Tell Santa Ana Zoo And Mayor:
No More Elephant Rides, Ever!

[Ed. Note: Another way to take action - Help End Animals' Show Business "Careers".]

FROM  In Defense of Animals (IDA) and Orange County People for Animals (OCPA)

ACTION

Tell the Santa Ana Zoo to permanently stop offering elephant rides, following release of a video apparently showing Have Trunk Will Travel’s owner and trainers using electric shock devices and hitting elephants with steel bullhooks during training at their facility. The company exploits elephants for use in television, film and print, rides, wedding ceremonies and private parties.

And urge Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido to enforce an already existing law that prevents the public from touching elephants.

Sign an online petition

And/or better yet, make direct contact:

Santa Ana Zoo Manager Kent Yamaguchi
1801 East Chestnut Avenue
Santa Ana CA 92701
phone (714) 836-4000
Kent Yamaguchi's email

Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido
Mayor Pulido's email
AND
Santa Ana City Council
20 Civic Center Plaza
P.O. Box 1988, M31
Santa Ana, CA 92701
phone (714) 647-6900
fax (714) 647-6954
City Council email

INFORMATION / TALKING POINTS

IDA is calling on the Santa Ana Zoo to permanently stop offering elephant rides, following release of a video apparently showing Have Trunk Will Travel’s owner and trainers using electric shock devices and hitting elephants with steel bullhooks during training at their facility. The company exploits elephants for use in television, film and print, rides, wedding ceremonies and private parties.

Have Trunk Will Travel is the company that provides elephant rides at the Santa Ana Zoo.

One of the abuse victims shown in the video is Tai, who appears in the recently released film Water for Elephants, in which she undergoes a vicious staged “beating.” The public was falsely assured that Tai’s treatment is far different from that of Rosie, the elephant she portrays in the film. This video shows otherwise.

Obtained by UK-based Animal Defenders International and shot in 2005, the video shows extremely disturbing images including:

• Elephants repeatedly shocked with a hand-held electric device
• Elephants crying out after being struck, beaten and hooked on the legs and body with a bullhook, a pointed steel rod resembling a fireplace poker
• A baby elephant being hooked in the mouth during training
• An elephant who is jabbed and pinned with bullhooks as she is having her tusks sawn down

Have Trunk Will Travel has been at the center of controversy before. The company provided Tai for a notorious art show in Los Angeles for which she was fully body painted; animal control officials forced Have Trunk Will Travel to wash off the paint. And the Science Discovery Center in Santa Ana cancelled an event in which an elephant would be encased in a giant soap bubble, after receiving thousands of emails and phone calls when IDA exposed the stunt. While on loan to the Denver Zoo, one of the outfit’s elephants escaped and ran through a crowd, injuring her trainer and a baby.

Thank you for everything you do for animals!