What’s the fuss? Inadequate space for elephants, polar bears and condors; archaic plumbing; and inadequate classroom space for the kiddies.
What’s the fix? Metro wants to pass a $125 million levy to make more room for elephants and polar bears. That’s about 9 cents per $1,000 of assessed value, or about $18 per year for a house assessed at $200,000.
Here’s the deal: People love the
Many came to look at the marquee exhibits, such as the elephants and the polar bears. In the wild, these animals have ranges of tens, even hundreds of miles. But in Portland, they’re packed in like laborers in a Mumbai shantytown.
Metro, which manages the zoo, wants to enlarge and modernize areas for both animals, as well as upgrade the hippos’ water delivery and filtering system. The biggest chunk of the $125 million price tag (about $31.5 million) would be spent on elephant habitat and possibly, although not certainly, acquiring offsite sanctuary space for the popular pachyderms.
Our concerns are twofold. First, it’s a lot of money. Think about it. The zoo wants to spend about $4.5 million for each of its seven elephants. You’d be hard-pressed to find a single West Hills mansion costing $4.5 million, let alone seven of them. So while the cost per household of this measure may seem like peanuts, the total expenditure is not. And frankly, supporters failed to make a persuasive case that they had carefully considered the costs when they visited our office.
Far more important, however, is this: There is a movement across the country to close elephant exhibits in zoos, out of the belief that the animals are too large and intelligent and need too much space to be kept in zoos. The Bronx, Detroit and Philadelphia zoos have already taken this momentous step. So have San Francisco and Chicago. And Dallas joined the herd this past summer.
Yet Portland, which has long marketed its zoo on the shoulders of elephants, wants to use this measure to put gold-plated shackles on the status quo. While this bond measure includes some money that might be spent on acreage for elephants away from the zoo—and therefore address the issue of inadequate space—it’s not enough of a commitment to satisfy us.
Stop wasting taxpayer money's
on a waste of our resources.
House people not elephants!!!
Thank you for adult thinking on this measure.
I agree with you 100%. We have a problem, though, if the measure doesn't pass and the zoo decides to keep the elephants. There's no indication they'll get rid of the elephant exhibit. So if we want to protect the elephants, having them stay in terrible conditions is not the answer, either.
If this measure read, "Give us this money or we get rid of the elephants," I'd vote no in a heartbeat. But it's harder for me to do so when I know they're going to be stuck at the zoo.
Second of all, I volunteer at the Oregon zoo and we treat our animals just like we would if they were our own pets. We love them, feed them on a regular basis, etc. We would do anything for our animals.