Tuesday, March 7, 2006

Our elephants: Stay or go?

Class deciding if refuge better than zoo

MARY BUSTAMANTE

Tucson Citizen

Connie and Shaba, the elephants at the Reid Park Zoo, have special admirers in Jeffrey Uhrig's fifth-grade class at Bonillas Basic Curriculum Magnet School.

They say they love the pachyderms and are researching what would be best for them. Yesterday, they painted elephants on T-shirts after listening to a presentation by Nikia Fico, a University of Arizona student who heads Save Tucson Elephants, a grass-roots group urging the city to send Connie and Shaba to the 2,700-acre Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tenn.

The city is considering an $8.5 million, 8-acre zoo expansion that would include a 3-acre elephant enclosure. Connie and Shaba now live in about a half-acre space.

"Part of me wants them to stay here so I can see them, and the other part wants to set them free," said Collin Morris, 11. "The best thing would be if I could go into the sanctuary in Tennessee and play around."

But because he knows that isn't an option - the sanctuary is closed to the public so the elephants can be in a completely natural setting - Collin would have to settle for watching them on a computer screen. The Habitat has a 24-hour live-stream video of the elephants.

Collin said he'd wait until he got all the information and make his final decision.

Tomorrow, the class will take a field trip to the Harvill Building at UA, where it will have a teleconference with sanctuary officials and see live video of the elephants there. Later, Reid Park Zoo officials will be invited to present their view.

Scott Barton, zoo and Reid Park operations general curator, said he knows "both sides want what's best for the elephants."

Barton said he appreciates the students' feedback.

"I just want people to have the right information and an honest discussion," Barton said.

He believes that elephants wouldn't be happy if they didn't stay close together.

"They are very tightly bonded. When Shaba came here 24 years ago as a calf, Connie immediately adopted her, and they have been close ever since," he said.

He also said that the elephants are healthy here and that the climate here is better for elephants than in Tennessee.

"With the new enclosure, with a mud wallow, streams, grass, sandy areas and a bigger pool, it will be amazing for them and for zoo visitors," Barton said.

Melissa McCoy, whose son Jake is in Uhrig's class, helped organize the fifth-grade project. And while she favors the elephants going to the sanctuary, she defended the Reid Park zookeepers, saying they are humane to the animals.

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