Lucy – The Valley Zoo Elephant

Mission Statement:

This site is dedicated to gathering information and weighing both sides of the ongoing debate regarding Lucy, by providing a place for fair and honest exchange of information, ideas and opinions as to whether or not Lucy – the Edmonton Valley Zoo elephant – should be moved to an elephant sanctuary.

Background:

I certainly never would have guessed that my visit to the zoo in late June would have resulted in the creation of a website, a Facebook page, a Twitter profile, and a YouTube profile dedicated to Lucy the elephant … but as it turns out, here we are!  I have to admit that I don’t spend much time watching the news and reading the papers, so I really was not aware of all the attention that Lucy is getting in the media.

As I made my way around the zoo that beautiful June afternoon, I have to admit I was a bit disappointed that many of the animals were hiding, or snoozing, or just plain lethargic, but I was pleased to see that Lucy was out of her enclosure and was standing only 10+ meters away.  I flashed back in my mind to 21 years earlier when we two met in almost the same spot and this spunky young girl inhaled a trunk full of sand and flung it at me, and let out a devilish triumphant trumpet sound as I whirled and ran with my then 2-year-old son in my arms.  The Lucy that I watched this day, had none of the spunk or twinkle in her eyes of earlier years, and she just stood in one spot, rocking back and forth with closed eyes for the entire time that I watched her. I was only able to catch a few minutes on film before my 6-year-old nephew pleaded to move on.

Upon retuning home I thought I would Google: ‘lucy edmonton elephant’ and see if there was any kind of follow-up to some news stories that I vaguely remembered hearing about from months earlier.  ‘Had I been living in an underground cave for the last year?’, I thought to myself. There were oodles of videos, articles, reports, etc., and I was overwhelmed by the mountains of information that I was determined to wade through.

It is obvious that there are plenty of others who are interested in following Lucy’s story, so I decided to gather as much information as I could and compile it on a site for anyone who is as interested as I am in digging a little deeper.

I would like to state clearly here and now, that I DO NOT have an opinion at this time as to whether Lucy should be moved to a sanctuary.  I do, however, have many questions, and I am hoping that this project will help to answer some of those questions. Please see the post: My Questions Regarding Lucy. (still under construction)

I think Sandra Farias, of  The Canadian Press has summarized the situation the best and rather than try to paraphrase what has already been written, I will add a screen shot below of the article. If you are not able to see this graphic, please click here to download the .txt copy.

Canadian Press Article - Debate rages over Lucy the elephant at Edmonton zoo

Notice:

We welcome anyone and everyone to participate and we understand that many of our visitors feel very sensitive too, and passionate about, issues involving Lucy. However, please be aware that the site moderator will not tolerate abuse, name calling, or unsubstantiated slanderous claims against anyone whatsoever. If you wish to contribute to this site please remember that others will give more credibility to your comments if they are made in an intelligent, informed, and respectful manner.