The Experts Speak

Les:

Good Morning - My name is Les Schobert. I am a retired zoo professional with over 30 years experience, including as General Curator of the Los Angeles Zoo and the North Carolina Zoo. I am an expert in the care, handling and maintenance of elephants. I was also a longstanding professional member of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, or AZA, and chaired a variety of important committees for that organization.

Earlier this year, I came before your committee to urge passage of a resolution calling on the San Francisco Zoo to transfer its two surviving elephants to a sanctuary. Your committee and the full board voted in favor of that resolution. I commend your concern for the plight of these elephants.

Today I come before you to urge your support of two additional measures to help elephants and animals at the zoo.

In its opposition to the two ordinances before you, the zoo has claimed that their passage would jeopardize its AZA accreditation. This is the same argument the zoo made before your committee in opposing the transfer of Tinkerbelle and Lulu to a sanctuary.

As a former and longstanding professional member of the AZA, I would like to address this issue. The question here should not be "will we lose our accreditation," but rather "are we doing what is in the best interest of the animals?" If you are not doing what is best for the animals, then accreditation is meaningless.

Far too often the AZA places the commercial interests of the zoo industry over the interests of animals in zoos. We witnessed this with the controversy over the fate of the surviving San Francisco Zoo elephants, when the AZA opposed their transfer to a sanctuary and threatened to pull the Zoo's accreditation if the transfer took place.

I also want to address the AZA's elephant standards. Many AZA zoos including San Francisco like to claim that they either meet or exceed these standards. Well, the problem is the standards do not begin to meet the needs of elephants and everyone in the zoo industry knows this -- and it is a problem. So let's stop talking about these standards as if they have any meaning for the welfare of elephants.

Over the last 30 years, the zoo world has learned much about the physical, psychological and social needs of elephants. And the more have learned, the more we have come to realize elephants cannot be kept in urban environments simply because of the lack of space.

Elephants require a massive amount of acreage in order to walk and forage. Walking is what keeps an elephant healthy, both in terms of the condition of the feet and en their digestion. It is well known that foot and joint problems associated with lack of space and the hard surfaces of zoo enclosures are killing elephants prematurely -- as you have seen here in San Francisco. Additionally, space is needed for the large social groupings that elephants require. Elephants, in fact, have the largest social network of any animal yet studied, outside of man.

LES - CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE SUFFERING YOU HAVE SEEN IN ELEPHANTS HELD IN INADEQUATE ENCLOSURES?

Because of its urban placement, San Francisco Zoo will never have the enough space to maintain healthy elephants. Exacerbating the problem in San Francisco is the cold, foggy and windy microclimate in which the zoo property is situated. These weather conditions aggravate the arthritis and other health conditions caused by the zoo environment.

The Zoo has stated that it would not bring in new elephants unless it was able to build a large, new 10-acre exhibit. But for animals who evolved to walk over vast distances each day - and for whom constant movement and exercise is a necessary requirement for health and well-being - even 10 acres may not enough.

Its simple and its logical. Without large amounts of space, these magnificent animals will continue to die before their time from lingering, painful deaths. That is certainly something no one wants to see. And the hard reality is that the San Francisco Zoo simply cannot provide the space that we now know elephants need. For this reason, I urge you to vote to prohibit future elephant exhibits at San Francisco Zoo.

I also urge you to vote in favor of the second ordinance, which simply clarifies the jurisdiction of the City's Animal Care and Control Department over the city-owned animals at this public zoo. As a former zoo curator, I know that if a zoo is well-run, zoo management will have nothing to fear from local oversight of animal care and management.

Thank you for your consideration.