Animal rights groups sue US over elephant imports
Date: 11-Apr-03
Country: USA
Author: Gina Keating
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C. by U.K.-based The Born Free Foundation and other groups, challenges the federal government's grant of permits to the San Diego and Tampa, Florida, zoos to capture wild elephants in Swaziland and import them for their breeding programs.
The plaintiffs, including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the Elephant Sanctuary, say such "highly controversial" permits have not been issued in more than a decade and set "a dangerous precedent" that encourages an international market for wild elephants" for entertainment purposes.
They also accuse the agency of violating the Endangered Species Act and of failing to assess the environmental impact of moving the animals from the Hlane National Park and the Mkhaya Game Reserve to San Diego and Tampa.
A spokesman for the Department of Interior could not be immediately reached for comment.
An official with the San Diego Zoo said said its conservation program "was very successful in breeding wild elephants" before the American Zoo and Aquarium Association placed a moratorium on elephant breeding about 10 year ago.
"Before that we were breeding African elephants and we didn't have any problem with that," San Diego Zoo spokeswoman Christina Simmons said.
The 12-year-old elephants, orphans raised on the wildlife preserve when their mothers were killed by ivory hunters, have been moved to a quarantine area in Swaziland, Simmons said.
One male and six females are scheduled to be delivered to San Diego to supplement the zoo's aging herd of five animals, she said. The other four - two males and two females - will go to the Tampa facility, Simmons said.
The Born Free Foundation, the lawsuit's lead plaintiff, is also a conservation organization but focuses on "keeping wild animals in their native habitats," the lawsuit said.
Although elephants, and in particular, baby elephants, are a "huge commercial draw" for zoos, captive elephants do not breed well in their "cramped conditions," the lawsuit said.
To produce baby elephants, the lawsuit said, zoos artificially inseminate female elephants, "subjecting the female to months of extremely intrusive blood tests, sedation, restraint, and other 'training' to ensure that she will remain still for the procedure," the suit said.
The plaintiffs also maintain that the zoos don't intend to return the baby elephants to the wild, but instead are breeding them "for exhibition, and to ensure that zoos have a steady stock of elephants in the future for exhibition."
