Become a Friend Today!

Volunteer/Donate/Share

Be a Friend of Ruth & Emily! We are always looking for volunteers.  Donate your time by visiting the zoo or the park outside of the zoo and photographing the elephants on exhibit. Post and share pictures of the conditions on your social media. Point out how small the exhibit is, the lack of food unless keepers bring out bags of hay. Let your fans know you are a proud member of a group that is trying to rescue Ruth & Emily.

 

If you live in Southeastern Massachusetts or Rhode Island, you can donate your time by attending Friends' events at the park and zoo. We chat with zoogoers and explain why Ruth & Emily deserve to retire. You can find our events on our Facebook wall.

 

Or use our Action letter and email the local school that regularly send students to the zoo on field trips. Encourage them to rethink captivity as teaching children the wrong thing about elephants on purpose.

Click on image to view Ruth swaying then stopping to reach for a small treat in the dirt. It's as if she were ordered to stand on a spot without moving.
Click on image to view Ruth swaying then stopping to reach for a small treat in the dirt. It's as if she were ordered to stand on a spot without moving.
Click on image to view video of Emily holding up her right foot due to pain from an abscess.
Click on image to view video of Emily holding up her right foot due to pain from an abscess.

Veterinary Care for Ruth & Emily

Five veterinarians in seven years. That's how many licensed zoo vets have seen the horrific conditions that Ruth & Emily live in and ignored the obvious: Ruth & Emily live in their own waste for 16 hours each and every day.

 

As a result, they have suffered physical and psychological damage.

 

One vet even testified in federal court that Ruth's and Emily's chronic foot conditions were "a trade-off" for long-term (supposed) benefits of a dirt floor. Seriously, at 58 years and 62 years, their painful foot abscesses are more important. Worse yet, BOTH Ruth & Emily are now limping.

 

For over three years, the Zoo failed to repair the leaking barn roof. That, in combination with the dirt floor, and lack of exercise, led to cankers (hoof rot) for both elephants by 2021.

 

During the current Endangered Species Act lawsuit, we raised funds to offset the cost of depositions, including the cost of deposing the Zoo's most recent veterinarian. We have paused fundraising, but in the event the case goes to trial, we will resume fundraising.

 

THANKS TO OUR FAITHFUL FRIENDS, A  VETERINARY RADIOLOGIST AND THE MOST RECENT CITY VETERINARIAN WERE DEPOSED.

 


On-going Support

Help keep the Friends of Ruth & Emily, Inc. up and running! Signs, printing literature, and equipment cost. So that no one person must fund it all, consider a generall donation of $5, $10 or $20 to offset our costs.