CITES decision to ban sending wild elephants to zoos a victory for legacy of Swaziland 18

DARIEN, Conn., Aug. 27, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The end of the elephant-to-zoo trade marked by today's Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species decision in Geneva is a victory for Friends of Animals efforts to make sure that no other pachyderms would suffer the cruelty of being ripped from the wild for a life in captivity and that the 18 elephants destined for U.S. zoos in 2016 would be the last to ever have to endure this.

The story of the Swaziland elephants that were sent to three U.S. zoos despite Friends of Animals efforts to keep them in the wild was spotlighted in a July New York Times Magazine cover story "Zoos Called it a 'Rescue.' But are the Elephants Really Safe?" by Charles Siebert.

The three zoos, Dallas Zoo, Sedgwick County Zoo in Kansas and the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska, had obtained permits from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to import the elephants in 2016 from a national park in Swaziland overseen by Big Game Parks.

FoA filed a lawsuit claiming that the FWS had a mandatory duty under the National Environmental Policy Act to fully evaluate and disclose whether the elephants, as a result of captivity, would suffer social, psychological, behavioral and physical impacts for the rest of their lives. But ahead of the scheduled March 17, 2016 hearing and without informing the court, a plane was secretly sent from Kansas City on March 5 to transport the elephants to the U.S.

"No other elephants should be drugged and crated, hauled off to a foreign place to spend the next 50 years feeling like captives," said FoA Wildlife Law Program Director Michael Harris. "The Swaziland elephants will suffer in captivity, there is no doubt of that, but to them we must credit the decision today to end this practice."

While the U.S. delegation to CITES opposed the agreement, FoA President Priscilla Feral said it is a vital step at a time when elephant populations in Africa are plummeting.

"In the last three years, we kept the story of the Swaziland elephants alive and delivered a PR nightmare for the zoos involved,'' she said. "It's gratifying to learn that despite the disappointing performance of the U.S. delegation, CITES passed a trade rule banning the exportation of African elephants to all zoos. Being able to deliver on our goal that they would be the last elephants to be robbed of their freedom and families is rewarding, especially in these difficult political times."

SOURCE Friends of Animals, Inc.

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