Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Elephants Arrive Safely in Sydney

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Four elephants have arrived safely in Sydney after two years of court battles and months in quarantine. They are from Thailand and probably destined to spend the rest of their lives behind bars at Taronga Park Zoo. But judging from these seven photographs, so far they are enjoying it.

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Comments

  1. Ann Novek says

    So these are the much talked about elephants from Thailand that IFAW, HSI and RSPCA have protested against.

    Hopefully they will enjoy the zoo, but I have my doubts about elephants and most other wild animals and zoo’s.

    The zoo is talking about conservation issues regarding the elephants but as in most cases with zoo’s and animals think mostly it is about commercial interests.

    No, I hardly ever visit any zoo…However, many larger and serious zoo’s have very good veterinarians that it’s good to consultate …

  2. Libby says

    Hmm…”enjoying it” is being rather anthropomorphic. The Zoological Parks Board of NSW has two facilities – one open range zoo at Dubbo, and one city zoo in Sydney. The two remaining elephants that were at Taronga for many years were shipped off to Dubbo to live out their days and make way for the bright young stars Taronga had spent many, many years trying to acquire.

    One would think that a serious breeding and conservation program would have made use of the wide open plains of Dubbo. However, how do visitor numbers compare at Dubbo and Sydney? I guess they have to pay off the tens of millions they have spent trying to get their conservation message across.

    Ann, I have not forgotten your coat, and continue investigating a suitable retirement home for it.

  3. Jennifer says

    Come on Libby, what’s this, suggesting Elephants can’t enjoy a good dust bath! I prefer mud myself.
    Elephants can even recognise themselves in mirrors: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6100430.stm?ls . In fact they probably blush and also feel shame. But happiness, well that is a method of travelling rather than a state to arrive at?
    I really enjoyed a book by Jeffrey Mason and Susan McCarthy entitled ‘When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals’ Published by Vintage in 1996.

  5. Pinxi says

    Gee Jen, next you’ll be trying to convince us that we shouldn’t sustainably harvet & eat elephants.

    You’ll subsribe a range of complex emotions to elephants and whales also I presume? What of pigs?

  8. Jennifer says

    Hey Pinxi,

    I had a pet pig in Madagascar.

    The pig was one of several piglets given to me but that never got turned into a spit roast that Christmas.

    Instead she was let out of the pig pen and grew up with my dog and thought she was a dog. Both slept in the house.

    Like my dog, she displayed a range of different complex emotions.

    The dog was once a stray in Antananarivo. She lay on the footpath outside the house of some friends were I was staying, so thin she could hardly walk but full of milk from presumably having given birth recently.

    Anyway, when I left Antananarivo that time, I lifted her into the back of my landrover and took her home to Tulear.

    She ended up a fat old bitch and a good guard dog and companion for both me and the pig.

    She was called ‘pie’ while the pig was just called ‘pig’.

    ———-

    And I am not opposed to people eating pork and I respect the rights of people in the Phillipines to eat dog.

  9. Ann Novek says

    Jennifer:
    And I am not opposed to people eating pork and I respect the rights of people in the Phillipines to eat dog.

    IMO people can eat what they want as long as it is sustainable food and that the animal is killed / or lived in a humane way.

    People are against this dog meat cosumption I guess just because the dogs are killed in the most brutish way.

    They are beaten and flogged to death only to increase the adrenaline content in the meat.

    PS. My dog loves pigs as well, they are very good friends…

  10. Pinxi says

    None of my pet pigs never made it past christmas. The chooks were luckier, on average. But that was back in the dark ages.

    “IMO people can eat what they want as long as it is sustainable food”. Ann is meat a sustainable food source for the world’s population?

  12. Ann Novek says

    All my horses that have been sick and thus slaughtered, have been sent to the slaughterhouse for meat.

    I have never had the luxury to afford my pet horses to be buried on a pet cementary , even if I have loved the horses very, very much.

    Once though the slaughterhouse sent me a ” Welcome back” postcard. And wished me to come to their BQ. This really made me upset, because my horse and just broken a leg and this was an emergency slaughter and was not about beef cattle.

  15. Pinxi says

    on ebay , Item number: 260049212744 :

    Genuine Elephant Hide-Elephant Ear-Black-WOW!!

    rich new source of FIRST QUALITY tanned elephant leather skins. These babies are BEAUTIFUL!!…..large in size and expertly tanned. Have a gander at this gorgeous naked, black elephant ear!! This one is approx 9 sqft. I’ve seen it sell as high as $35.00 per sqft..

    …PERFECT for knife sheathes, upholstery accent strips, guitar straps, etc!!!

    Upstate NY, United States
    starting bid $99

  16. Libby says

    Tusk, tusk Pinxi, the hide of you. Is your memory so short that you have forgotten CITES, and how are you going to fit it all in a trunk for the jumbo jet? The best place for this pack of derm-related junk is an elephant’s graveyard.