Dear Gary,

Thank you for replying to my recent email, but your response has brought up more questions than answers.

It’s true that Edmonton Valley Zoo has invited outside zoo and circus vets like Dr. Wiedner and Dr. Cracknell to participate in Lucy’s annual assessments since 2015. Working with elephants doesn’t make them specialists, any more than your in-house vets Drs. Jones, Ness and Limoges, who all have delivered unqualified opinions on Lucy’s health over the years. The fact is that in 44 years at the zoo, Lucy has only ever been evaluated by ONE specialist recognized as an elephant species expert. That paid zoo consultant is Dr. James Oosterhuis, whose findings are contentious for several reasons:

• Oosterhuis has a reputation as an expert witness in abuse cases (most notably elephants Dunda, Joyce, Pete, Helen and Conti), who is exclusively used by zoos, circuses and other captive animal facilities. He consistently provides opinions that captive animals should remain at the institutions in which they are held.

• Oosterhuis provided the sole dissent among a group of eleven experts asked to provide opinions on moving the Alaska Zoo’s elephant, Maggie, to an elephant sanctuary. Like Lucy, Maggie was living in isolation in a northern climate and suffering from health issues. The Alaska Zoo initially accepted his opinion and even custom built a million dollar treadmill for Maggie but they could never train her to step on it in over two years of trying. Despite this epic fail, in his February 2, 2011 report Oosterhuis recommended that a treadmill would also be beneficial for Lucy. Oosterhuis eventually supported Maggie’s move to PAWS, where she has thrived since 2007.

• Oosterhuis states that because Lucy is a solitary elephant, the keepers act as her “herd mates” and play hide and seek with her. Elephant experts Winnie Kiiru and Surendra Varma have both reported that Lucy exhibits stereotypic behaviour such as stepping and swaying, which occurs when elephants suffer from loneliness, boredom, lack of activity, constant harsh handling and trauma. This behaviour is intensified when her “herd mates” go home to their human families and leave Lucy alone for hours at a time.

• Oosterhuis has repeatedly claimed that elephants are obligate nasal breathers. This claim is contradicted by the veterinary literature which considers that “Elephants are not obligate nasal breathers and can routinely voluntarily breathe from their mouths.”

• Oosterhuis has been consulted by the Valley Zoo specifically to diagnose Lucy’s respiratory issue since 2009. He has made the dire prediction that Lucy will die if she’s placed under stress or moved, despite being unable to determine a definitive diagnosis of her respiratory condition in 12 years. Why has EVZ repeatedly brought back the same specialist year after year? When do you say enough is enough and seek a second opinion by a qualified species expert, instead of consulting horse doctors as you have twice in the past?

You mentioned the review of your paid consultants’ reports by the Jane Goodall Institute of Canada. This was nothing more than a public relations exercise to justify the sudden reversal of their support to send Lucy to a sanctuary. Their review was not independent, as the zoo claims on its website. It was conducted by Dr. Rick Quinn, a small animal ophthalmologist who sits on JGI Canada’s board of directors, not an elephant expert. If Quinn isn’t qualified to examine Lucy himself, how is he qualified to judge whether Oosterhuis’ findings are reliable or not? In JGI’s press release in December 2020, Dr. Quinn himself said "It's very important that a thorough examination be performed by an independent specialist zoo veterinarian with experience in elephants". Why did he suddenly decide to merely review Lucy’s 2019 medical records himself, when JGI clearly has both the influence and the resources to bring in a world class elephant expert to examine her in person? We can only surmise that it’s for the same reason JGI has backtracked on this issue twice in the past. In 2012, Jane Goodall backpedalled on her initial support to move the Toronto Zoo elephants to PAWS, and in 2015 she withdrew her support to move the Woodland Park Zoo elephants from Seattle to PAWS. In a video post on March 5, 2021, Jane Goodall admitted that her foundation receives funding from zoos. How much have CAZA and Edmonton Valley Zoo donated to JGI?

You say “if we could safely move Lucy, we would”. If that were true, why would you only seek the biased opinion of one single expert when multiple offers have been on the table since 2009 to send a team of world-renowned and unbiased elephant experts to formally examine Lucy at no cost to the zoo? How can you come to the conclusion that Lucy can’t be safely moved without doing every diagnostic test available, such as a pulse oximetry test? This is a reliable, two minute, non-invasive readily available test to measure oxygen levels that every vet clinic should be able to perform, but inexplicably has never been done on Lucy.

All the areas mentioned in your email, such as physical health, husbandry protocols, staff training, nutrition, etc. are included in Lucy’s assessment every year. The fact remains that all of Lucy’s ongoing and worsening health issues have been caused by her decades of captivity at the Edmonton Valley Zoo. No expert recommendations will be able to change Edmonton’s climate, expand her habitat by thousands of acres, or provide her with the companionship of other elephants – all the benefits that a sanctuary can offer. While it’s encouraging to know that the zoo has made minor upgrades to the barn where Lucy spends at least 75% of her time, warm sand piles and better airflow can’t compare to providing her with a hydrotherapy pool so she can submerge her arthritic joints and diseased feet, daily laser therapy and round the clock specialized vet treatments and nutrition. Even if Lucy is now walking in the non-public areas of the zoo, the treed areas are minuscule compared to the 2,700 acres at The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, and there are no ponds, lakes or rivers for her to access outdoors in Edmonton, even during the summer months. As Lucy has gone down on more than one occasion due to colic, it’s imperative that she receives round the clock care by a team of keepers. Edmonton Valley Zoo doesn’t monitor Lucy overnight, whereas both accredited sanctuaries in the United States monitor their elephants 24/7. Most importantly, the zoo is ignoring Lucy’s most urgent need – the companionship of other elephants. She co-existed with Samantha, an African elephant, for 18 years in an inadequate enclosure. All evidence shows that, like Maggie, Lucy could learn to socialize with other Asian elephants if she was given the opportunity at a sanctuary.

You state that there are currently challenges with bringing experts in from outside of Canada due to the ongoing pandemic and border restrictions. Gina Nelthorpe-Cowne of Free the Wild tweeted on May 12, 2021 “We are ready to send our elephant expert vets to evaluate Lucy as soon as we’re granted permission by Edmonton Zoo and Edmonton City Council.” On May 24, 2021, Cher tweeted “You cite COVID but team FTW (Free the Wild) put together went 2 Pakistan during huge outbreak of COVID”. As you must know, their team successfully relocated Kaavan from the Islamabad Zoo in Pakistan to the Cambodia Wildlife Sanctuary at the height of the pandemic. This is not an acceptable excuse for EVZ to delay Lucy’s assessment. Now that the zoo is conducting downed elephant drills with the Edmonton Fire Department, why aren’t you making every effort to treat her assessment as an essential service? I have no doubt that Cher would request assistance from Justin Trudeau to make travel exemptions if necessary, as she did with the Prime Minister of Pakistan. Trudeau himself extolled the benefits of elephant sanctuaries on his visit to the Wildlife SOS sanctuary in India in 2018.

In closing, I would like to remind you of the words of Pat Lampi, the director of the Alaska Zoo, in his November 2017 letter to the Edmonton officials who control Lucy’s fate:

“I do not presume to tell others what they should do with their elephants. I have worked in the zoo field for 31 years but I am not claiming to be an expert, I am not a veterinarian and I do not have the intimate details of their situations.

I do know that you need to think about what is truly best for the animal placed in your care, put aside egos, reign in emotions, and work together for the best possible solution.”

If Edmonton Valley Zoo truly loves Lucy and wants to do what’s in her best interests, letting a team of truly independent qualified elephant experts evaluate her health should be the first step. If they find that she’s physically able to move to a sanctuary, then the only way to treat her with respect and dignity is to let her go. If they determine she can’t be moved, the zoo must commit to significant, substantial upgrades to improve her quality of life for her remaining years. Those concerned for Lucy’s well-being are certainly not advocating for her relocation at the cost of her life. Nobody wants Lucy to die, and no respectable expert or sanctuary would recommend moving her at the risk of her life. Lucy’s advocates will accept the decision of impartial experts and fundraise for her improvements if necessary.

Yours truly,