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Price is Right host and animal rights activist Bob Barker sent a high profile letter to the Oregon Zoo demanding that they send Packy to a sanctuary. Packy is an elderly elephant with tuberculosis who has spent his entire life at the zoo.  “After 52 years of service, Packy deserves to be sent to a place where he can enjoy his final years in peace and serenity,” said Bob Barker. During Packy’s recent birthday “celebration,” the animal rights group Free Oregon Zoo Elephants, which campaigned to get Packy elected to the City Council via write-in ballots, staged a protest in front of the zoo.

Elephants want freedom, not cake. Photo: Michael Durham

If social media is any indication, the world is waking up to the plight of captive elephants — intelligent and socially sophisticated animals who are deprived of virtually everything that comes naturally to them in zoos and in circuses, where they are also beaten into submission with bull hooks, confined for up to 100 hours at a time in box cars and forced to perform tricks in exchange for nourishment. Please support Free Oregon Zoo Elephants in their effort to send Packy to a sanctuary.