Is An Oppressed Member of a Different Species Worth Your Concern? Please help in any way possible. Links included in text. Boycott Canadian goods
by Tommy George
October 26, 2017. "When you get to the bottom of it, it is always greed"--to paraphrase Bob Barker's statement in a Toronto Star interview given after his failure to help Lucy the Elephant retire from the Edmonton Valley Zoo in Alberta, Canada. In 2009 animal activist Bob Barker tried to purchase and retire the long-solitary elephant star of a radically off-climate zoo.
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| from Lucy and Me by Barbara Greene-Mann |
| Alberta Minister of Justice and Solicitor General Kathleen Ganley More Contact Links |
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| from Lucy and Me by Barbara Greene-Mann |
Bob offered big money to purchase, treat, and retire to a sanctuary Lucy the painting, harmonica playing pachyderm after 40 years of service--in order to send her to warmth and reelephantation. He was refused on all counts. Lucy has spent her life in servitude, beginning at age 2. She will be 43 in May of 2018.
A civil case pursuant to the purchase turn-down originated in the Edmonton Queen's Bench Court, the equivalent of a US District court. Plaintiffs PETA, Zoocheck Canada, et al, representing Lucy applied to the Bench that Edmonton Zoo and its owner, the City of Edmonton, be found in violation of laws established by the Canadian Association of Zoos and Aquarium (CAZA), and many infractions of administrative code attached to the Alberta Code (the law of the land) regarding animal exhibits--which it is and remains in violation on several counts, but working very stonewalledly with small, unassailable (?) law-quirks, to justify these infractions by extenuating circumstance. Health. Disdsain for other elephants. Bad traveler. Loves humans, etc. --mainly bunk, many felt.
The plaintiff, a zoo elephant, had plenty of high-powered supporters. An application was filed on her behalf by PETA, Zoocheck Canada, and a private citizen. However, for some unfathomable reason, the Alberta Minister of Justice (equivalent of Attorney General) delegates to the Edmonton Humane Society the exclusive power of sole qualified expert. The civil case was left largely uncontroverted because plaintiff's evidence was disqualified.
An appellate court agreed, with one notable, exceptionally eloquent and sensible dissent. The Supreme Court would not consider the case. The solitary eligible advocate for the elephant, the Edmonton Humane Society, issued a statement in 2009 to the effect that it could not make an informed opinion until the elephant "stabilized." I think the world may still be waiting for that informed opinion.
My Nominee for Don't Hafta Bee aJerk Awards
This Minister of Justice and Solicitor General could investigate the gridlock that holds Lucy in misery. She presumably has authority to cut through any unethical collusion between the Edmonton Humane Society and te Valley Park Zoo. Please, please, go to contact links, call the toll-free number, write a letter, or click the blue link and direct your opinion to Kathleen.
Other Links for Lucy's Liberation
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Detroit expatriate Barbara Greene Mann's narrative paintings and zany delusionaria (that she and Lucy are united in spirit) presently inspire my sleeplessness. Barb has advanced lung cancer and relies upon Lucy for strength. Nobody will give out info about Lucy. Click Barb's name for links galore.
Meantime, I have called just about everybody in Edmonton connected with the whole seedy deal, including the Edmonton Humane Society ("no comment"), the Edmonton Zoo ("call our PR person's answering machine"), and the City of Edmonton ("Let me put you on hold while I find someone to answer your questions.") Put them all together and they present the most transparent stonewall you have ever seen.
Did I mention that Lucy has spent most of her life in solitude?--the sole elephant at Edmonton's Valley Zoo, isolated from all the other critters because she had been born in the wild.
"Free Lucy" became a trending cause in media. The Valley Zoo found itself having to improvise their own factitious PR quick, about how happy Lucy was in Edmonton's deep-freeze, how she never did cotton to other elephants anyway, how she was too sickly to travel, and much preferred living under the 24/7 poking and electric prodding of her human captors.
Make no mistake, Lucy's life in frosty Alberta has been one of recurring miseries: perpetual solitude, rheumatoid arthritis, crippling foot problems, depression, and a supposedly undiagnosable respiratory disorder. Yet the zoo will not permit ethical, independent veterinarians to evaluate Lucy, bringing in only the most agreeable hacks that money can buy.
Lucy keeps on working as always, 364 days a year. The Valley Zoo closes only on Christmas. Yet as reputedly sick as she is, the zoo charges families with kids to brave the cold and visit Lucy in her tiny barn. It is said that when she hears the kiddies coming she begins the elephant equivalent of cringing. Still, she remains the zoo's star attraction--in fact, the only thing the Edmonton zoo has going for it.
The Valley Zoo gift shop sells Lucy's paintings for $1.46 per square inch. That works out to $210.00 for a square-foot painting. You'll have to estimate the price on the piece she is shown working on above, but it ain't cheap. Naturally, the zoo pays Lucy peanuts.
This worries me. The City of Edmonton has time on its stonewalling side. Soon, one official spokesman says, their inhumane treatment of elephants will be forever ended--once Lucy is dead. But in the meantime, she ain't going nowhere with anyone but the grim reaper. The Edmonton boys probably want to have her stuffed and put on eternal display. Sorry Lucy. Your usurpers will get theirs. Although the voice of the people--or Alberta's powerful Kathleen Ganley, Attorney General--might work a miracle.
Lucy was kidnapped as a baby along with other 'phants from tropical Sri Lanka's 640,000 elephant foraging acres. The older captured elephants had their spirits broken, pre-sale--a wholesale festival of undeserved excruciation, the captors using unbelievable brutality. Lucy's group, probably including her parents, was broken up (some literally) and sold into zoos and circuses by a dealer named Gollembek--a man who makes pimps look princely next to his animal deals.
In 1977, Gollembek sold Lucy at age two to Edmonton for $10K. The Valley Zoo designed their logo around her, trained the hell out of her in ten years isolation, and made her their star attraction. Indeed, she is talented. She paints, plays harmonica, waves signs, and behaves under constant threat of painful physical (and sometimes psychological) punishment. Few locals advocate for her rights because City Hall and the Valley Zoo has got the whole town brainwashed--except for a few notables, like the entire Edmonton Oilers team.
Lucy is neurotic, apparently--ever memorious of primal elephant rites, and her rights as an individual ever denied. She would bear no calves for the dealers.
The Canadian Association of Zoos and Aquariums (CAZA) ruled that all elephants be moved to climates less harsh to their health and natural inclinations. Most northern zoos complied. Gone from the Calgary, Toronto, Alaska, and even the Detroit and Chicago zoos are former elephant attractions, never to return. The lucky ones were transported to Elephant Sanctuaries in California and Tennessee. Less fortunate 'phants were sold into service in warm climates. Many, like Detroit's, simply died.
The average life-span of a captive elephant is 38 years; non-captive lifespan is about the same as humans. 70 years old is not unusual for a wild elephant. Lucy turns 43 in May of 2018.
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