Birmingham Zoo among The Worst in the World for Elephants

(Photo is unrelated to Birmingham Zoo and Report)

"While the Birmingham Zoo proclaims that male elephant social relationships are important, it treats elephants like unfeeling commodities. The males are valued principally for their sperm, which is used for perverse and cruel artificial inseminations, and breeding value. As long as zoos regard elephants as money-making property, socially-bonded bulls will continue to be separated and traded to zoos around the country, breaking important bonds."

Read the entire report from the In defense of Animals group.

AL.COM quotes a Birmingham Zoo official:

“The Birmingham Zoo has accomplished what no other American zoo has: to establish and maintain an all-male herd of African elephants,” Baker said. “This is critically important to male elephant development because, in the wild, young male elephants leave their family herd as they mature. They can be found alone or with other males at different times and as they mature they will associate with female herds for breeding purposes.”