Free the Oregon Zoo Elephants (FOZE) announces its campaign to free Chendra, the long-suffering Borneo elephant at the Oregon Zoo. The multi-level campaign publicizes Chendra’s plight on billboards, bus posters, aerial advertising, newspaper inserts and all social media platforms. The campaign asks citizens and taxpayers to demand that Metro and Oregon Zoo officials retire Chendra to live out her life in peace at a sanctuary.
THE PERILS OF CAPTIVITY – Chendra, taken from Malaysia at four years old, suffers from painful, potentially lethal foot fractures common to zoo elephants. Blind in one eye from a past injury, she also suffers from persistent anemia, mycobacteriosis, and severe zoochosis – circling, swaying, rocking — abnormal repetitive behaviors caused by languishing for years in captivity.
RISKY BUSINESS – Despite Chendra being at great risk of contracting tuberculosis from the other infected zoo elephants, the zoo endangered her, a Borneo elephant further, by breeding her with a much larger species of Asian elephant. At the same time that Chendra’s pregnancy was confirmed, she was diagnosed with active tuberculosis, the fifth Oregon Zoo elephant to contract this debilitating disease. In December 2019, Chendra suffered a miscarriage while kept in quarantine for six months. This isolation is cruel for such a highly social and far-ranging animal. The Oregon Zoo, with five elephant deaths in the last five years, is an unsafe location for Chendra.
From Scientific American (February, 2014): “We now have solid evidence that elephants are some of the most intelligent, social and empathic animals around—so how can we justify keeping them in captivity?” “. . . if the zoos really have the animals’ best interests at heart, they would close their elephant exhibits.”
THE PROMISE OF SANCTUARY – Now there is hope that Chendra will get a chance to enjoy the life she was meant to live. A sanctuary in a warm climate in the U.S. has agreed to take her.
“For 12 years, we asked the zoo and Metro to free Packy before he died. Now we demand Chendra’s freedom before it’s too late and her fate is the same as Packy’s” says Courtney Scott, president of Free the Oregon Zoo Elephants.
FOZE invites all Portland area animal lovers to join the Free Chendra campaign, For more details, visit freeoregonzooelephants.org
Courtney Scott
Photographer/filmmaker
Scottwork Productions
President, Free the Oregon Zoo Elephants
a 501(c)3 non profit
https://freeoregonzooelephants.org/