Captivity

I feel I must respond to your article on Little Mac, the only elephant remaining at the Santa Barbara Zoo. It states that “Little Mac serves as an ambassador for her species, fostering love and admiration,” which you thus conclude will help her species avoid extinction.

We humans have used this justification for years to assuage our guilt over seeing such a remarkable animal in captivity for no other reason than profit. No one asked Mac if she wanted to exchange her freedom to be this so-called ambassador. Would you agree to leave your family and live in a space the size of your bathroom for your entire life so some life form could better appreciate humans?

We need to realize that we do not have a “right” to see an elephant, a whale, a giraffe, etc. We are intelligent enough to support them in the wild and give thanks for the beautiful cosmic miracle that they are. As the saying goes, “Humans aren’t the only species on this planet. We just act like it.”