You are quite welcome! And thank you for your comments. Well said!

Thank you for your insight and sharing your story about Clara. Very sad indeed!

Those “shoes” are an open admission that zoos cannot provide enough space of natural surfaces for elephants. Once the infections begin, it’s a very difficult task to manage foot care. Soon she will begin to lift one foot to ease the pain in that foot, then place that foot on the ground only to lift the other foot immediately. Pain meds will be prescribed … and in a few years, the meds will no longer offer relief. Gay’s appetite will decrease as her level of pain increases. She become nutritionally compromised, she will lose weight. She will waste away before your eyes.

This entire description played out with Clara, an Asian elephant at the St Louis Zoo in Missouri. Clara was wild-caught in the 1950′s, transferred to the U.S., and lived her 50+ years in confinement behind bars. on concrete floors, and various other non-natural surfaces. Once the popular star of elephant shows, Clara’s rear feet became infected in 2000, sandals were fashioned for her, and she was forced to wear them 24/7 for nearly 7 years.

Clara was euthanized on March 14, 2007 because her pain could not be relieved with medication. She lost a great deal of weight in her last two years and renal failure complicated her health issues.

We urged the zoo officials to consider sanctuary for Clara…but they were adamant that Clara was content where she was. Even though the exhibit was expanded to 1.2 acres in 1999, it was sub-divided into 3 fenced and hot-wired yards. The surface was hard-packed dirt over concrete. Yeah, they considered that an improvement.

Zoos, no matter how much they love the elephants, cannot provide the necessary components to insure good health, both physically and psychologically.

Gay should be moved to sanctuary before her feet complicate her life even further …. and before her life mirrors Clara’s life.

Midwest USA

Thank you for your comment and point of view. Standing for hours at a time on injured feet, whether human or animal, must indeed be painful. The comment, not intended to be flippant, has been removed.

I fear the writer has little understanding of the severity of the pain Gay and other elephants confined in unnatural, alien and artificial environments suffer. Paignton Zoo confesses on its website “Gay might have arthritis as she is less supple than before and we don’t see her lying down like we used to.” The zoo’s concession of 100 tonnes of sand and some rubber matting in the elephant house has probably come far too late for Gay. Why was her condition allowed to deteriorate to the extent it clearly has, according to your report, before the zoo put its hand in its pocket?

Captivity-induced foot and joint ailments are the number one killer of confined elephants. Remember Crumple? The 40 year old female Asian elephant at the notorious Blackpool Zoo, who was euthanased there on 1st March 2009 for chronic arthritis, just over a year after she was fitted with a boot for one of her front feet .

It’s about time the media took a long, hard look at what life in zoos inflicts on these beautiful creatures. Time that it started some serious, intelligent, investigative reporting to enlighten the public at large – the truth as distinct from the “spin”. Elephants are kept in zoos not for conservation, nor for education, but for entertainment. And Gay is paying the price.

Great guesses but none of the above! I am waiting for permission from the photographer to use the photos with the red booties. Thanks!

jsg