Above: Three aging elephants from the Toronto Zoo are heading to a new home in California. But, animal advocates say the journey may be too long and too onerous for the animals. Mike Drolet reports.
TORONTO – Staff at the Toronto Zoo are worried about the long trip ahead for Toka, Thika and Iringa – the zoo’s three elephants – as they are moved to a sanctuary in California.
“They’re going to be chained in their crates the entire way there,” said Christine McKenzie, President of CUPE local 1600. “They won’t be able to stretch, they won’t be able to turn around, their feces will be in the crate the whole trip because its bio hazardous material; they cannot remove it until they get there.”
The three elephants are being moved to the PAWS animal sanctuary in California by freight on Thursday. And while no one disagrees the elephants should be moved to a warmer climate, said it might be a difficult trip for the aging elephants.
But Zoochek Canada campaign director Julie Woodyer dismissed claims the animals would be irritated during the trip. Instead, Woodyer described the plan as a “gold star standard” for elephant transport.
“They’re stopping every couple of hours to feed, to water, to clean, to rest the animals, to do veterinary checks,” she said in an interview at the Toronto Zoo. “They have prepared for every possible, there are zoos along the route who have agreed to help if there were any case of emergency where the animals could in fact be offloaded in case of emergency.”
The elephants have been part of the zoo since it first opened in 1974.
The two older elephants were younger and much smaller when they travelled to the zoo from Africa. Since then, one of the elephants has developed arthritis, which according to McKenzie, will make it difficult to stand in the cramped conditions of the truck for 3 days.
City council voted in 2011 to send the three elephants to the PAWS animal sanctuary in California after animal rights activists expressed concern for the welfare of the animals.
While McKenzie agrees the elephants should be moved, she worries about the potential for the animals to get sick while at the California sanctuary.
“Our biggest concern obviously is that there is active tuberculosis there,” she said. “So you know, no matter how nice it is, we want it to be a healthy place for them to live as well.”
The three elephants were moved into their crates Thursday morning. Veterinarians were to perform checks on the animals throughout the afternoon. Then cranes would be used to lift the crates onto awaiting trucks. The elephants were to begin their multi-day trip south by mid-afternoon.
But the move was supposed to be done well before Thursday. In fact, it has been delayed several times due to disagreements about how the animals should be moved and whether the California sanctuary is suitable.
And according to Woodyer, the move was delayed again Thursday after “pranks” by Zoo staff. Woodyer accused senior Zoo officials of trying to scuttle the trip by calling in government officials to check everything again after the elephants had already been loaded into the crates.
Jennifer Tracy, a spokesperson for the Toronto Zoo however dismissed claims that staff were trying to delay the move, insisting the checks done by the CFIA were “procedural.”
Zoo keepers will be allowed to make the trip along with the elephants. However, they had to agree not to bring cameras.
– With files from Mark McAllister and Mike Drolet
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