Please help Queenie/Boo, automatic and sample messages

See BACKGROUND below for complete details.

1. Please contact your associated representatives (US friends) with this automatic letter demanding answers to undeniably suspicious, questionable behaviour:
https://secure2.convio.net/ida/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1517

2. Please send letters to Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture, and to the chairs of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry: Senator Blanche L. Lincoln and Senator Saxby Chambliss, asking them to reverse the decision that sentenced Queenie to San Antonio (as taken from PAWS) and demanding transparency and reasoning, feel free to use the sample, or write your own message:

Email Chairman Lincoln HERE
Email Senator Chambliss HERE
Email Mr. Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture: agsec@usda.gov

SAMPLE MESSAGE
I have just learned that Queenie, an Asian elephant, was mandated to be moved to the San Antonio Zoo in Texas, despite evidence establishing the danger to her of such a decision and the spotty history of the zoo director, Steve McCusker. Additionally, considering that Pat Derby, director of Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) and PAWS supporter, Mr. Bob Barker, have agreed to accept Queenie at the PAWS sanctuary with no charge to the USDA, I am baffled at such a neglectful decision and request she be relinquished immediately to PAWS. It is no secret that the San Antonio Zoo does not meet even the minimum requirements for adequate elephant care, and has indeed been cited for its neglect of another elephant, Lucky, who has been subjected to insufficient surroundings, imprisoned in an inadequately-sized area, provided no comforts, and given no positive interaction.

Furthermore, in an effort to conceal this questionable “acquisition” and confuse Queenie advocates, the San Antonio Zoo has renamed Queenie “Boo”. I can assure both them and you, however, that Queenie by any other name is still being exploited. Please make the compassionate and equitable decision to remove both Queenie/Boo and Lucky to certified sanctuary, PAWS, for their health and well-being. It is time to stop the malicious and exploitative treatment of them because no excuse, commercial or profit, is a valid reason for such suffering.

Thank you for taking the time to read this important message.

BACKGROUND

As taken from IDA

The 1950s must have felt peaceful to the little baby elephant Queenie.

Somewhere in the Asian forests, two-year-old Queenie followed her mother and family as they foraged for hours, as elephants do in the wild – exploring miles of rich natural environment, seeking out mates, and meeting distant friends and relations.

Queenie’s life was about to change dramatically.

Elephants are a keenly intelligent species – they play, use tools, are altruistic and will come to the aid of other species in trouble – and they grieve. Their societies are among the most closely knit on the planet. Like humans, elephant babies and adolescents must be taught by their parents and families how to behave and survive – often over more than a decade’s time.

Only through injury, death or capture can an elephant calf be separated from her family. The trauma of such an event is devastating.

Queenie was robbed of her freedom and family when captured in the wild in the mid-1950s. Then it got worse.

Queenie was sold into the misery of a circus. Elephants in circuses are subject to intensive confinement and constant travel for up to 50 weeks each year, stuffed into trucks and train cars.

Training is cruel, life-long and relentless. Babies are “broken” – in spirit and body – during brutal training that involves prolonged restraint and punishment. Elephant calves are traumatized repeatedly. First (like Queenie), at the separation from their mothers and families, and then during violent training that includes restraint with ropes or chains for up to 23 hours a day, electric shocks, and physical punishment. At the core of this control is the bullhook, a steel-tipped device similar to a fireplace poker used to prod, hook, jab and strike elephants. Even when not in use, the bullhook is a constant reminder of pain and punishment.

So powerful is the negative association with the bullhook that an elephant who has not even seen the device in years will respond immediately to its mere presence.

For HALF A CENTURY, this was Queenie’s miserable life.

In April, despite the passion and action of thousands of IDA supporters who wrote, called, and emailed the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) urging that she be sent to a sanctuary, the USDA orchestrated Queenie’s transfer to the San Antonio Zoo.

THREE times this facility has been listed among IDA’s Top Ten Worst Zoos for Elephants because of the wretched conditions for its sole elephant at the time, the woefully misnamed Lucky. TWICE it has topped the list! The San Antonio elephant exhibit is a pitiful, outdated display.

First Queenie was ripped from her family in the wild. Then she was beaten, broken, abused, confined and neglected in a circus for FIVE DECADES. Then she was sold to the worst zoo for elephants in the country!

The USDA placed Queenie where the anxiety of intensive confinement and public exhibition will continue, daily, hour after miserable hour. After enduring a HALF CENTURY of abuse, Queenie desperately needs specialized rehabilitative care. Queenie deserves to enjoy a stable existence at a sanctuary.

IDA will not stop fighting for Queenie and Lucky, until they are free at a sanctuary.

We are pursuing an investigation into the USDA’s role in Queenie’s transfer to the San Antonio Zoo. We have filed complaints with the USDA against the zoo because of its inadequate conditions for Lucky.