Animal activists to protest zoo Friday

by | Jul 9, 2009

The Sound Animal Rights Alliance (SARA), will be protesting outside the Woodland Park Zoo on Friday evening. SARA wants WPZ to halt its elephant breeding program and send its three elephants to an elephant sanctuary in Tennessee.

SARA is calling for the Zoo to end its elephant breeding program. Two years ago, six-year old Asian elephant, Hansa, died at the Zoo from an elephant herpes virus. Experts believed she caught the virus from one of the Zoo’s other elephants. Zoo records have now confirmed that its African elephant, Watoto, is infected with the same virus that killed Hansa, EEHV3. There is no cure for herpes so Watoto can infect other vulnerable elephants. Captive Asian elephants under 10 years old are the most likely to get sick and die from these viruses. “Woodland Park Zoo is a herpes-exposed facility,” says Nancy Farnam, SARA’s Director. “Bringing another Asian elephant calf into this infected environment is begging for another tragic death to occur”, she added.

The protest is from 5-6:30 p.m. outside the North Entrance at N. 59th St. and Evanston Ave. N., and SARA invites anyone to join them.

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