George Bernard Shaw

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Asian Elephant Controversy Shows Why Environment Law Should Not be Weakened

Revelations on last night's 7.30 Report about Taronga Zoo's newly arrived elephants reinforce the fact that city zoos simply aren't suitable for elephants.

"It has once again been made obvious that these newly imported Asian elephants are primarily being used for a commercial marketing operation, not as a conservation one," Democrats' Deputy Leader Senator Andrew Bartlett said.

"Elephants are highly intelligent animals. They range over large distances and in large social groupings social interaction is very important to them.

"A wide range of mainstream experts now recognise that confined zoos are not suitable for elephants. If they must be kept in captivity for conservation purposes it should be in groups on range zoos where they can live a somewhat normal life.

"The federal Environment Minister should never have allowed the importation of this species into Australia for the purposes of commercial exploitation.

"This situation shows precisely why the Minister should not be allowed to get away with his plan to rush amendments through the Senate to our national environment law which would prevent people being able to appeal the merits of any decisions he makes to import wildlife into Australia.

"There needs to be a mechanism for challenging government decisions on the importation of exotic wildlife.

"If there was a real desire to help preserve the species, the money spent on importing these elephants and building their enclosure should have been spent preserving their natural habitat in Thailand," Senator Bartlett concluded.

http://www.democrats.org.au/news/index.htm?press_id=5523&display=1