The Free Lucky Rally yesterday in San Antonio was a big success. A group representing AFAA added their voices to the crowd gathered in front of the San Antonio Zoo to raise awareness and help get Lucky one step closer to The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee.
Especially important to note is the fact that the message is spreading -- people from well outside Austin / San Antonio made the drive to show their support.
Fox News was on hand to cover the event:
This battle is far from over, and our window of opportunity is small -- we must spread the word like never before and turn up the heat!
Get started now:
- Go to the Free Lucky page on the Voice for Animals web site -- they provide lots of information about what you can do right now to help.
- Sign the online petition and get others to do so as well.
- Please check out this link (and bookmark it) to see other coverage of Lucky on this site.
- Use the ShareThis and E-mail to friends links to the left of these posts to spread the word.
- Join the Free Lucky Facebook group.
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Thx, Errol, for the article in Science Magazine. Actually, this study created shock waves in the zoo community and the animal rights community 'cause it confirmed lots of stuff we already knew: elephants in captivity live 1/2 as long as elephants in the wild due to the stress of confinement and standing in once place for most of the time. My guess is that the zookeeper intentionally mislead the public by saying Lucky's 45 yrs in capitivity means he's healthy and not suffering. However, for most elephants in captivity, arthritis and foot infections (due to being chained in one place on hard surfaces) is their leading cause of death.
I found another copy of the video posted on YouTube. Let me know if it gets take down again.
I think Ernest is right about elephants living long in Zoos being the exception. I found this on HelpElephants.com:
Dramatically Shortened Lifespans
Harmful zoo conditions and practices shorten elephant lifespan by decades, as documented in a peer-reviewed survey of 4,500 elephants, published in the prestigious journal Science (December 2008).
OK, quick check on google says elephants can live 60-70 years in the wild.
Oops, video has been removed by the user. What up??
I've heard that elephants live 50 to 60 years in the wild. If he has lived longer than elephants in the wild then he is the exception not the rule. Double check with World Wildlife Fund or the Elephant Sanctuary.
of course the zookeeper guy would paint a deceiving picture. he is protecting his own bottom line. lucky has lived a hard life in the zoo, not to mention unnatural. in the interview he claims that lucky has lived longer than elephants in the wild, which i'm pretty sure is untrue. i thought african elephants lived around 70 yrs, but does anyone else know? i couldn't find enough good sources online.
Check out some photos from Saturday here. Thanks to Shari for sending them to me!
That's excellent! I have had one person (so far) tell me they signed the petition after I posted this to Facebook via the ShareThis button. Keep spreading the word everybody!
I posted the video link on Facebook about 45 mins ago and already got 2 "likes" and 1 comment.
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