LONG-TIME ELEPHANT PAIR FROM PHILADELPHIA SEPARATED TO MAKE SPACE FOR YOUNG BREEDING ELEPHANTS

[Marianne Bessey]

For Immediate Release:  Wednesday, November 2, 2011

 Contact: Marianne Bessey, 610-733-1248,

[e-mail], www.elesangels.com

  Attn:  News Desk    

 

LONG-TIME ELEPHANT PAIR FROM PHILADELPHIA SEPARATED TO MAKE SPACE FOR YOUNG BREEDING ELEPHANTS  

 Recently Imported Elephants Displace Older Non-Breeding Female Elephant

 

Philadelphia, Pa. – An African elephant named Kallie owned by the Philadelphia Zoo and previously confined at a facility in Somerset, Pennsylvania was separated from her elephant partner of ten years and shipped to a zoo in Cleveland, Ohio this week. 

 

The move comes shortly after the Pittsburgh Zoo moved three young breeding female elephants into the Somerset facility housing former Philadelphia Zoo elephants Kallie and Bette, and a bull elephant, Jackson.

 

Kallie and Bette, both around 30 years old and no longer viable candidates for breeding, had lived at the Somerset facility since July 2009.  The two elephants were constant companions since at least 1999. They had lived together at the Philadelphia Zoo from 2004 to 2009.  

 

The only barn at the Somerset facility contains three stalls and an indoor arena.  In July 2011, the Pittsburgh Zoo imported three elephants, aged 18 to 20 years, from Botswana to be bred with Jackson, the resident bull elephant, bringing the total elephant population at the Somerset facility to six elephants.  The three Botwswana elephants had been confined in a temporary shelter at the Somerset facility until winter hit.  

 

“It is heart breaking that Kallie and Bette have been torn apart,” said Marianne Bessey, director of local grassroots group, Friends of Philly Zoo Elephants, which had been campaigning since 2005 for the elephants to be released to sanctuaries.  “And since there is no guarantee Kallie will integrate into the existing group of elephants at the Cleveland Zoo, she may be playing musical chairs again soon and end up at yet another facility.  The zoos can still do the right thing and send both Kallie and Bette to a true sanctuary, where they can live out their lives in peace.” 

 

At the Cleveland Zoo, six elephants are confined in an exhibit with outdoor space consisting of less than two acres. 

 

Philadelphia Zoo officials had reportedly paid $500,000 to the Pittsburgh Zoo to take Kallie and Bette.  The Performing Animal Welfare Society, a 2,200 acre sanctuary in California home to eight elephants from zoos and circuses, offered to take Kallie and Bette at no charge over four years ago.

 

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Kallie and Bette - photo posted on post-gazette.com