Lucy in Captivity – The Ethics of Moving Her

Lucy is one of the world’s most controversial elephants. She lives alone in Edmonton’s Valley Zoo. For year’s activists have tirelessly campaigned to have her moved to a sanctuary where she can live out her life in a warmer climate with other elephants. Elephants are known to be exceptionally emotionally intelligent and social animals. On the other side is the embattled zoo who maintains that Lucy’s health doesn’t allow her to be moved without putting her at serious health risk.

In this weekend’s Globe and Mail, reporter Jana G. Pruden wrote a compelling article that looks at both sides of the issue. As someone who has written letters and advocated to have Lucy moved I thought she did a decent job of at least laying some ground work for discussion between the two very extreme and embattled sides. It’s not easy to do and the Zoo declined to be interviewed for the piece. But still this article outlines the difficulty of the issue on both sides. Have a read.