This supportive letter appeared in The Seattle Times in response to our recent press release with Lily Tomlin.

I am very thankful to Lily Tomlin for advocating for our Woodland Park Zoo (WPZ) elephants to improve their present, unhealthy lives [“Cause for star: elephants,” NW Tuesday, April 28].

WPZ claims it is giving its three elephants, Watoto, Bamboo and Chai, the best of care and I am sure that they try, but it is not enough. The zoo cannot give them what they don’t have and what these pachyderms need most, which is lots of space. The way they live now is as if we were forced to live in a bathtub for the rest of our lives.

Keeping them here when they could go for free to the 2,700-acre Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee is selfishly wrong. It is time to do the right thing and let them go!

It is great when celebrities lend their names to causes. It attracts more attention from the media and, consequently, the public. Therefore, bravo again to Tomlin for speaking out for those who can’t: the elephants at WPZ.

— Claudine Erlandson, Shoreline

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