North County Times: The Californian
Perspective / Observer
June 23, 2007
By John Van Doorn - Staff Writer

Original Article

When wild animals and people get together, for any reason at all, it's not an easy association.

For every Tarzan in the world ---- he grew up in Africa swinging through the trees with ape friends, charging across the veldt astride his favorite elephant ---- there are millions of the rest of us who don't know what our relationship with wild animals should be, or if there should be any at all.

Cautious, we tend to leave these great animals to the zoos, where in nervous safety behind the barriers we look at them and wonder who they are, or what, and when they got here, and how, and why they often do not look happy. Tarzan's animals did.

These are age-old questions that often include another on the metaphysical side, which is how to decide who is actually "behind" the barriers where such alien animals pace and glare.

One thing to be agreed upon: We humans want to assure ourselves that whatever sort of life the animals have around here, it is at least life.

But last week, at the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park, it wasn't: One of the great creatures of Earth was put to death on the captive side of the fence.

She was a 39-year-old Asian elephant named Carol, and she was "euthanized" ---- that silky word that medical types of many stripes like to use instead of saying they killed an unarmed creature ---- because of its health problems.

In recent years, the park's public record with elephants has been an uncertain one, marked by controversy and ugly accusations. In 2003, for example, seven elephants from Swaziland wound up in San Diego.

Naturally, the park was thrilled to have the elephants. And on the surface of things, why not? The zoo and the park have worldwide reputations for the quality of their facilities and their animals, and elephants ---- great apes, lions and tigers notwithstanding ---- somehow steal the shows.

But critics at the time charged that the manner in which the Swaziland elephants were chosen, caught and shipped was barbaric, and that there was nothing heroic or grand about the acquisitions, as the park said. The "collections department" at the Zoological Society of San Diego insisted that it had saved the elephants from death because Swaziland was practically overrun with them.

The Website IMPACT Press ---- in a story written by Heather Moore of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals ---- cited a report from the Amboseli Elephant Research Project in Nairobi, Kenya (not far from the great Amboseli animal preserve itself) that declared, among other things: "These elephants are being treated like livestock to be bought, transported, bred, sold, transported again, chained, caged, 'trained' with bull hooks and hot wires, sold or traded again when they are not as appealing or they are not breeding or they are too old, and finally ending up in miserable road-side zoos or third-rate circuses."

The report was said to have been based on a review of the zoos' permit applications to import the elephants to the U.S. It was given to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

In 2005, Andrea Moss of the North County Times reported on the death in Salt Lake City of an elephant named Wankie that was on loan, or about to be, to the Hogle Zoo.

Wankie was the last of three elephants on loan from San Diego. All died within a few months in their new homes. While critics called for probes into the deaths, and some investigations were begun, the Zoological Society called such objections "Monday morning quarterbacking."

It stood by its officials and its "standards" for animal treatment.

Then along came Carol, put to death last week at the Wild Animal Park because she was sick, officials said. She had "a degenerative joint disease," foot trouble and infection.

Critics again rose up. Wildlife advocates said the animal should have been sent to an elephant sanctuary instead; there are a handful of such sanctuaries around the country.

They also charged that Carol's illnesses were caused by poor treatment at the park. The park denied it and said Carol had had foot trouble so dire that euthansia became inevitable and probably merciful.

And so it goes, in Kurt Vonnegut's phrase. So it goes.

The matter of caging wild animals of any size at all will not be solved here. Surely they are grand sights in zoos the world over, and that's a fact.

As to the quality of their care in these zoos and animal parks, including that here in San Diego, Observer is not competent to judge; he is neither vet nor jailer.

But in the largest of terms, which is to say the question as to whether wild animals should ever be captured and caged by humans, under any circumstances at any time, for any reason, Observer believes the answer to be no, outlandish as that opinion may seem.

Captivity, unnatural to all living creatures, is abhorrent, at least to Observer, and this is the reason why in his case:

Many years ago, he found himself in Africa, in that very animal preserve outside Nairobi, Kenya, called Amboseli, mentioned above. He "took a safari," which could take many forms and in those days included the inexpensive renting of a Volkswagen bug and the hiring of a guide, and heading out.

At one point in the week or so of this sort of fantastic adventure, Observer drove the Volkswagen off the dirt trail and straight across the veldt, as the guide suggested.

It was a barren landscape, marked by only a few trees and a scattering of huge thickets. By "huge" it is meant about 100 yards square.

Coming around the edge of one, we were stopped by an amazing sight. In front of us, perhaps 50 yards away, not much more, was a herd of 40 elephants; we counted them.

There were great bulls and females and baby elephants moving just about as one, but with a lot of activity as they went. The babies ran in and out of the legs of the adults as if all were playing a game, and they probably were. None got squashed or otherwise stepped on or hurt. The guide laughed out loud at the joy of this sight, because it was very rare to see so many, he said.

There was another joy, too, and this is probably what makes Observer anti-cage to this day. These were wild things, monstrous animals that up close or from afar were, to him, stunningly beautiful.

They acted in a way that said free, if that makes sense. Their gathering said family unbroken. They seemed to proceed without fear, having ---- at least as adults ---- no predators. With all the world to wander in, no fences, no cages, no marauding humans with spikes and electricity and a lust for tusks.

We could see their faces and their untroubled curiosity as they glanced our way.

Call Observer crazy, but in that hour or two bumping along watching those elephants, he decided then and there that they were happy. Happiness was on every elephant face, he'll swear it.

Not the sad, mournful looks that elephants in zoos give, at least much of the time.

These elephants hadn't been mistreated once.

Some day, of course, humans come to call. And there goes what creation surely promised them: the freedom of the veldt and of life itself.