Please help these elephants

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?winkwand&1

This is a little bit of a stretch for the "pets" forum, but I think it fits...;)

If you haven't heard about this yet, Winky and Wanda are two aged Asian elephants living in the Detroit Zoo. The zookeeper decided that there was no way the Detroit Zoo could provide a good place for Winky and Wanda to live because of the cold climate and the concrete they had to live in (elephants have very sensitive feet subject to many problems if they aren't allowed to walk long distances the way they do in the wild - 25 to 50 miles a day). He decided to let them go to an elephant sanctuary (with thousands of acres to roam).

The accediting association, the American Zoo and Aquarium (AZA) denied his request and said they have to go to the Columbus Zoo. The Columbus Zoo is almost as bad as the Detroit Zoo - nearly as cold, and although there is a three-acre "yard" the elephants can go to, Winky and Wanda will be joining FIVE other elephants that all have to share that space, and most of the time the elephants will be living on concrete inside the elephant barn because of rotating into the yard (they will take turns) and because during the winter that is where they stay. The Columbus Zoo also uses a differnt form of elephant management than Winky and Wanda are used to which involves the use of bullhooks and chains.

In the sanctuary in Tennessee, they will have 24/7 access to THOUSANDS of acres (see www.elephants.com) and won't be subject to any bullhooks.

The AZA is concerned that this will open a floodgate of concern for how animals fare in zoos and doesn't want to acknowledge that a sanctuary is a better place than a zoo, so they are using these poor elephants as political footballs.

Please help Winky and Wanda and sign the above petition and forward it to any compassionate people you know.

Thank you.