Smarties Save Elephants

Turns out elephants don’t only have to worry about hunters after their tusks, they have to worry about trick-or-treaters with chocolate staining their costumes. “The forest habitats of Asian elephants and many other species are being cut down to create more farmland for palm oil,” explained Sheri Horiszny, the Santa Barbara Zoo’s director of animal programs, “which is not good news for the many animals that live in the forests of Indonesia and Malaysia.” If you want to be able to look that gibbon or orangutan in the face the next time you run into one (and you won’t if you don’t do this), it’s recommended you purchase palm oil-free candy or sustainably grown oil. The Santa Barbara Zoo recommends products from Tootsie Roll Industries, which are nearly palm oil free, or those from Nestlé, Kellogg, and PepsiCo, as they use sustainable palm oil. The zoo itself set the standard at last weekend’s Boo at the Zoo event. For more info about these issues, see cmzoo.org/conservation/palmoilcrisis.