RIP, Rama, a male Asian elephant who suffered and was euthanized at the Oregon Zoo due to captivity-related conditions. IDA sends our condolences to Free the Oregon Zoo Elephants (FOZE); acknowledging their long-time local efforts to protect Rama and the seven other Asian elephants at the zoo, including Packy, Rama’s father who has tuberculosis and needs to go to a sanctuary. IDA agrees with FOZE that Metro Council, the zoo's governing body, and zoo officials continue to fail to protect the health and wellbeing of the elephants there. Six years after the zoo received money "to provide more humane conditions for the elephants," the elephants continue to suffer and die as Rama did, in miserably inadequate conditions.
The zoo has yet to explain why it misled voters in selling a 2008 bond measure about plans for an offsite preserve to provide more space for the zoo's elephants. The elephants have never benefited from the whopping $125 million received by the zoo from the zoo bond measure that voters believed would improve the intolerable conditions for the elephants there. With a measure fueled by compassion, the actual use of the money has been spent on programs that are harming the elephants further by recklessly and dangerously breeding them - the opposite of helping them!
IDA has placed the Oregon Zoo in five of our 11 Ten Worst Zoos for Elephants lists. In 2013, after struggling under the harsh glare of the national spotlight, the zoo finally admitted that an elephant born there was contractually owned by a notorious elephant-rental company called "Have Trunk Will Travel" which, like circuses, trains elephants to perform tricks and give rides to the public. Still the zoo has provided no meaningful relief for the zoo’s remaining Asian elephants who have been suffering from a range of captivity-related problems, including foot and joint disease, and tuberculosis.
Read more here about Packy, Rama's father who is still at the Oregon Zoo suffering from tuberculosis.
