Wikipedia and other sources have it that Lucy, an Asian elephant, currently resides at the Valley Zoo in Edmonton.
The report Livestock’s Long Shadow, is indeed a huge PDF. It’s taking a while. Wikipedia has a brief entry. Looks like-- and I’m sure this isn’t news to many-- that livestock is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. The PDF is still downloading, I’m giving up on it, and hoping that the good people who write Wikipedia articles got the highlights.
I was curious about the northernmost elephant claim. Until 2007, that was probably the one in Anchorage, Alaska. Interesting trivia: the Alaska Zoo got started after a guy won a contest and picked a baby elephant over $3,000. Aye carumba.
Google has examples of all those animal gone feral. Their breeding and eating instincts remain intact. I believe the domesticated silkworm is the only animal that wouldn’t be able to make it on its own.
There are a couple of places in Sweden further north than either Stirling or Edmonton which have elephants. Boras Zoo has half a dozen and is about 40 miles east of Gothenberg and Kolmarden Zoo, on the coast 70 or 80 miles south-west of Stockholm, has four. It’s 58°39′55″N; the furthest north elephants I know of.
Edmonton is only 53°30′41″N (Blair Drummond, by Stirling is 56°10’N)
I apologize for the snark. It gets a bit frustrating when a poster drops into a thread, belittles another post and gives no detail on why they think their way would work better. Further responses of “read this” with a link are less than pursuasive. Better would be to tell us why, in your own words, your solution works better, with links to supporting sites as necessary. Apparently you’ve read them and have formed an opinion, tell us why.
As for the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, which you point to as a model for donor based endagered animal repopulation - well, they don’t appear to do that. From what I can see they care for 10-12 elephants at a time on their property. I saw no mention of any repopulation of wild herds nor support for any organization that does so. Their own mission statement is " to provide a haven for old, sick or needy elephants". They may be fantastic at what they do, but their scope is appears limited to a few animals, not species as a whole. They also, by the way, don’t have all of the paperwork expected of a charity on file (see BBB and Charity Navigator websites for details) and appear to have some issues within the Board of Directors. They spend about 70% of their donations on their stated purpose, with the remainder spent on administration (21%) and fund raising (9%). This puts them in the realm of “average” among charities. Highly efficient charities exceed 75% spending on their mission (numbers from Charity Watch and Charity Navigator). In short, they address in a very limited way the “rescue” portion of your inital post but do not address the “breeding and reintroducing” that you also proposed. I don’t think they will replace zoos any time soon.
There are good zoos and there are bad zoos. To hate them all (or love them all) seems an indefensible position.
Whether she is the very northernmost or near northernmost, the difference is … ???
not the important issue - not even close.
But thanks for the lesson. In future, I will try to be more careful to omit any reference to any details which people might latch onto and discuss instead of the real point of the thread.
I recall the article I read claimed she was “probably” the northernmost. But do you really care so much about that tiny little detail that it’s worth grabbing ahold of it and
You’ll have seen that I was replying to another poster in the thread who expressed an interest in knowing.
Should I not have bothered answering his question although I knew just where to find the (probable) answer?
If it’s so unimportant, why’d you bring it up in your OP?
I don’t care much about the ethics of zoos, practically speaking. I don’t go to zoos. If I was deadly against zoos, what should I do, not go to twice as many zoos? Complain on the internet supported by vague claims and emotion?
The northernmost elephant in the world, though, that’s sort of interesting. A zoo getting started because a guy won an elephant in circumstances similar to an episode of The Simpsons? Also interesting. Amusing is when a thread gets slightly derailed due to a claim in the OP, causing the author to complain about a problem he or she introduced. Amusing is interesting.
Zoos can’t be too awfully bad: a lot of wild animals try to get in! The San Diego Zoo has a sizeable population of ducks, rabbits, and other critters that roam about in the hedges and unused areas. Meanwhile, deer are all the time leaping over the fence to get in to the Safari Park.
(I once saw a wild rabbit, in the zoo, whose eyes were ringed with ticks. That doesn’t happen to zoo animals.)
Yes, that’s true. Animals need a list of things- so much area, food, safe place to sleep, exercise, something to stave off boredom, etc. Many, many animals are happier and more content in a modern zoo enclosure than in the wild.
Mind you- some animals aren’t. Maybe we shouldn’t cage them.