Circus Elephants Mistreated? Suit Seeks Answers

The New York Times has an illuminating story on a lawsuit seeking to ensure proper treatment of circus elephants.

Elephant mistreatment at the Woodland Park Zoo continues to be a contentious issue with local animal activists. Friends of Woodland Park Zoo elephants promises "a very busy year" on the issue, focusing on "inhumane captivity" of the Zoo's three adult elephants (the celebrated youngster Hansa passed away in mid-2007; repeated efforts to artificially inseminate Chai have failed). A recent TIME magazine article, "Free Dumbo! Zoos Are Bad for Elephants," discussed a study showing that elephants die "very prematurely" in zoos:

In a survey of 4,500 captive elephants worldwide, a team of researchers from the U.K., Canada and Kenya found that once you lock up the giant, space-loving beasts, their health suffers, their median life span plummets, and they quit breeding — the last things you would want for a creature you're ostensibly trying to help survive. "Whether or not it's valid to say zoos keep species alive depends on which species you're talking about," says animal-welfare scientist Georgia Mason of the University of Guelph in Ontario. "Many species do well. Elephants don't."