PETITION CLOSED

  • The time period for signing this petition has ended.
Help / Feedback • Press Inquiries
Please Help Rescue Philly Elephants Kallie and Bette
  1. Signatures
    871 out of 1,000,000
    Petitioning
    1. The Governor of PA (+ 5 others)
      Petitioning
      close
      • The Governor of PA
      • The PA State Senate
      • The PA State House
      • Councilperson Jannie L. Blackwell (Jannie L. Blackwell, Philadelphia City Council)
      • Vikram Dewan, Director of Philadelphia Zoo (Philadelphia Zoo Director)
      • Barbara Baker, Director of Pittsburgh Zoo (Pittsburgh Zoo Director)
  2. Created By
    Marianne Bessey
    Lansdowne, PA
About this Petition Petition Letter
Why This Is Important

African elephants Kallie and Bette, both taken as babies from their families in the wild, were shipped from their quarter-acre exhibit at the Philadelphia Zoo to a breeding-holding facility outside Pittsburgh in July of 2009, where they are confined in a cement barn or pens consisting of a few acres - conditions that cause arthritis and deadly foot infections, the number one cause of death of captive elephants.  Last winter the elephants spent two months straight in stalls in the cement barn due to the weather.  Zoo officials announced in February 2010 that Kallie and Bette have been determined to be too unhealthy to be bred.  A true sanctuary in California offered to give Kallie and Bette (and Petal, who died of captivity-induced conditions in June 2008) a forever home at no charge over three years ago.  

Why People Are Signing
Recent Signatures

Please Save Philly Elephants Kallie and Bette

Greetings,

Every year, the tax-exempt Philadelphia Zoo receives hundreds of thousands dollars in state funding as well as millions of dollars from the City of Philadelphia in the form of water and trash subsidies, capital funding, and free rent of its city-owned property. The Pittsburgh Zoo is similarly endowed with government funding.

Despite their reliance on taxpayer dollars to function, these zoos have ignored repeated questions from the public regarding the status of Kallie and Bette, the two African elephants relocated last year from the Philly Zoo to the Pittsburgh Zoo's breeding-holding facility in Somerset County, PA. The zoos also have ignored over 10,000 citizens who support moving them to the Performing Animal Welfare Society sanctuary in California that offered to take them, along with elephant Petal who has since died, over three years ago at no charge. And a simple request to review medical records of the elephants - something that other publicly-owned zoos are required to provide under applicable laws - has been repeatedly declined.

Instead, the zoos operate without any accountability to the public or to the animals in their care. After a public outcry against the zoos life-threatening plans to breed Kallie and Bette, both 28 years old, zoo officials announced in February 2010 that the two elephants have been determined to be too unhealthy to be bred. While the zoos' belated decision to cancel breeding plans is good news for Kallie and Bette, their future remains uncertain and they continue to be subjected to unhealthy, stressful conditions at the breeding-holding facility.

The Pittsburgh Zoo is notorious for its use of a weapon used to control elephants - often referred to as a bullhook or ankus. In 2002, the Pittsburgh Zoo's elephant keeper for more than six years, Mike Gatti, was pinned to the ground and crushed to death by an elephant named Moja. It is well known that elephants have a propensity to attack the specific people who dominate them through the fear-and-violence based technique used by the Pittsburgh Zoo.

Local governments are looking at banning the usage of the bullhook - which the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) notes is a "negative stimuli." Earlier this year, county commissioners in St. Lucie County in Florida passed a regulation banning bullhooks as a condition to build an elephant breeding and holding facility much like the one operated by the Pittsburgh Zoo in Somerset County, PA.

Now that the zoos have finally acknowledged what advocates have stated for over four years - that breeding Kallie and Bette would jeopardize their well-being - it is time for the zoos to do the right thing and release them from the zoo display industry to a true sanctuary, where they can live out their lives as elephants.

[Your name]