Best get used to Jenny the elephant talk, as the fait accompli -- sending the 22-year resident of the Dallas Zoo to a drive-through zoo in Mexico -- is now anything but. Angela Hunt's making her case for the Tennessee sanctuary in a News op-ed this a.m.: "This debate is about what is best for Jenny, a unique animal that has given our city so much and to whom we now owe a duty of care and protection." There she was again on WFAA-Channel 8 last night, along with other sanctuary supporters -- and Zoo director Greg Hudson, freshly returned from giving the Africam Safari an inspection and a thumbs-up. He does the same thing in The News this morning. (Which is the second glowing piece about Africam in The News in three days, with none about The Elephant Sanctuary featured on 20/20 Friday.)
Ah, but it's not just a local shooting match anymore: Yesterday it went national courtesy three minutes' worth of back and forth on Fox News. On America's Newsroom, Margaret Morin of Concerned Citizens for Jenny and Sean Greene, the Dallas Zoo's director of community relations, squared off for a few minutes, with Bill Hemmer acting as shocked -- shocked -- moderator. The video is after the jump, but Greene, like Hudson in The News story, touts Association of Zoos and Aquariums accreditation in Mexico, which elephant advocates insist means less than nothing, especially for an elephant that's been as heavily tranquilized and historically traumatized as Jenny over the past 13 years, at least. Course, we could all do as The News commands and shut up already. --Robert Wilonsky
