El Paso Zoo To Honor World Elephant Day

The El Paso Zoo will honor World Elephant Day on August 12 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. with a coloring station to help the community become aware of the ongoing ivory crisis in Africa and encourage the community to get involved.

Anyone wanting to help can download the elephant coloring page on the Zoo’s website.

Coloring pages can be dropped off at the El Paso Zoological Society Office or sent to the Zoo Education Office, 4001 E. Paisano Dr., El Paso, Texas 79905 on or before August 5^th.

Earlier this year, the El Paso Zoo signed on with other zoos and conservation organizations to help with a major new conservation effort to help save African elephants. “96 Elephants” seeks to unite a broad based coalition of partners to coordinate and leverage their collective influence, constituencies, and resources to save African elephants from extinction.

Together the coalition aims to secure U.S. legislation that will create a moratorium on ivory sales, raise funds to bolster elephant protection, and educate the public about the link between ivory consumption and elephant killing.

Last month, poachers shot one of Kenya’s most beloved elephants who had giant tusks. Satao was then left to die a painful death were soon after his ivory was savagely removed.

Every day as many as 96 African elephants are being killed for their ivory and the species in the wild could go extinct. People everywhere need to get involved to help save this magnificent animal. African elephants help to maintain savanna and rainforest habitats important to our ecosystem. They are the last surviving relatives of now extinct species of mammoths and mastodons that roamed the earth during pre-historic times.

In addition to coloring a picture of an elephant people can support this new effort by joining the herd at www.96elephants.org.

The zoo is open daily from 9:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. Ticket booth closes at 4 p.m. Admission prices are $6 for 3–12 yrs.; $10 for 13–59 yrs.; $7.50 for 60 yrs. & older; children 2 and under are free; active military and spouse with I.D. $7.50.