Lucy – The Valley Zoo Elephant

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As report in the Vancouver Sun on September 18th, high profile lawyer Clayton Ruby has been retained to “look into the Lucy problem…”

Former game show host, Bob Barker is in Edmonton today rallying to have Lucy moved from the Valley Zoo to an elephant sanctuary in California.

Barker says his meeting with zoo officials went ‘badly’ and that the city refuses to consider moving Lucy even if/when her health improves. Barker and animal rights organizations are vowing to continue to fight for her release and are considering legal action to force the move.

You can watch all of the latest news coverage of today’s news conference and Mr. Barker’s visit to the zoo:

It may be a bit premature for me to make this assumption, but it’s starting to look to me like there is no way that the zoo or the City is going to allow Lucy to be moved. I’ve just read the latest article by by Gordon Kent and Florence Loyie, edmontonjournal.com:

There are many comments on this article on that site and many are very thought provoking. My own comment states:

It appears that Lucy will not be moved at this time (we may have to accept that, but that does not mean that we just give up and forget about Lucy).   Regardless, the fact still remains that Edmonton has the worst zoo in Canada. It truly is an embarrassment and a shame!!!

My stats could be a little off, so please correct me where necessary, but from what I understand the City of Edmonton and the Provincial Government have each pledged $1 Million toward construction of the new *OUTDOOR* $6.5 million Queen Elizabeth pool (scheduled opening Spring 2011). For goodness sake, there are already over 30 public swimming facilities in Edmonton, do we really need another one – and an OUTDOOR one at that?

Why doesn’t the City throw a few million dollars toward upgrading the zoo? Perhaps all of the ‘Save Lucy’ fans and activists could start directing some of their energy and passion toward forcing a face lift to our dilapidated and archaic facility … after all, it is the only zoo we have and Lucy is not the only animal suffering there.  I can’t imagine a single Edmontonian not wanting to sign ‘that’ petition!!!

Question to my visitors: What do YOU think about this?

What an emotional roller-coaster I’ve been on while trying to wade through all of the opposing expert’s opinions regarding Lucy. Right when those scales start to tip in favor of one expert, I happen upon something that shifts my opinion to the other side. I’ve just watched the 2 part YouTube videos created by ZooCheckCanada, and I have to tell you, they are pretty compelling. Here they are in case you’d like to view them here:

Around the end of August I began reviewing some of the information that Julie Woodyer, from Zoocheck.com, had sent me. She directed me to the SaveLucy.ca website, and I was somewhat confounded by some of the allegations made in the article entitled:  ‘No one is advocating that Lucy be moved if it is not safe to do so!’, which can be found on this page.

That afternoon, I sat down and wrote a letter to the twelve council members and Mayor Mandel as well. Of the thirteen members, only two responded: Mayor Stephen Mandel and Councillor Ben Henderson.  I would like to share those letters with you here (with the Mayor’s permission).  Note: I have chosen to blur my email address and last name for obvious reasons, and I have also chosen to add those letters as images to avoid ‘copy/paste/edit’ concerns.

Mouse over to read response:

The URL that Mayor Mandel refers to in his response is here:
http://www.valleyzoo.ca/pages/ValleyZoo/Resource.aspx?id=261

I am just about to write to Councillor Henderson to ask his permission to post his email to me on my blog, as I believe he deserves that courtesy. I will post an update if/when I receive his approval.

I welcome your comments …

Dr. Oosterhuis – an independent veterinarian – has told the city that moving Lucy the elephant from the Valley Zoo could kill her. Dr. Oosterhuis examined Lucy last Thursday (Sept. 10th), and concluded that “…any thought of moving her and in fact it would (be) life threatening for her to be placed under that kind of stress…”

There is a news article by JORDAN VERLAGE on the Sun Media website,  and a video of Lucy’s Examination available on the City of Edmonton website. Please click below to view those pages:

Sun Media Article	Lucy’s Examination Video

Advocates in favor of moving Lucy, are hoping to see her relocated to the Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee. Today I visited the Elephant Sanctuary website and was very impressed with the sheer magnitude of information available, and the beautiful and well designed site.

WebCam & Bio page

I encourage our visitors to pop in to their website and browse around. I am sure you will be impressed. One of my favorite pages on the site is the EleCam page – there you can read short and interesting bios on all of the sanctuary’s elephants, and if you’re lucky you can watch them wandering around the grounds.

Again, let me reiterate that I personally am not advocating that Lucy be moved there, as I have no way of knowing if the claims that ‘the stress from the move could be fatal to her’ … however, if she were healthy enough to be moved, this would surely be a piece of heaven for her.

The Elephant Sanctuary also has a YouTube profile that, as of today’s date, currently has 25 videos.

And here is just one of them for your viewing pleasure: