Council votes again to send Toronto Zoo elephants to California
Posted November 27, 2012 8:15 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The Toronto Zoo’s three elephants are heading south, after city council voted 32-8 Tuesday night to have the animals transferred to the PAWS sanctuary in California.
City council voted last fall to send the remaining elephants, Iringa, Toka and Thika, to PAWS after animal rights groups raised concerns about their welfare. But the move was delayed after concerns about tuberculosis (TB) at the PAWS facility, as well as issues with permits and flight arrangements.
In its due diligence report, the Toronto Zoo said six elephants died over the past five years at the PAWS facility — in the two most-recent deaths the animals had tested positive for TB.
Five Toronto Zoo staff toured the PAWS facility in December 2011. The zoo says its representatives saw PAWS staff with face masks, suggesting some kind of quarantine measures were in place. The zoo says it later learned TB has been an issue at the facility.
Toronto Zoo CEO Joe Tracogna wanted the elephants moved to the new National Elephant Center in Fellsmere, Fla., instead.
The delay led animal activist and former Price is Right host Bob Barker to offer to pay for the animals to be transferred. Barker also championed an online petition that urged Toronto city council to expedite the process.
Four elephants died at Toronto Zoo between 2006 and 2009, according to Barker, who said he was willing to pay the hefty $880,000 price tag to fly the elephants south.
At the PAWS facility the animals will live outside year-round.
A motion by Coun. Lindsay Luby to have a provincial external body decide where to send the elephants did not carry.
With files from Shawne McKeown, CityNews.ca
