Help Close The Los Angeles Zoo Elephant Exhibit – And Rescue Lone Elephant Billy!
The Los Angeles Zoo has a tragic record with elephants. Since 1975, 13 elephants held there have died; more than half did not live to see age 20. Elephants have a natural lifespan of 65-70 years. Despite this fact, the L.A. Zoo went forward with plans for a $42 million elephant exhibit, using taxpayer money, that still would not provide anything close to the space elephants need.
Billy The Elephant
Thanks to L.A. City Councilmember Tony Cardenas, these plans have been interrupted. In October, Councilmember Cardenas presented a motion to shut down the costly exhibit and send the zoo’s only elephant, Billy, to a sanctuary. Billy has been suffering in solitary confinement for over two years, where he repetitively bobs his head up and down, an abnormal behavior not seen in wild elephants. One of the world’s foremost authorities on elephants, Dr. Joyce Poole, who has studied free-ranging elephants for over 30 years, has provided expert testimony on Billy’s deplorable condition and the need to shut down the L.A. Zoo exhibit.
Following a recent city Budget & Finance Committee meeting, which recommended halting the exhibit, the L.A. City Council on December 3rd voted to temporarily stop exhibit construction and send these issues to committee for reconsideration by mid-January, including alternative use for the current elephant exhibit space. The issue then will come back to the full council.
We are so close to shutting down the L.A. Zoo elephant exhibit and sending Billy to a sanctuary, but we need your help to do it. And we don’t have much time!
We need to run a media and public outreach campaign to secure public support, and flood the city with the message that elephants just do not belong at the Los Angeles Zoo. We only have this one chance to convince city leaders that shutting down the exhibit and saving Billy is the right thing to do!
Twelve zoos have shut down their elephant exhibits across the U.S., including those in San Francisco, Detroit, Chicago and Anchorage. Let’s put the L.A. Zoo on that list! A win allows Billy to start a new life in a natural-habitat sanctuary where he’ll have the space, natural conditions and companionship that all elephants so desperately need.
Please visit www.freebilly.net to see the video on Billy & the LA Zoo, for campaign updates, for Mayor and City Council contact information, and to learn what else you can do to forever stop elephant suffering at this zoo.
If you live in the City of Los Angeles, please contact your city council member and ask him/her to support shutting down the elephant exhibit and sending Billy to a sanctuary.
If you don’t live in the City of L.A., please contact the Mayor and the City Council President Eric Garcetti.
Billy The Elephant
