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The following letters are in response to the Feb. 12 column "An enormous dilemma."

Better life awaits in Tennessee

Thanks to Jim Kiser, who researched the elephant issue looking at what's best for the elephants, not necessarily the City Council or the Reid Park Zoo.

It would be nice if all those interests coincided, but clearly, they don't.

Let's send the elephants to the Tennessee sanctuary with a chunk of that expansion fund for their upkeep.

The heck with the American Zoo and Aquarium Association and their unenlightened position.

Take a look at the sanctuary's Web site at www.elephants.com/, read about their mission and facilities, and see if you don't think our elephants would be better off living out their lives there.

Camilla Greene

Copy editor and former zookeeper, Tucson

Show Tucson's compassion

Thank you, Jim Kiser, for addressing Tucson's elephant dilemma rationally. No matter what the Department of Parks and Recreation constructs at Reid Park, it cannot provide an adequate environment for elephants.

Instead of spending millions of dollars and taking valuable acreage from our already limited park facilities, let's create a state-of-the-art educational display in what is now the elephants' quarters.

Life-size models of an African elephant and an Asian elephant, each standing separately before a running video of herds in their natural habitat would provide a realistic contrast of how these different species actually live.

Including information about why we no longer have live elephants on display would demonstrate our community's true compassion for animals.

And isn't that the ultimate educational goal of a zoo?

Ruth Beeker

Education professor emerita, Tucson

Education key to good decision

I want to thank Jim Kiser for writing the column and getting out facts about the incredible needs of elephants and the inability of zoos to provide adequately for them.

It has been our experience that when the public is properly educated on the matter and given the facts, they overwhelmingly support transferring the elephants at the zoo to The Elephant Sanctuary.

In fact, most of the 4,000 signatures collected are zoo patrons. Education is the key. Only those people who have gotten just the zoo's misinformation think it's OK to continue keeping elephants on display.

If the public favored keeping the elephants in Tucson, why has the Reid Park Zoo raised less than $20,000 for the expansion project?

Clearly, Tucsonans are not emptying their pockets to keep elephants here.

Nikia Fico

Director, Save Tucson Elephants, Tucson