Holding signs and chanting "Free Packy!", a crowd of more than 40 people packed the Metro Council chamber Thursday, calling for changes to the Oregon Zoo's elephant program.
Many expressed frustration with the zoo's implementation of its 2008 bond program, which called for upgrades to the zoo's elephant habitat. Others said the Oregon Zoo should end its elephant program, as some other zoos in North America have done, and send the herd to a sanctuary.
"Packy has paid his dues," said Portlander Will Windham, referring to the elder elephant born at the Oregon Zoo in 1962. "He deserves a peaceful retirement."
"How would you like to be in house arrest for 52 years?" asked Portlander Bob Bernstein. "Do you think you could endure it? I doubt it. You'd all punk out compared to Packy."
Vancouver resident Ann Radley said she's watched videos of elephants in a sanctuary.
"It's beautiful to watch them step out. I watched elephants have their first swim in a pond, their first swim in a lake, their first roll in the mud. Elephants love to play in the mud," she said. "Their first time dusting with dust, foraging on a hill, foraging through trees, lying down to sleep on a hill baking in the hot sun."
Zoo officials say they're moving closer to that vision as construction moves forward on the zoo's $57 million Elephant Lands exhibit. The new six-acre area, four times the size of the current exhibit, will include ponds, sand and both indoor and outdoor areas.
In an email to Metro News, interim zoo director Teri Dresler addressed the calls to send Packy to a sanctuary.
"There are no plans to send Packy away from his family members at the zoo, where he receives expert care by experienced keepers and vet staff," she said.
Many of the "Packtivists" Thursday called for Metro to expedite its plans for an off-site elephant habitat, and to end the breeding of elephants.
"It is time to end the cruel and costly elephant breeding program, and to provide a spacious multi-acre preserve for the elephants," said Portlander Courtney Scott, a member of Free the Oregon Zoo Elephants.
Dresler said the focus of the zoo's elephant program is to support healthy and active lives for the current elephant family.
"We are committed to using our 50-plus years of elephant research and experience to guide the way we care for elephants – and that includes allowing elephants to be elephants, encouraging natural behaviors similar to those experienced by elephants in Asia, whose habitats are rapidly disappearing due to deforestation and human encroachment," she said.
As for the off-site habitat, that remains a long-term goal of the program, Dresler said.
That's consistent with what was said in 2008, when Metro went to the voters asking for money to upgrade the zoo. Articles in The Oregonian and Willamette Week before the 2008 election said zoo officials called the off-site facility a possibility, not a certainty.
"We continue to conduct necessary due diligence on a potential site in Clackamas County," Dresler said, referring to the former PGE-owned Roslyn Lake area near Sandy. "However, our focus is on bond-funded projects at the zoo, including the 6-acre Elephant Lands habitat set to open next year."
After more than 90 minutes of testimony, universally in favor of overhauling, if not ending, the zoo's elephant program, Metro Councilor Sam Chase said there are varying opinions on what's best for the elephants.
"We need to be taking the best care of them that we can," he said. "We need to be applying the best veterinary care that we can provide, and making sure we're completing a new exhibit.
"The facility we're creating, it creates a better living environment," Chase said. "It's important we look at an off-site facility. We need to make sure it's sustainable. We need to make sure we can provide ongoing funds for that facility."
Note: An earlier version of this story had an incorrect total for the Elephant Lands exhibit's cost. The project is expected to cost $57 million. This version has been corrected.