about animals--to be people who are calm and rationale? This alone makes this list, unfortunately, a more effective piece of propoganda.

In addition, this writer doesn't just use the catchphrase and let it hang there as if to be automatically believed. This list takes a point and explains how it can be harmful to an elephant, explanations that sometimes last for paragraphs and are the basic essentials of scientific or scholarly writing. The style of previous years is like used-car salesmen; we instantly treat it as spam, the same way we block telephone calls from faraway area codes. Unfortunately for us, this is, as a result, a much more powerful tool in their arsenal. By reducing the number of all those additional hall-of-shamers and calming its written tone, IDA seems much less hysterical and more believable.

Surprisingly, they really went easy on zoos they normally would have hit even harder. The Oregon piece focused entirely on Chendra and didn't mention the death of little Lily to EEHV. When I saw Miami, I really expected them to react doubly hard on the zoo not only having elephants in captivity, but both species of elephants. They finally got around to ALS after all these years, but only in the most indirect way possible, as the location where Mali went to breed Chuck. This also could have been much, much worse. Not only does ALS still use FC and bullhooks, but they have performances and rides, one of which led to a keeper suffering serious injury. Fortunately, they seem oblivious to the fact Chuck indeed went back to ALS, and has since been moved, yet again, to Denver with his brother Jake.

In the past they used to lie. Maybe they still are, if there are indeed THIRTY zoos that have now closed their elephant exhibits and if elephants born in human care really do have a much higher rate of male births. Both sound unlikely to me. But now it's not so much actual untruths as simply not mentioning the truth. They're still slippery enough to imply that all of these elephants spend winters entirely inside, AND stand all day on concrete. With all of the new habitats out there, there are undoubtedly very few that consist of more than a tiny bit of concrete (which can be sterilized much more easily for an elephant with TB or some antibiotic-resistant infection.) Or maybe they really just don't know all the facts. They bemoan the baby elephant who is deprived of young relatives to play with, yet say breeding is a venal sin and conveniently overlook Syracuse's calf Ajay, who has a four-year-old brother to play with, thanks to breeding.

Nevertheless, I'm afraid the "less is more" approach and the more rational tone make this a much more effective piece of propoganda than in the past. We all know there is less and less each year to legitimately criticize; maybe they're finally realizing they need to shorten the list, because, in coming years, "less will really be less" until there's simply nothing left to say.
 
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I've thought more and more about this. EEHV, which used to be a mainstay argument, is glaringly absent here. IDA must have found that this made their audience critical of them. THAT is good news. Anything that causes disapproval means the public is getting wise to their agenda and seeing their "mission" for what it is.

Despite the Elephant Sanctuary's new corporate-like structure and my increasing suspicion that activist groups and a few big donors are the primary source of funding for ES and PAWS (and not the masses of individual donors they would have us believe), neither has gotten any new residents in years. Especially as seen through the lens of NZP's recent article about 5 of its herd being elderly, there is no doubt that the sanctuary population is aging out and will decline just as those in the zoos they criticize. There will be a day--not far off--when there will be no sanctuary population. IDA, ES, and PAWS all need new retirees to stay open, an interesting situation given their constant harping that zoos only breed to increase revenue. I wonder if they're actively trying to bribe or purchase elephants from circuses and private owners? If/when the sanctuaries close, how will activists be able to make an argument for zoos to relocate their elephants? Maybe this is what will finally defeat them.
 
Saw this little video featuring an elephant giggling. Over time, I've come to know about six vocalizations, but this is something completely new to me. It sounds so unusual that I would think it were a human making the noise, but this is posted by a PhD student who wouldn't risk her credibility in the field by posting some inauthentic audio.

Cute Baby Elephant Laughs During Playtime
 
Yi Qi said:
Point Defiance Zoo's Hanako was euthanized at the age of 56. This leaves just 0.1 Suki at the zoo.

Hanako the elephant is euthanized - Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium
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Hanako was a half-sister of the late, great Packy of Portland, one of his last living relations. Her father, Thonglaw, sired all of the calves born within two years that were the first calves to survive in 44 years. She was a lovely elephant who was a great ambassador for her species, lived a long life, and bore a strong resemblance to her beautiful niece, Shine, still living in Portland. Condolences to all who loved her.
 
Great article about Smithsonian research into Asian elephant intelligence to help save their populations. NZP's Spike and Maharani are shown taking a test to get an apple out of a PVC tube. When he's already gotten his apple, it's Maharani's turn. As she manipulates, Spike beckons to her from behind bars because he wants another apple. So she drags it over to where he's reaching, takes the apple and eats it in front of him! Researchers/staff giggle appreciatively.

Researchers Are Learning How Asian Elephants Think—in Order to Save Them | Science | Smithsonian Magazine
 
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