December 15, 2002

IT is hard to know how to start this letter, because I know that whatever I write, however it is phrased, with certainty, I am going to unleash a new wave of Government-sponsored marginalising, and bureaucratic intimidation upon my own head! So be it . . . please print it. Some things need to be recorded.

This letter concerns the affront to all decency, which I have witnessed this afternoon: the display of three pitiful elephants side by side chained to the ground - each by two of their four legs - at Southside. Is this what we condone in the name of entertainment? Is this what we should show Bermuda's children?

All afternoon the Sunday drivers came with their car-loads of young children to behold these unusual, highly intelligent and majestic animals.

No one really noticed the chains, or the stakes in the ground, which the circus workers had tried to camouflage with hay. Few stayed long enough to register the behaviour of these three restrained mammals, which had just undergone a three-day journey in rough seas by boat.

Their behaviour was a classic demonstration of compulsive repetitive movement so typical of animals confined or tethered habitually for long periods of time, or all the time: repetitive rocking, compulsive swaying, head bobbing, and weaving from side to side (just as psychologically traumatised children will do when they sit and rock from side to side, usually engaged in compulsive behaviour, such as twisting cloth, etc.).

This is a classic psychological disorder of elephants lacking the environmental, social and psychological stimulation received by elephants in the wild. Many captive elephants display abnormal behaviour, however stereotypic, compulsive behaviour, is an indicator of poor animal welfare induced by a long period of time in captivity and lack of mental stimulation, and possibly also mishandling.

Good God! What is wrong with the men in suits in the Ministry of the Environment and the Department of Environmental Protection (!)? Whose idea was it to sign import permits and support this repugnant display of sustained animal abuse in the name of entertainment (!) . . . and making a buck, of course, for the elusive promoters?

Couldn't the Minister have better spent the $32,000 he used for two trips last year educating himself, his not-so-Permanent Secretary, and the rest of the highly paid top brass in the Department of Environment, including the Government Veterinary Officer, in matters concerning the ethical treatment of animals?

Shame, shame on Bermuda. The right thing to do would be to confiscate the animals while they are on Bermuda soil, collect all the money paid out for circus tickets, and use it to fly these poor innocent circus victims to a welfare-conscious zoo (sadly they probably cannot be reintegrated into the wild).

DR. A.M. WARE-CIETERS

St. David's

PS: Here are some interesting stats from the London Zoo records on elephants:

Longevity: Wild elephants can live to 70 years old but few in zoos reach half that age. The European Elephant Group discovered that 63 per cent of the 120 Asian elephants born in captivity between 1902 and 1992 in Europe died before the age of eight. Only 44 (37 per cent) of individuals lived long enough to become sexually mature.

In the 170 years that London Zoo displayed elephants, 69 have been destroyed and 27 have died at London Zoo; 85 per cent died before the age of 21 and 30 per cent of those that died were less than six years old.