July 23, 2012 12:24 pm
It Is Too Hot For African Elephants… In Canada
An elephant at the Toronto Zoo. Photo: Blake Clinkard
Three female African elephants named Iringa, Toka, and Thika live at the Toronto Zoo. Last summer, the Zoo’s board decided the trio would be moved to greener pastures, settling on the Performing Animal Welfare Society‘s 80-acre sanctuary in California.
The 42, 41, and 30 year old elephants were set to move at the end of next week, but plans were postponed at the last minute. According to the CBC, Canada in the summer is just too hot for these African elephants, whose natural range consists of large parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
“We’re in the middle of a heat wave and because the crates are made of steel and there’s some radiant heat potentially. Although the aircraft itself is temperature controlled, you know when the animals are on the tarmac and there’s clearance and so on that has to go on, just for safety sake we’ve decided that we’re going to look at September,” said Julie Woodyer of Zoocheck Canada.
Then again, even if the elephants were to make it to the runway for their trip down south, there’s no guarantee their plane would be able to take flight. At Reagan National Airport in Washington DC a few weeks ago, the runway got so hot that an airplane’s tires got stuck in the tarmac.
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Who in heaven’s name wrote this? You have not cited the type of plane that got stuck vs the type being used for the elephants; you have not cited the type of material used in each runway; or if the same “stickiness” has happened at the airport to be used in Canada. This article is completely beneath the stature of the Smithsonian.
Comment by Pet Peeves — July 24, 2012 @ 1:32 pm
I agree that this article seems to have been dashed off to meet a deadline, rather than bothering with any follow up on primary sources or even reading properly the sources quoted. The CBC did not say that Canada in summer is too hot for African elephants, they said that it would be too hot for elephants to be confined in metal boxes for extended periods. The throwaway line about getting stuck in the hot tarmac suggests that the whole article is simply a joke, but not a very good one. It’s more like the Smithsonian National Zoo, which puts plastic toys and Halloween pumpkin in animal enclosures and gives elephants harmonicas, than the Smithsonian Institution, which is supposed to be about science.
Comment by WK Lindsay — July 27, 2012 @ 1:35 pm