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Lowry Park Zoo Criticized for Elephant Dealings

Tribune file photo by CLIFF McBRIDE

The elephants have a 2.2-acre exhibit and a half-acre rest area, a night house and two outdoor paddocks, a zoo spokeswoman says.

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By BAIRD HELGESON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 7, 2009

TAMPA - A California-based animal rights group has put Lowry Park Zoo on its list of the 10 worst zoos for captive elephants.

In Defense of Animals ranked the zoo No. 10 on the list for its joint effort with the San Diego Zoo to bring 11 elephants from Swaziland in 2003.

At the time, then-Lowry Park Zoo President Lex Salisbury said they were saving the elephants from being destroyed due to overpopulation.

The group contends Swaziland had fewer than 40 elephants at the time in a sprawling 18,000-acre preserve. The group says Salisbury and Larry Killmar, who was with San Diego's zoo at the time, "paid cash-poor nations hundreds of thousands of dollars for elephants" and then brought them to confining displays.

Lowry Park Zoo spokeswoman Rachel Nelson said in a statement that the facility provides the best possible care for its elephants. She noted that In Defense of Animals is critical of the zoo's rescue effort but makes no claim that the animals receive poor care. The elephants have a 2.2-acre exhibit and a half-acre rest area, a night house and two outdoor paddocks, she said.

"The elephants roam freely outdoors year-round throughout their exhibit area, play in mud wallows and swim in a 220,000 gallon watering hole," Nelson said.

The importing of the elephants complied with national and international regulations for endangered species trades, Nelson said.

"It is interesting that animal rights 'advocates,' of all people, suggested that death was a better alternative for these elephants than life in two professionally managed zoos," Nelson said.

In Defense of Animals released the list about a month after the journal, Science, reported that elephants in zoos live dramatically shorter lives than those in the wild.

The list highlights the dangers elephants face in captivity, such as high rates of joint complications, birth complications and infant mortality, the group said.

Recent troubles at Lowry Park Zoo prompted the group to place the facility on the list, even though the animal transfer happened nearly six years ago, said Suzanne Roy, a spokeswoman for the group.

Lowry Park Zoo's board forced Salisbury to resign in December after a city audit found he took at least $202,000 in zoo animals, supplies and resources for his personal property and to help build Safari Wild, his for-profit exotic-animal park in Polk County.

Killmar, who is now the Tampa zoo's director of collections, approved of or knew about many of Salisbury's private transactions.

The Association of Zoos and Aquariums has suspended the zoo's accreditation due, in part, to Salisbury's transferring of zoo animals to his personal ranch and Safari Wild, which is not endorsed by the organization.

Separately, the accrediting body suspended the memberships of Salisbury and Killmar.

The AZA's board will convene in March to decide whether to reinstate Lowry Park Zoo, Salisbury and Killmar.

Reporter Baird Helgeson can be reached at (813) 259-7668.

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