Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants

Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants has updated our mission.  We continue to work for the release of Bamboo and Sri to an accredited sanctuary. These elephants were housed at Woodland Park Zoo but have since been transferred to other zoos and ownership turned over to the zoos in which they reside.

We support retirement of all elephants suffering in cruel zoo and circus confinement as well as all wild animals imprisoned in cages and tanks.  We advocate for these animals to go to accredited sanctuaries so that they may heal physically and psychologically – anything less diminishes our humanity.   Please visit our facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/FreeEles/

Thanks to all our supporters over the years!  If you weren’t able to show up this week to sing holiday carols at City Hall, enjoy these beautiful renditions of three of our custom carols as performed by our talented friends: Michelle Wolfe Paul, Susana Brizuela and Marcus Yetter.  Bravo!

And please take a moment to write to City Council encouraging them to send Chai and Bamboo to the sanctuary.

Watoto, Rest In Peace, 1969 – 2014

City Zoo
By Vivian Yeiser Laramore

The tick of time is out of rhyme,
Where wild things wait for death,
Watching the stars through iron bars,
And breathing each other’s breath.
But little man with his civic plan,
To conquer and subdue,
Acquires a thrill from broken will,
Of beasts in the city zoo.

Lily Tomlin with FOWPZE

Saturday, June 7th, Lily Tomlin performed at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theater.  After the show she took questions and one question prompted her to advocate for Bamboo, Chai and Watoto to go to a sanctuary.  She said that Seattle’s weather caused the elephants to be locked up in the barn for over half of the year; pausing, she surveyed the stage….and said the elephants are locked up in the barn in a space not larger than this stage.  The packed house of about 2,000 people gasped.  The shock was palpable.

While this story may be about orcas, this student’s message is a lesson for us all: that loving intelligent, wild animals, like orcas or elephants, means not wanting to see them forced into a life of captivity and depravation.

Read the story on LivingHumane.com: ‘Blackfish’ inspires local student to find her voice for animals

Kyra Laughlin at the driftwood sculpture at Edmonds ferry terminal. Photo by Chanzelle Diaz