Posted on 02/23/2006 7:16:06 PM PST by wjersey
THE PHILADELPHIA Zoo has banned an animal-rights activist from the premises after monitoring a chat room in which she wished the zoo's director "nightmares every night until you die, which should be very soon."
Marianne Bessey, an attorney and leader of Friends of Philly Elephants, said she was angered by the failure of zoo director Pete Hoskins to send an elephant injured last year to a sanctuary.
In making the remarks about Hoskins' demise, Bessey said she had not been threatening him but simply calculating what Hoskins' "life expectancy" would be in sub-Saharan Africa, homeland of three of the zoo's four elephants. That would be 51, she said, adding, "You have outlived your life expectancy by some 10 years."
Hoskins, in his early 60s, is to retire this spring.
A zoo spokeswoman said yesterday that the zoo filed a police report last Friday about the Internet posting.
Spokeswoman Gretchen Toner said the zoo, for several months, has been scanning a chat room in which animal activists talk about zoos and elephant welfare.
"It's a public chat room," Toner said.
"We've actually been viewing this chat room because Marianne Bessey's been coming out to the zoo since last May.
"We need to know as much information as we can," Toner said.
"We just put the keywords into a search engine. When we put the right words in, it led to the chat room."
Last week, Toner said, "We saw a message that concerned us" - the reference to Hoskins - and turned it over to police.
"While police were investigating, we decided the most prudent thing was to prohibit [Bessey] - from coming back," Toner said.
"We're managing a family attraction so we need to make sure there's a happy and safe atmosphere for our guests."
Bessey, who has been filming the injured elephant, Dulary, for some time, said she was escorted from the zoo by a security guard Tuesday and was refused entry yesterday.
Asked if he felt threatened by Bessey's post, dated last Thursday, Hoskins said he was "much more concerned about the institution."
Hoskins called the remarks in Bessey's post "out of order," but said he didn't want to comment further for fear of throwing "more flames" on the fire.
Bessey denied making threats against Hoskins. "I'm a lawyer, and I would never threaten anyone," she said.
"What the zoo is trying to do is distract from the central issue, mislead the public and keep me from exposing what they're doing, which is allowing this animal to die."
Toner denied Dulary was still ill, saying the elephant had recovered completely.
Bessey, who goes by the name Rowan Morrison in her work with Friends of Philly Elephants, wrote the posting in a chat room called The Elephant Commentator.
"It's a group-chat Web site, and it's where we share our feelings and emotions about the suffering of elephants in zoos," she said.
Bessey said she became interested in elephants after visiting Africa in 1996.
Bessey and other activists want elephants removed to sanctuaries, where they can roam free.
Zoos in Detroit, San Francisco, Sacramento and in Georgia, Wisconsin, Louisiana, Indiana and Texas have gotten rid of their elephant exhibits in recent years, Bessey said.
Philadelphia Zoo officials late last year said they didn't have enough money to build a larger enclosure for elephants and might send them elsewhere but no decision has yet been made.
In the chat-room posting, addressed "For Pete Hoskins," Bessey remarked, "You must live with Dulary's blood on your hands," and later wrote:
"Maybe you should be kept in a concrete closet for six months to hasten your demise."
Bessey said Dulary, 42, the zoo's only Asian elephant, generally has been isolated in the pachyderms' concrete barn since she suffered a serious gash near one eye Aug. 30 in a head-butting incident with another elephant.
Toner said Bessey's expulsion had nothing to do with picketing that Bessey and other members of her group had been conducting for months outside the zoo and elsewhere.
"We've been very accommodating of her right to express her opinion," Toner said. "She has misrepresented the facts."
Dulary goes outside frequently and, although she has been been separated from the zoo's three African elephants, she can still see them, Toner said.
The four elephants have not been reunited because, Toner said, "they're not giving out signals that they would like that to happen." Zoo-keepers don't know why, she added.
Toner said the zoo has not banned other members of Friends of Philly Elephants, who have been demonstrating outside the zoo in an effort to get its elephants sent to a large animal sanctuary.
The Philadelphia Zoo's elephants occupy only a quarter-acre of the zoo's 42 acres. By contrast, the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee has 2,700 acres.
Toner said life expectancy of wild elephants is in the mid-40s, yet the Philadelphia Zoo's oldest elephant, Petal, is 50.
Bessey said her group has almost 5,000 signatures on a petition asking the mayor and City Council to get involved in closing the zoo's elephant exhibit.
I consider them typically no higher in value , in human terms, than the zoo animals themselves...
Those nutcases were working the Suburban Station in Philly tonight.
They take that as a compliment.
Until this moment, I had never heard of an "elephant activist." If we can afford someone as idle and useless as an elephant activist in our midst, it is because America is great. Our free markets create the prosperity that supports politicial idiots. Our free institutions let moonbats be moonbats.
That's a famous photo titled "HOW THE DEMOCRATS GET THEIR TALKING POINTS."
www.helpphillyzooelephants.com
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060224-015432-3445r
Elephant rights activist banned from zoo
PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 24 (UPI) -- An animal-rights activist was banned from the Philadelphia Zoo for online comments directed at the facility's chief executive.
Marianne Bessey, leader of Friends of Philly Zoo Elephants, wrote in an Internet chat room called the Elephant Connection about Dulary, an elephant kept in a concrete barn since August. She said zoo director Alexander L. "Pete" Hoskins might suffer nightmares about Dulary, a 42-year-old, injured elephant in his care, and might indeed be past his own life expectancy, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
The zoo notified police of Bessey's remarks.
Bessey and her supporters want the zoo's four elephants, currently housed in a small yard and an 1,800-square-foot barn, moved to a preserve in Tennessee where they can roam freely.
Chicago, Detroit and San Francisco zoos have closed elephant exhibits amid controversy about their habitats.
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