FREE THE SIX FLAGS 7 Elephants to Sanctuary!

  • by: Rebecca Schneider
  • recipient: Daniel M. Snyder, Six Flags Chairman; Mr. Martin Lathrop, Park President, Six Flags Discovery Kingdom
Living in an amusement park is no fun for the seven elephants at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom.  If you visit the Elephant Encounter, notice the bullhooks in the hands of the elephant keepers. Bullhooks are shaped like fireplace pokers with a sharp steel hook at the end.

Bullhooks are used to stab, hook and hit the elephants in sensitive parts of the body. (Although elephant skin appears tough, it is so delicate that an elephant can feel the pain of an insect bite).

In public, keepers will prod the elephants lightly, In private keepers at zoos and circuses have been witnessed forcefully stabbing the hook in the soft tissue behind the ears, inside the mouth, around the anus, and in tender spots under the chin. 
              
                                                              Chained, not trained   Bullhook "training"

Six Flags keepers use force to train and maintain dominance over the elephants and make them do unnatural tricks and give elephant rides.

Six Flags crams elephants, who naturally walk 20 miles or more a day, into small spaces that cause them to develop arthritis and foot disease.

Recently, five elephants have died here from causes that include: severe arthritis and feet so infected they bled and oozed pus; massive infection from a dead calf decomposing in the mother's womb, and an elephant herpes infection in a 2-year old baby elephant who was taken from his mother.

Elephants are highly intelligent and can live 60-70 years. The Six Flags Seven --Liz (43), Taj (67), Valerie (25), Tava (29), Malika (20), Joyce (22), Bertie (26) -- deserve better than decades more of life in a noisy, crowded amusement park.

Please sign the petition to get these poor elephants removed and sent to a sanctuary!  We freed Maggie, let's work for these poor babies now as well!
Dear Sirs,

Experience has shown over and over again that captive elephants held in zoos suffer both mentally and physically.  Wild elephants typically walk 30 or more miles per day.  Zoo elephants are unable to do this, and as such, suffer leg, foot and joint problems on a chronic basis.  The elephants held at Six Flags are no exception.  The seven elephants currently held at Six Flags have had chronic foot problems and will continue to suffer from them so long as they are confined into the small area your park presently provides.

Additionally, the elephant breeding program at Six Flags has been a resounding failure with numerous deaths, stillbirths and even an instance of a dead calf rotting in the mother's womb. The incisions caused from the artificial inseminations have resulted in infections, abcesses and long-term injury to the elephants involved, yet success has been elusive at best.

People are becoming more and more attuned to the specific social and physical needs of elephants. They are more and more reluctant to see these magnificient creatures suffering just so they can see an elephant up close.  The cruelty involved in keeping these intelligent beings captive is becoming more clear to the public each and every day.  The elephants have been expressing their unhappiness for years...being uncooperative, getting ill, charging handlers.

Today's zoos need to be progressive and more like sanctuaries with plenty of open space for their animals.  An amusement park, with its inherent noises, crowds and need to cram as much activity into the smallest amount of space will NEVER be the proper place for wild animals of any kind and certainly not for the sensitivities of elephants.

Show the world that Six Flags is not a greedy monster out to use and misuse animals for its own gain without thought or consideration for the well-being of the animals.  Send your elephants to one of the nationally recognized and acclaimed sanctuaries: PAWS in California or the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. Not only will the elephants be able to live out their remaining years in a natural setting conducive to their mental and physical well-being, the park can then use the positive publicity of such a move to promote the park.  It CAN be a win-win situation for both the park and the elephants if done right.

So, please, DO RIGHT and release these elephants into a sanctuary as soon as possible. Until they are sent to sanctuary, we, the undersigned, will boycott Six Flags and all subsidiaries of your park.
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