Pam’s Dad helps support a large elephant sanctuary in Tennessee. That has helped educate me about the plight of zoo and circus animals. Especially elephants, who were designed by God to roam free over vast areas–not to be confined in a small enclosure.
Fortunately, zoos are taking action. In North America, 21 zoos have shut down their elephant exhibits since 1991. Most recently, the Seattle zoo sent its two elephants to a larger zoo in Oklahoma, where they can be part of a larger herd of elephants. Good for them. The Detroit zoo sent its elephants to an elephant sanctuary.
Zoos tend to be more enlightened in this way. Circuses…that’s an entirely different story. Circus animals–not only large elephants, but noble lions and tigers and other animals–endure terrible conditions, living their lives in traveling cages. It’s wrong.
