Sunday: Major Rally for Jenny the Elephant at Dallas Zoo

Dallas, Texas—Scores of concerned citizens from the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex area will gather in force on Sunday in opposition to the Dallas Zoo's decision to send its lone surviving elephant, Jenny, to a Mexican drive-through tourist attraction. The rally is sponsored by the Dallas organization Concerned Citizens for Jenny, and the international animal advocacy and rescue organization In Defense of Animals (IDA), both of which advocate sending Jenny to The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee.

What: Save Jenny Rally & Press Conference
When: Sunday, July 27, 1 P.M. to 2 P.M.
Where: Lawn at the front entrance of The Dallas Zoo (by the Giraffe Statute)
650 South R.L. Thornton Fwy, Dallas, Texas 75203

Attendees will include members of IDA, Concerned Citizens for Jenny, Concerned Families for Jenny and SMU Students for Jenny displaying a colorful banner and Save Jenny posters.

The zoo faces increasing international opposition to its plan to send Jenny, a high-risk elephant who requires special care, to the Africam Safari Park in Puebla, Mexico instead of The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. Jenny has a history of severely aberrant behaviors, including self-mutilation and aggression, and has been medicated long-term with the tranquilizer Acepromazine. Elephant experts are concerned that she will suffer additional trauma and revert to dangerous, self-destructive behaviors if sent to the drive-through safari park where she will be exposed to the very same conditions that triggered her aberrant behavior in the past, including vehicles, loud sounds and increased activity.

"Jenny is one of the most at-risk elephants in the country, and the zoo plans to send her to one of the most inappropriate places possible for this elephant," said IDA's president, Elliot M. Katz, DVM. "The zoo's decision to dump Jenny in Mexico, where she will lose the protections of U.S. animal welfare law, has everything to do with zoo politics and nothing to do with this elephant's long-term well-being."

Although the Dallas Zoo initially claimed that Jenny would share a 4.9 acre habitat at Africam with other elephants, it was later revealed that the facility houses only Asian elephants, a different species from Jenny who hails from Africa, and that the 4.9 acre yard is subdivided into smaller lots. By contrast, The Elephant Sanctuary offers Jenny a 300-acre, naturalistic habitat and the company of three other African elephants.

Photographs and video of The Elephant Sanctuary are available at www.elephants.com.