From: wheeler@SUPER.ORG (Ferrell S. Wheeler)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
Subject: ZOOS; AQUARIUMS; ENTERTAINMENT
Date: 31 Jul 92 17:02:26 GMT


ZOOS; AQUARIUMS; ENTERTAINMENT
 
ZOOS & AQUARIUMS
 
* The Philadelphia Zoo announced April 9 that it will relocate a
giraffe it sold to the Auerhahn Ranch near San Antonio, Texas, to
Zoo World in Panama City, Florida, because the Texas facility
hosts canned hunts.  Auerhahn Ranch owners Bob and Betty Kelso
denied having acquired the giraffe as a target, claiming he was
to be used for breeding stock.  The ranch retains about 40
animals acquired from the San Antonio Zoo, where Betty Kelso
serves on the board of directors; two sable antelope and five
Pere David deer from the National Zoo in Washington D.C.; and
three antelope from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado
Springs, Colo., which also wants to move the animals.  Four other
antelope from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo are already dead,
reportedly of accidents and illness.  
 
* The April Zoos and Aquariums column reported that the San Diego
Zoo plans to loan two koalas to the Granby Zoo in Quebec, and
that the Granby Zoo is not accredited by the American Assn. of
Zoological Parks and Aquariums.  AAZPA executive director Robert
Wagner responded on April 15 that the Granby Zoo is accredited by
AAZPA.  But Columbus Zoo director Jack Hanna, speaking as AAZPA
representative last October in a nationally broadcast Monitor
radio exchange with ANIMALS' AGENDA news editor Merritt Clifton,
insisted when Clifton raised abuses at the Granby Zoo that it is
not accredited.  At deadline Wagner had not provided
documentation The ANIMALS' AGENDA requested to clarify the
matter.
 
* The World Wildlife Fund is protesting a three month visit to
the Columbus Zoo by two Chinese panda bears prompting the zoo to
ask U.S. District Court to issue a restraining order that would
bar WWF from taking legal action to block the visit.  "Panda
loans are condemned by every responsible conservation group,"
responded WWF board chairman Russell Train.  "It is a sad day
when a zoo will harass a wildlife organization like WWF in the
pursuit of its own commercial interests."
 
* The Shedd Aquarium in Chicago is reportedly seeking permission
to recapture a beluga whale who was released into the Black Sea
in late February by a Russian marine park.  Shedd spokespersons
claim the beluga is unable to survive in the wild, and is
subsisting on handouts from Turkish fishing crews.
 
* A 10-month-old Corbett's tiger, one of only about 200 left in
the world, died March 25 of dehydration and heat stress en route
to the San Diego Zoo from Malaysia.  The tiger cub was packed for
the 24-hour flight in a plastic-wrapped crate.
 
* A sedated Los Angeles Zoo elephant died of a collapsed heart on
March 20 after lying down as handlers tried to prod him into a
crate for relocation to the Zacango Zoo in Toluca, Mexico. 
Preliminary USDA findings cleared the zoo of fault, but noting
numerous other instances of alleged animal mishandling in recent
years, the Performing Animal Welfare Society, Friends of Animals,
the Fund for Animals, Last Chance for Animals, In Defense of
Animals, and United Animal Nations on March 25 called for a full-
scale investigation of Los Angeles Zoo management.
 
* Giving up on keeping beluga whales with dolphins, after a
bottlenose dolphin killed a beluga on Dec. 23, 1991, the Natl. 
Aquarium in Baltimore recently sent its two remaining belugas to
Sea World in San Antonio, Texas.
 
* Both octopi at the new aquarium in Camden, N.J., died within a
month of the grand opening.
 
* Hoping to boost attendance by up to 30%, the Rio Grande Zoo in
Albuquerque was negotiating at deadline to obtain the loan of two
rare white Bengal tigers from an unidentified source.  There are
only about 100 of the white tigers in captivity, and none left in
the wild.
 
 From: Animals Agenda
 456 Monroe Turnpike
 Monroe, CT 06468
 Issue: 6/92
 
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