USDA, Other Agencies Alerted to Dire Situation at Commerford Zoo

Today the Nonhuman Rights Project sent letters to local, state, and federal agencies urging them to immediately investigate what the Commerford Zoo has publicly acknowledged is its inability to provide basic care to our elephant client Minnie as a result of the COVID-19 lockdowns.

The NhRP recently learned of an online fundraiser set up by the family that sold Minnie to the Commerford Zoo in 1976. With the authorization of the Commerford Zoo, the GoFundMe page seeks to raise $2.4 million to enable them to meet Minnie’s most basic needs, including food and veterinary care, because COVID-19 has “impoverished the farm that supports them,” which is “in desperate need of support,” according to the fundraiser description. Created over a month ago and having raised only $1,345 to date, the fundraiser states that Minnie “has been directly affected” by the lockdowns: “When the humans cannot work, the animals suffer too.”

Learn more: Read our press release.

How you can help:

• Please share our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn posts to raise awareness about Minnie’s plight.
• Next Thursday we will hold a Twitter Day of Action for Minnie. We’ll send out another email with details on the virtual event soon.
• You can also complete this action alert urging the Commerford Zoo to release Minnie to a sanctuary if you haven’t already done so.

For decades, the Commerford Zoo has profited from the forced labor of elephants. We fight for elephant rights because their lives and freedom shouldn’t depend on the mercy of human beings who refuse to see how their own interests blind them to what elephants actually need. Minnie needs sanctuary now.

Thank you for your support.