Please send a message: No More Elephants at Zoológico Nacional

Please Send a Message to El Salvador:
No More Elephants at Zoológico Nacional

On September 21 Manyula, the only elephant at El Salvador’s Parque Zoológico Nacional de San Salvador, died at age 59 from kidney failure. She had lived in the zoo for almost her entire life, having been abducted from her family in India as a baby, and died without ever knowing the companionship and comfort of another elephant again. We need your help to ensure that the zoo does not acquire another elephant and subject her to a similar lifetime of deprivation.

Manyula arrived at the zoo in 1955, where she was kept in a tiny enclosure. Elephants naturally live in large family groups, in which female offspring remain with their mothers for life, yet Manyula spent her life entirely alone.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Though deprived of all that was natural to her, Manyula was a national icon, beloved by the people of El Salvador, hundreds of whom turned out for her burial at the zoo. Now, a group of misguided Salvadoran businessmen wants to replace Manyula with another elephant.

Please help IDA convey the message to Salvadoran officials that the zoo should not hold elephants at all, and that it should instead use its resources to improve the welfare of other animals at the zoo and to pursue its mission of preserving and protecting native species who are threatened with extinction.

Please personalize the form HERE (use Spanish if you know the language!) to e-mail Dr. Héctor Samour, Secretary of the Ministry of Culture, the agency that oversees the Parque Zoológico Nacional de San Salvador, and San Salvador Mayor Norman Quijano. Urge an end to the display of elephants at the zoo.

Please be polite. If you live in El Salvador or are of Salvadoran descent, please include that information.

Submit the form HERE to send your comments to:

• Mayor of San Salvador, Norman Quijano
• El Salvador’s Secretary of Culture, Dr. Hectór Samour

More on zoochosis:

the elephant, quiet in her largesse.
to be made irrelevant
by mankind and his mess.
this gentle, loving creature
and her family fine,
just want to live in peace,
with those of their kind.

Karen Lyons Kalmenson