Embedded Files
Herstory
This series of articles detail Lucy's two trips to the Calgary Zoo, a three hour drive south of Edmonton, in attempts to breed her with their male elephant Bandara. Lucy was only 11 years old at the time based on her birth date of May 19, 1975. She had barely reached sexual maturity, but the zoo couldn't wait to add another baby elephant "for her own good because elephants are highly social". They only care about Lucy's social needs when it suits their purposes.
Poor Lucy, her first time seeing another elephant in 10 years but she wasn't allowed to socialize with the other female elephants or the new calf. The sole purpose of sending her to the Calgary Zoo was to produce another money-making baby elephant.
The Edmonton Valley Zoo loaded Lucy into a borrowed trailer, likely without doing any crate training, and shipped her down to Calgary. Years later they claimed she had a terrible time travelling, as another excuse why she couldn't be moved to a sanctuary. But now we know the trip went off "without a hitch". Another example of how the zoo rewrites history to fit their narrative.
How did the Edmonton Valley Zoo expect Lucy to know anything about mating rituals when she had never been around other female elephants to observe and learn from them? Stolen from her herd in Sri Lanka and thrown in with a bull elephant after being alone for 10 years, the zoo expected her to get pregnant as soon as she arrived.
Lucy and Bandara mated nearly three months after she arrived in Calgary. Did the bull elephant in musth force himself on her, or was she a willing participant once she started to get used to her new surroundings? Did she think she had joined a herd, only to be shipped back to Edmonton as soon as the zoo's mission to get her pregnant might have been accomplished?
Now we find out that "Bandara was aggressive at first" towards Lucy, who hadn't seen another elephant since she was two years old. But even though nervous Lucy "raised a bit of a fuss" as they began their journey, her return trip to Edmonton was also uneventful.
The Edmonton Valley Zoo had no qualms about shipping Lucy back to Calgary when the first breeding trip was not successful. They weren't worried about the stress of this travel but now they say the stress of travelling to a sanctuary might kill her?
Bandara might have been pretty excited to see Lucy, but how did she feel about being trucked to Calgary and thrown in with a bull elephant who had been aggressive with her in the past? Did the Edmonton Valley Zoo even worry about her wellbeing?
Luckily Lucy's two breeding trips to Calgary didn't result in a pregnancy and she returned to the Edmonton Valley Zoo. At least that spared one baby elephant from being born in captivity and sentenced to a lifetime in prison like Lucy.
On a sad side note about Lucy's breeding trips, the Calgary Zoo's bull elephant Bandara died suddenly at the young age of 16 years. He was acquired by the Calgary Zoo from the same disreputable Pinnewala Orphanage in Sri Lanka where Lucy also spent time as a baby. The zoo blamed his death on an enlarged heart, not his years as a breeding machine. They even sent his five-year-old son Chanda on a breeding loan to the African Lion Safari (#1 Worst Zoo in North America 2020).
Calgary's remaining elephants had a happier ending to their story than Bandara did. The zoo decided to close their elephant exhibit for the animals' welfare as they couldn't provide enough space for them or a large enough herd. They insisted that their females had to be kept together as a family unit wherever they went. Unfortunately, they only considered other zoos instead of sanctuaries, so they could continue breeding them despite their being infected with the elephant herpes virus.
Not everyone agreed with the Calgary Zoo's decision to close their elephant exhibit. Their former vet said relocating the elephants to a new place would "stress them by long transportation and putting them in a completely strange and foreign environment as middle-aged animals. They're totally habituated to that (Calgary) facility and the people that care for them." Where have we heard those words before? Just from every zoo vet with a lone elephant that doesn't want to lose their star attraction. Fortunately for the Calgary elephants, the zoo put the elephants' best psychological well-being ahead of the vet's unfounded concerns and eventually relocated them to Washington DC.
By the time the Calgary Zoo elephants headed off to their new home, the public was on board. "When we first made our announcement, it was perhaps a difficult one for people to understand or swallow, but they grew to understand exactly what the welfare reasons are behind making a move like that." The City of Edmonton should give their citizens the chance to support letting Lucy go to a sanctuary for her physical and mental health and welfare.
Proving that their former vet's concerns were groundless, the Calgary Zoo elephants arrived safely at the Washington DC zoo after a four-day drive. The animal care team monitored, fed and watered them along the way, just like experienced sanctuary experts would monitor Lucy on her trip, after assessing her health and confirming she could be moved safely.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse