Captive Elephants Dying Young

Elephants start dying when the gates close

(For a long time after traveling and working throughout the African continent ---- and seeing the glories of 10,000 animals in the wild, among them herds of elephants shuffling through jungle and plain in perfect serenity, the newborn dancing in and out of the legs of the adults with no fear --- Observer could not go near a zoo without getting sick.)

The elephant record in San Diego, by the statistics that advocates provide, is not good. Florence Lambert, founder and director of a group called Elephant Alliance, wrote in February, "Of the 16 African elephants that have been held in captivity by the San Diego Zoological Society since 1961, nine have died (the average age being 18.2 years). In the wild, elephants live to be 60 to 70 years
old."