Tell Tucson City Council to keep Connie and Shaba together
The Reid Zoo in Tucson, AZ plans to transfer their two elephants – Connie and Shaba – to the San Diego Zoo where sadly these two friends of 30 years will be separated from one another. The PAWS Sanctuary has offered to take in these two ladies at their sanctuary instead where they’d get to live out the remainder of their lives together and with dignity. Please contact officials in Tucson and urge them to surrender Connie and Shaba to PAWS rather than send them to a zoo where they’ll be separated.
Read more about these two ladies in this Tucson Weekly guest column. Here’s an excerpt:
Celebrated television personality and animal-welfare activist Bob Barker is going to “come on down” for Connie and Shaba so that Tucson’s beloved elephants can remain together—but will the City Council join him?
On a recommendation from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, both the Reid Park Zoo and San Diego Zoo have refused to find a way to keep them together—and believe us, we’ve asked.
Aside from those zoos, no other accredited facility that houses African and Asian elephants together is remotely suitable for Connie and Shaba due to a small exhibit size, the use of bull hooks or requirements that elephants give rides and perform circus tricks. This speaks strongly to their so-called “rigorous” standards. Forced to reach beyond that system, we approached PAWS (the Performing Animal Welfare Society), which has agreed to provide sanctuary for Connie and Shaba—together—when no one else has.
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