Today's Stories

August 2 / 3, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
Who's Really Running Iraq?

Winslow T. Wheeler
Is the King of Pork Dead?

Brian Cloughley
Baleful Imperial Power

Robert Fantina
Redefining Progress in Iraq

Fatemeh Keshavarz
What Qualifies "Them" for the Death Sentence?

Harvey Wasserman
Meet the Real Terrorists of the 1960s

David Macaray
Labor, Management and the Adversarial Relationship

August 1, 2008

Jonathan Cook
Palestinians Face Home Demolitions Spree by Israel

Nikolas Kozloff
McCain's Mad Dog Advisor Max Boot

Rannie Amiri
Islamobamaphobia: a New Word Enters the Lexicon

Peter Morici
U.S. Economy Loses Another 51,000 Jobs

Christopher Brauchli
South Dakota's Abortion Fairy Tale

M. K. Bhadrakumar
Coup in the Great Caspian Play

Patrick Cockburn
Turkish Court Says Ruling Islamic Party Can't be Shut Down

James J. Brittain
The Continuity of FARC-EP Resistance in Colombia

Dan Bacher
Warren Buffett, Salmon Killer

Website of the Day
Shark Genocide: 100 Million Deaths a Year

July 31, 2008

Michael Hudson
The Next Big Bail Out: State, Local and Private Pensions

Carl Finamore
Protest Politics and the Democrats: A Street Protester Looks Back at 1968

Mike Whitney
What's Going on in Afghanistan

Joshua Frank
Obama's Green Coal: Another Myth from the Change Agent

Andy Worthington
The Peculiar Case of Jarallah al-Marri

Ralph Nader
The Living Legacy of Rosa Parks

Bill Moyers /
Michael Winship
The Wave of Capitol Crimes

Robert Weissman
The Collapse of the WTO Talks

Dave Lindorff
Bush Judge Does the Right Thing on Executive Immunity

Website of the Day
Perils of the New Pesticides

July 30, 2008

Brian M. Downing
Assessing the Surge

Chuck Spinney
Should Obama Escalate the War in Afghanistan? A Thought Experiment

William S. Lind
Why McCain is Wrong on Iraq

David Ker Thomson
Against Bike Lanes

Karl Grossman
Nuclear-Powered Amphibious Assault Ships?

Mike Whitney
Apocalypse Down Under

Martha Rosenberg
Heifer Palooza

James Murren
Where Your Life is Worth One Bullet

Dave Lindorff
The Impeachment Hearing

Ron Jacobs
A Conspiracy to Kill Iraqis?

Website of the Day
Mapping Job Loss to China

July 29, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
King of the Hill Indicted! Ted Stevens' Empire of Corruption

John Ross
Return of the Gunboat

Peter Morici
When Will Henry Paulson Learn?

Alison Weir
Israeli Strip Searches

Gary Leupp
"Bewilderment and Confusion on the Left?"

David Macaray
The Calculus of Union Strikes

Brenda Norrell
Censored in Indian Country

Marjorie Cohn
End the Occupations: Of Iraq and Afghanistan

Eric Ruder
A New Consensus on Iraq?

Website of the Day
"If You Could See Me Now ... "

July 28, 2008

Dr. Bryant Welch
Torture, Political Manipulation and the American Psychological Association

Kathy Kelly
Pictures from Summer Camp on the West Bank

Mike Whitney
Bad News and Bank Runs

Peter Morici
Spreading Layoffs, Sagging GDP

Christopher Brauchli
Death by (Power) Surge in Baghdad

Clifton Ross
The Spectacle and the Movement in Colombia

Stephen Lendman
The Bush Administration's Secret Biowarfare Agenda

Website of the Day
Stone's Dubya: the Trailer

July 26 / 27, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
How Bush is Wiping Out McCain

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Politics of Alaskan Oil Spills

James G. Abourezk
The Surge Has Worked?

Joseph Nevins
Death as a Way of Life on the Borderlands

Uri Avnery
What's Driving the Jerusalem Attacks

Linn Washington, Jr.
Politics and Injustice in Philadelphia

David Yearsley
Sodomy, Snuff Scenes and the Berlin Opera

Binoy Kampmark
Socializing Losses: Bailing Out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Saul Landau
Truth in Comedy: Stop Whining It's All in Your Head!

Joshua Frank
Big Sky Rebels

Brendan Cooney
Europe's Hypocrisy

Jonathan Cook
Settlers Eye Historic Jerusalem Neighborhood

Robert Fantina
McCain, Iraq and the Campaign

Lee Sustar
Will the US Get Its Way with Iran?

Michael Winship
The Company We Keep

David Macaray
Organized Labor Makes a Convenient Target

Missy Beattie
Pelosi's Panhandling

Robert Weissman
The Scourge of the IMF

Kim Nicolini
Batman and the Old Order

Poets' Basement
Orloski, Ford and McEnteer

Website of the Weekend
Bad Hoosiers

July 25, 2008

Harvey Wasserman
NRC: New Nukes Not Ready for Prime Time

Paul Craig Roberts
Are You Ready for the Facts About Israel?

Alan Farago
Where's the Outrage?

Paul D'Amato
The Arrest of Radovan Karadzic and the Selective Prosecution of War Crimes

Gary Leupp
War With Iran? State Dept. Realists vs. Cheney's Ultras

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Eyes Wide Shut in India

Mike Whitney
Obama Dazzles Old Europe, While McCain Cries, "No Mas!"

Paul Krassner
Inside Camp Mogul

Mike Roselle
All Hail Nero!

Website of the Day
Pressing Starbucks

July 24, 2008

Greg Moses
Who Killed Azem Hajdari?

Andy Worthington
Folly and Injustice: Salim Hamdan's Guantanamo Trial

James Bovard
Daniel Ellsberg's Lessons for Our Time

Joe Bageant
Life in the Post-Political Age

George Wuerthner
Boondoggle in the Fields

DC Larson
Shutting Out Ralph Nader

William Willers
The Forest Products Industry in Public Education

David Macaray
On the Prospects for a SAG Strike

Website of the Day
Pacifica Radio Archive of 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago

July 23, 2008

Winslow T. Wheeler
An Air Force in Free Fall

Paul Craig Roberts
The Mother of All Messes

Ralph Nader
Pavlov's America

Mike Whitney
Visualizing Dow 6,000

Susie Day
Senator Sicko: Jesse Helms and the Theatre of the Depraved

Website of the Day
"A Kinder and Gentler Machine-Gun Hand..."

July 22, 2008

Nikolas Kozloff
Ten Years On, Bolivarian Revolution at Crossroads

Patrick Cockburn
Boost for Obama Over Iraq Withdrawal

Soldz, Olson, Reisner Arrigo and Welch
Torture After Dark

Moshe Adler
Everyone Must Share, Not Just Charlie Rangel

Martha Rosenberg
Protecting Bones from Drugs that Protect Bones

Dan Bacher
Bechtel and the Big Dig

Harvey Wasserman
Is Gore Inching Toward Solartopia?

Anthony Papa
A Slugger's Drug Redemption

Binoy Kampmark
Mad Over Benedict

Website of the Day
Hiroshima: A-Bombed Objects

July 21, 2008

Ishmael Reed
Remnick's Latest Blunder

Mike Whitney
The Democrats are the Real Problem

Andy Worthington
Dictatorial Powers Upheld: the Meaning of the Al-Marri Decision

Scott Pellegrino
Should "Meet the Press" Desegregate?

John Ross
McCain Crosses the Border, Gets No Satisfaction

Robert Weitzel
Blowback Through the Looking Glass

Mike Stark
I was Spied on by the Maryland Police

Website of the Day
Pinky Solves the Illegal Immigration Crisis

July 19 / 20, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
It's a Dull Race

Jeffrey St. Clair
How to Beat a Mining Company: Why a Gold Goliath Threw in the Towel

Dave Lindorff
I Was a Victim of the TSA

Saul Landau
Obits for Opposites: Carlin and Helms

Ron Jacobs
Why Afghanistan is Not the Good War

Uri Avnery
Different Planet:the Israel / Hezbollah Prisoner Swap

Neve Gordon
The Untold Story of Ni'lin

Roane Carey
Dr. Benny and Mr. Morris

Robert Fantina
Ashcroft, Torture and the U. S.

Christopher Brauchli
The General Lied

Fred Gardner
Cannabinoid Researchers Won’t Take the High Road

David Macaray
Labor Unions and the Courts

Richard L. Hutto
The Ecology of Severely Burned Forests

Bill Moyers /
Michael Winship
Mother's Milk of Politics Turns Sour

Ronnie Cummins
Netroots Nation or Nation of Sheep?

David Yearsley
Opera and Globalization

Alison McKenna
A Close Call for Medicare

Wajahat Ali
The Dark Knight Ascends

Poets' Basement
Ko Un

Website of the Day
What If Edward Said Had Told This Joke?

July 18, 2008

Corey D. B. Walker
A Kinder, Gentler Imperialism?

Mike Whitney
Swan Song for Fanny Mae

Robert Bryce
Iran Rising

Mike Roselle
Ed's Chicken: Fighting King Coal in Appalachia

Bouthaina Shaaban
U. S. to Mandela: Happy 90th and You're No Longer a Terrorist

Eve Spangler
The Deaths of Children

Website of the Day
Lowbagger Needs Your Help

July 17, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
Airport Gestapo

James G. Abourezk
Big Oil's Raid on the Great Plains

Ralph Nader
D. C. Socialists Save Crashing Capitalists

Allan J. Lichtman
Conservative Denial

Andy Worthington"Screwed Up" and"Abused": Omar Khadr's Interrogations at Gitmo

Ronnie Cummins
Move Over MoveOn

July 16, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
Star Whores: How John McCain Doomed Mt. Graham

Paul Craig Roberts
War Crimes Paradox

Conn Hallinan
To the Edge in the Middle East

Dave Lindorff
Torture for Torturers?

William S. Lind
Running the Narrows in Iraq

Christopher Brauchli
Sweepstakes Politics

Website of the Day
History of Iraqi Art

July 15, 2008

Michael Hudson
Why the Bail Out of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae is Bad Economic Policy

Brian Cloughley
Iran's Missile Tests

Patrick Cockburn
Sadr's Militia May Live to Fight Another Day

John Ross
Crunchtime for Mexico's Oil

Howard Lisnoff
When Torture Was Practiced on U. S. Soil

Website of the Day
Rachel Corrie Soccer Tournament

July 14, 2008

Uri Avnery
Will Israel and / or the US Attack Iran?

Paul Craig Roberts
Enabling Tyranny

Trish Schuh
Talking to Iran's Only Jewish Member of Parliament: an Interview with Morris Motamed

Patrick Cockburn
Immunity in Iraq

Mike Whitney
Betancourt Unbound

Alan Farago
Will Miami's Cubans Vote Blue?

Seth Sandronsky
Taxing U. S. Stocks and Bonds

Phyllis Pollack
Stones Paint It Black

Website of the Day
Our Pal in Butte, Jackie Corr, RIP

July 12 / 13, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Lock and Load--It's the Law!

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Origins of the Western Greens

James Abourezk
Talking World War III Blues: From Dylan to Iran

Nicole Colson
The Ethanol Scam

Stan Cox
Fixing a Broken Agriculture

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Is There an Oil Shortage?

Wajahat Ali /
Omid Safi
The Future of Iran: an Interview with Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi

John Stauber
There May be a Left, But is it Moving? An Interview with David Sirota

Alan Farago
The Crash of the King of Liquidity

Missy Beattie
Dark Neighborhoods

Robert Fantina
Bush's Last Yes Man: Canada, Guantanamo and Yankee Poodles

Rannie Amiri
Mubarak Hires the Mosque

Gregory Kafoury
After the Obama Betrayal

Fran Shor
The Audacity of Hype

Martha Rosenberg
Why Heifer International is Rolling in Dung

David Macaray
Will There be an Actors Strike?

Andrew Wimmer
No Lies! No War!

Ron Jacobs
They Call Me the Seeker

Farzana Versey
The Kashmir Chiaroscuro

Kim Nicolini
Angelina Jolie's Wanted: Taking the M-Fers Down with Guns and Exploding Rats

Poets' Basement
Wright, Fleming, Solomon and Birnbaum

Website of the Weekend
Parsing Jesse Ventura

July 11, 2008

Kevin Alexander Gray
Why Does Barack Obama Hate My Family?

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Historical Amnesia and the Shoot Down of Iran Air Flight 655

Peter Morici
Breaking Down the Trade Deficit

Mike Whitney
Worse Than McCain?

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Oiling the War Machine

Robert Weissman
Crime, Punishment and ExxonMobil

Ramzy Baroud
The Not-So-Historic Barak-Talabani Handshake

Kelly Overton
If There is a Chimp Heaven

Adrian Burgos
In Praise of Jules Tygiel

Website of the Day
Wendell Berry on Mountaintop Removal

July 10, 2008

Brian McKenna
McCain's Melanoma Cover-Up

Paul Craig Roberts
Watching Greed Murder the Economy

Saul Landau
Mississippi River Blues

Ron Jacobs
Who Will Leave Iraq First?

Joshua Frank
Cutting Deals with Big Timber's Darth Vader

Peter Morici
What's Driving the Wall Street Rout

Alan Maass
Jesse Helms Finally Does the Right Thing

Robert Weissman
Humanitarian Failure at the G8

William Blum
Dr. Strangelove

Alan Farago
Coral Reef Meltdown

Website of the Day
Lieberman Must Go!

July 9, 2008

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Are They Really Oil Wars?

Luis Rodriguez
The Deadly Fallout from Gang Injunctions

Sheldon Richman
What's Wrong with Selling Your Vote?

Fatemeh Keshavarz
Lessons from Sa'di of Shiraz on"Enhanced Interrogation Techniques"

Chad Hanson
Blowing Smoke: Logging Industry Lies on Forest Fires and Climate Change

Sen. Russ Feingold
The Problems with the FISA Bill

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Defining Deviancy Down with FISA

Dave Lindorff
Paul Krugman's Blind Spot

Stanley Heller
A Damned Good Assembly

Philip Rizk
Sick at the Gaza Crossing

Website of the Day
Mumia on Nader

July 8, 2008

Nikolas Kozloff
Riding the Colombia Gravy Train

Laura Carlsen
North America Doesn't Exist: the New Geography of Trade

Mike Whitney
Bush's Rampage in Somalia

Andy Worthington
Scandal at Diego Garcia

Patrick Irelan
The Empire Goes to the Movies

Chellis Glendinning
The Un-tied States of America

David Macaray
A Union Story

Dave Lindorff
Mumia's Long-Shot Appeal

John Chuckman
The Myths of Independence Day

Phillip Doe
FISA and the Decline of America

Website of the Day
Daniel Ellsberg on Warrantless Wiretap Bill

July 7, 2008

Patrick Bond
Can Reparations for Apartheid Profits be Won in US Courts?

Kathy Kelly
Cold Shoulders

Andy Worthington
Repatriation as Russian Roulette

Clifton Ross
A Rescue Staged for the Screen

Elizabeth Schulte
Obama's War Room

Ralph Nader
The Patriotism of Deeds

Dave Lindorff
Keeping Count

Binoy Kampmark
The World According to Jesse Helms

Stephen Fleischman
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Change

Website of the Day
Time for a Change

July 5 / 6, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Could Anyone be"Worse" Than Bush?

Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank
Preliminary Notes from No Man's Land

Patrick Cockburn
Blowback from a Strike on Iran

Mike Whitney
Hunkering Down in Afghanistan with Field Marshall Obama

Robert Fantina
Obama, Iraq and Change

Binoy Kampmark
The Anwar Case: Snitching and Sodomizing

Rannie Amiri
Can Nasrallah Unite Lebanon?

Eric Ruder
Hidden Casualties

Brian Cloughley
Israel Flexes Its Muscles

William Blum
Some Thoughts on Patriotism

Frank Barat
The One-Word Solution

Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Phony Pollution Accounting

David Yearsley
Rubbert Shines, as US Envoy Puts Foot in His Mouth

Ron Jacobs
U. S. Blues

Karim Makdisi
On Soccer and Politics in Lebanon

Wendy Thompson /
Chris Kutalik
What Can We Learn from the American Axle Strike?

N. D. Jayaprakash
The NPT as a Roadblock to Disarmament

Ramzy Baroud
Journalistic Imperatives

Kelly Overton
Animal Rights and Obama

Richard Neville
Bitch Fights and Tomorrow's Top Model

Poets' Basement
Anderson, Gibbons, Matson and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
Ginsberg and Cassady on"Extremists"

July 4, 2008

Kathy Kelly
Istiklal

Dave Lindorff
My War Story

Paul Krassner
Confessions of a Barista

Jackie Corr
In the Footsteps of Evel Knievel: Obama Heads Back to Butte

Laray Polk
Military-Industrial Convergence

Dan Bacher
Dead Runs: Salmon Fishing Banned in Central Valley Rivers

Walter Brasch
The Rocket's Red Glare--May be Chinese

Charles Modiano
Hall of Fame Hypocrisy

Website of the Day
Springsteen: Independence Day

July 3, 2008

Sharon Smith
Exxon's Legal Guardians

Andy Worthington
Another Torture Victim Gets Charged

Laura Carlsen
NAFTA and the Elephant in the Room

Peter Morici
Crisis Grips the Jobs Market

Ramzi Kysia
Breaking Into a Prison

Martha Rosenberg
Mandatory School Milk and the Early Death of Football Players

Anne Landman
Who Really Benefits From Voluntary Codes of Corporate Conduct?

Dave Zirin
Grand Theft Hoops

Kristin Bricker
US Contractor Leads Torture Training in Mexico

Website of the Day
Bush Tours America to Survey Damage from His Presidency

July 2, 2008

Patrick Irelan
Holy Obama

Vijay Prashad
Lunch with Karzai

Brian Cloughley
Sense of Honor, French and US Style

Ralph Nader
Economic Domino Theory

Robert Fantina
General Stupidity: McCain, Obama and Clark

Dave Lindorff
What's So Special About Veterans?

Parvez Ahmed
Obama and Those Pesky Muslim Rumors

Robert Bryce
The Democrats and Off-Shore Drilling

Website of the Day
King Corn: Q&A

July 1, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Two Months Later, Seymour Hersh Strains to Catch Up With CounterPunch

Mike Whitney
Getting to the Heart of America's Economic Crisis: an Interview with Michael Hudson

Douglas Macgregor
Obama's General?

Steven Higgs
Fighting the NAFTA Super-Highway

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo as Alice in Wonderland

Binoy Kampmark
The Global Seed Police

Dave Lindorff
Blood Money Democrats

Roger Burbach
Fighting Food Fascism

Richard W. Behan
The Story Behind George Bush's Lies

Gary Leupp
The McCain Edge Among Voters on Iraq

Website of the Day
Mountaintop Removal and the Fight for Coalfield Justice

Weekend Edition
August 2 / 3, 2008

How a Few Elephants Turned the Zoo Industry Upside Down

Moja Has Mojo

By JASON HRIBAL

Newspapers referred to her simply as “M.”  Was this a key anonymous source?  An unknown serial killer? Or, maybe, a protected crime victim? In actuality, the answer was none of the above. M. was an elephant, who lived at the Pittsburgh Zoo. An eight-year resident, she had just days earlier attacked a handler. Yet, when questioned by the local media, representatives for the park - who on normal occasions are quite verbose if not braggart when discussing their operations - became strangely tight-lipped and would provide only the first initial of the involved animal. Why all of this mystery?

M. stood for Moja. She was born at the San Diego Zoo in May of 1982. Her mother was Wankie, a 23 year old who had spent most of her life in Southern California. It was her first calf, and the birth was considered a triumph. For Moja was a rarity, one of the few African elephants to have been bred successfully in captivity. The zoological profession could not have been more pleased, and it touted the news far and wide. But for Wankie and her calf, the celebration was to be short-lived - as the latter was shipped in October of the following year to the city zoo in Tacoma, Washington. If some readers are thinking that this does not sound like much time for a mother and daughter to spend together, they would be most correct in doing so. Elephants, especially, are affected by such an abrupt separation.  

In pachyderm society, family is everything. Females, for instance, are never alone. Daughters will spend their entire lives with their mothers. These bonds are almost unbreakable, and extend beyond the material world and into the spiritual. Elephants are known to have their own graveyards and complex rituals regarding the treatment of the dead. Visits are made often to these places, and the bones of relatives are touched, caressed, and even carried around. As for male elephants, the maternal bond is equally as strong for the first segment of their lives. But, upon reaching adolescence, males become more independent and begin to venture out from the herd for extending periods of time. Eventually, they never come back and remain solitary - although maintaining friendships with other males is important.  Zoos and circuses, however, do not recognize or value the significance of these relations: familial or otherwise. The majority of calves are removed from their mothers by the age of two, if not sooner.

Wankie, for her part, never saw her calf again. She died in 2005, somewhere in the middle of Nebraska on Interstate 80. The Chicago Lincoln Park Zoo, who then owned the elephant, had sold her to Salt Lake City. Evidently, Chicago’s two other elephants, Tatima and Peaches, had just died of mycobacteriosis (a disease causing lameness). Wankie was also infected and dying. Local citizen groups wanted her taken to the sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee. Park officials, however, denied the request. Instead, they sent Wankie on a 1400 mile trip in the back of an unheated semi-trailer. With temperatures dipping below freezing and attendants bickering about whether or not to place a tarp over her crate, Wankie collapsed. She did not get up. Was Moja in her final thoughts?

Back at the Tacoma Point Defiance Zoo, Moja stayed until her sixth birthday when she was sold to a private contractor. Thus began her life in the circus industry. Interestingly, she spent at least one season working alongside Tyke and Elaine for Circus International. She was, in fact, backstage for the infamous 1994 Honolulu performance, wherein Tyke killed her trainer, escaped into the city streets, and was shot to death by police. That trainer was none other than Moja’s current owner: Allen Campbell. Following the incident, the Pittsburgh Zoo stepped forward and offered to purchase the performer. The proposal was accepted, and Moja was shipped to Pennsylvania. 

We would not hear from Moja again until the new millennium. The first time was in late 2000. Moja had given birth to a calf eleven months previous, and baby Victoria, as she was named, was preparing to observe her birthday. She would be the first US-born African elephant to survive beyond the age of one since 1985. The next time Moja made the news was in November of 2002. She and Victoria were being led on an early morning walk, when the pair decided to make an unscheduled stop outside of a zoo café. Their handlers did not approve, for any pauses or alterations in the routine were not allowed. Hence, one of them commanded with a raised voice and brandished bull-hook that the two elephants had better move along. Moja and Victoria refused. At some point in the escalating argument, the mother had enough. She knocked the handler down and crushed him. She and her calf then walked away from the scene. Panicking, the zoo alerted city police. Officers arrived and encircled the park, and the Special Weapons and Tactics team fortified the main entrance. In the end, though, this show of force was not needed - as Moja and Victoria were soon boxed in by an assembly of vans and trucks and led back to their enclosure.

The zoo seemed to be at a loss about the attack. Such events, it claimed, were “relatively rare” and “largely unexplained.” The head of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association’s elephant advisory committee added, “I can’t say what would cause the elephant in Pittsburgh to do what it did. It’s very unlike females to behave like that.” One park administrator even pointed out that M. was the zoo’s most docile elephant and a model of subordinate behavior. “She’s never threatened anybody. She’s never postured to anybody.” This last statement, however, was almost immediately proven to be false - as a confidential informant leaked out new information to the press. Ten months previous, M. had injured another trainer during a similar morning walk.

When confronted about the apparent lie, the zoo confirmed that such an incident did occur but that it was “nonaggressive.” M., a spokeswoman clarified, got into a wrestling match with another elephant, and her trainer was knocked over during the fight. This was inadvertent, and the man suffered nothing more than a bruised leg. Was the zoo finally telling the truth? No. For the melee not only left the employee with a severe leg injury and collapsed lung, but this former elephant trainer for the Ringling Brothers Circus was unable to work for three months. Moreover, when he did return to the job, he refused to ever handle another elephant again. The accident was, in his mind, no accident. It did not matter what the zoo said. He knew differently. Moja had injured him on purpose, and the smart move was to avoid all future contact with these animals. Precedent, it seems, was on his side.

Consider, for instance, the case of Shanti at the Brookfield Zoo in suburban Chicago. In February of 1994, this three-year old, captive-born elephant was being moved out of her enclosure when she and her handler both slipped simultaneously on a slick surface. Shanti’s leg fell upon the trainer and the woman received some moderate trauma. “At no time,” though, “did the animal appear to be aggressive towards the keeper.” This was an unfortunate accident. Well, that was Brookfield’s story and officials stuck to it. But, according to a later lawsuit, events transpired in a far different manner. The young elephant, it was described, had snapped her chains and the trainer was trying to re-secure them. When the women slipped to the ground, she was deliberately stepped on and gored. She suffered several broken ribs, a broken sternum, a collapsed lung, and a deep puncture wound. The zoo, not without retort, argued that these injuries were caused, not by Shanti, but by a pair of pliers that the woman was carrying in her back pocket at the time. The handler, nonetheless, won the lawsuit and affirmed to the press that Shanti was quite the “unruly” elephant. Brookfield evidently came to the same conclusion, as Shanti was sold the following year to a private contractor.

Then there was the case of Alice and Cha Cha at the San Diego Zoo. In 1991, a keeper was killed at the park when struck in the head by an elephant. Zoo biologists quickly determined that a fight had broken out between two elephants, Alice and Cha Cha, and this woman had somehow gotten in the way. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and her death, while tragic, was accidental. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, however, would perform its own investigation. It found out that the experienced handler was actually in the process of training one of the elephants when another approached and struck her. Was this a mistake? Was Alice trying to hit Cha Cha but missed the target? Perhaps a related incident, one which occurred the same year at the Houston Zoological Garden, could provide a clue. Two pachyderms, Indu and Methai, had engaged in a tussle when a handler stepped in and yelled at the pair to stop. Indu turned around and, “like a bolt of lighting,” charged. She slammed the man into a fence and proceeded to butt him repeatedly with her head. The zoo, after the fact, minced no words. Indu, “depressed and aggressive since watching her newborn calf die two months ago,” had assaulted the man. Indeed, OSHA came to the same conclusion about the incident in San Diego: “animal trainer killed when attacked by elephant.”

But to return to Moja and her fate, she was put into isolation immediately following the attack and kept there until further notice. Pittsburg, like other zoos facing similar circumstances, needed to make a choice. Would it transfer Moja to another institution? Would it sell her to a contractor? Would it place her in a sanctuary? Or would it take a chance and keep her? Ultimately, Pittsburg decided on the latter: the zoo would keep the elephant. Its reasoning was coldly straightforward. “This is,” a spokeswoman explained, “a breeding female African elephant. This is an endangered species.” Moja had already given birth to one calf (who survived), and she might give birth to another (and she did exactly that one week ago). Yet, nagging in the back of their minds, park administrators still had several unresolved problems - all of them involving their elephant and her recalcitrant behavior. As one employee summarized, “she may have learned that she can push a human out of her way, and might do so again when irritated.” So what was the zoo’s solution? The answer lay in protected contact.

Known as PC for short, protected contact is a hands-off system of management. Its mission is to keep a physical barrier between the trainer and the elephant at all times. This not only prevents direct contact between the two parties but also lessens the chance of attack and injury. Walls, fences, wire, and bars - not bull hooks and sticks - provide the means of protection under this system. Significantly, the initial development of PC can be traced to the actions of three individual elephants. The first took place in 1988 at the Brookfield Zoo, when Patience knocked a female trainer to the ground, butted against her, and hurled her into a stone wall. The second transpired two years later at the Knowland Park Zoo in Oakland, California. This time, it was Lisa who ended up confronting the same trainer (whom had since relocated to the Bay Area to become the head keeper) and ripped the woman’s finger off in the process. The final event happened in February of 1991, when another Knowland elephant, Smokey, attacked and killed a separate handler. Cumulatively, these actions forced Oakland administrators into making a radical change in their elephant training methods. In June of 1991, Knowland Park would become the first zoo in the country to adopt PC. Others would soon follow suit. Remember Alice and Indu? Well, their respective institutions would put both of them under this new system of management and quickly. Likewise, at the Pittsburg Zoo, Moja’s second act of resistance initiated a new, permanent policy. All park elephants, henceforth, would be placed under protected contact. 

Jason Hribal is the co-author of The Cry of Nature: an Appeal for Mercy on Behalf of Persecuted Animals. He can be reached at: jasonchribal@yahoo.com

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