What foot will the Valley Zoo dance on today?  Will it be, “Lucy is too sick to be moved”? or will it be, “Lucy is doing well in our care”?  The contradictory replies seriously erode the zoo’s credibility.  Just how well or poorly is Lucy doing?

To answer this question, the zoo needs only to accept the inspection of an independent veterinary.  But the zoo steadfastly refuses any outside assessment of Lucy’s condition.  If the zoo has Lucy’s best interests at heart, as they claim, then why stonewall all outside attempts to help Lucy?

The city’s 2005 Valley Zoo master plan states that the zoo wants to stay in the elephant business because “Lucy is a zoo icon, the zoo would lose its cause celebre for fundraising and the zoo would lose attendance.”  Lucy in Edmonton, although sick and in pain, is better for the zoo than Lucy recovering in a sanctuary.

Lucy has given Edmontonians many happy moments.  It is time that Edmontonians returned the favour and retired Lucy to a warm place where she can roam freely, in acres of grassland, streams and forest, with others of her kind.

P. J. Armstrong