Posted on 02/11/2006 12:24:58 PM PST by presidio9
Bob Barker pleaded with city officials to close the Los Angeles Zoo's pachyderm exhibit and allow its three elephants to retire to a sanctuary.
Appearing jovial when he arrived at Friday's City Council meeting, the veteran game show host and longtime animal rights activist turned serious when he began to talk about the zoo's elephants, Gita, Ruby and Billy.
"I came here today to ask, to beg you ... to vote to release those elephants from that zoo," Barker said. "They have lived in misery."
Gita and Ruby are ill, leaving only Billy on display. A fourth elephant, Tara, died in 2004.
Several zoos nationwide, including San Francisco's, have closed their elephant exhibits.
Barker denounced plans to build a 2-acre, $19 million exhibit at the Los Angeles Zoo that supporters say would provide a spacious and more natural environment for the elephants. The 82-year-old host of "The Price is Right" said it was too costly and would likely be obsolete by the time it is completed.
The exhibit was not an issue on the council's agenda and no vote was taken.
"There's only one solution to the tragic, the embarrassing elephant problem going on at (the zoo), and it's to release those elephants from captivity and place them in a sanctuary," Barker said.
I'm not an animal rights whacko but I do like elephants. :)
I disagree with him on the elephants. Much of the work done by animal rights activists is actually antithical to their cause, just as the environmentalists do much harm to the environment (massive wild fires because they don't want fire breaks, etc.). Most modern zoos are run by people who love animals, and are well tended. They live longer than animals in the wild, and seldom are eaten by other animals. They get treatment for disease, and an infected foot isn't a death sentence.
Just as the animal rights activists protest rodeos, where bulls worth thousands are probably the best treated stock animals in the world, they protest zoos, because they compare the animal treatment to perfection, rather than how most other animals of their types live.
Keep in mind that Barker's main point was that the new enclosure would be too costly, not that it was not sufficient. I like elephants too. I think these elephants would do a lot more good as ambassadors to some inner-city kid than they would in a retirement home in the middle of nowhere. No zoo is complete without a lion, a giraffe, a hippo and an elephant.
I haven't been to the zoo in years.
If you have kids or nephews & neices, I reommend a trip tomorrow. I promise you you'll enjoy it.
miscellaneous ping
They've lived in a zoo and now he wants to put them in the wild?
SoCal ping
Not the wild. Just some place where they could roam but the public couldn't see them. LOL.
What's the difference between a zoo and a sanctuary?
A sanctuary is like a game preserve, isn't it?
Snork! LOL!
Now we can all find out what an elephant sanctuary is and where they are. ;)
The price is wrong beyotch.
"There's only one solution to the tragic, the embarrassing elephant problem going on at (the zoo), and it's to release those elephants from captivity and place them in a sanctuary," Barker said.
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ROFL!
Ping to you, too to #39
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