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ALABAMA

Zoo ranked worst for elephant treatment

BIRMINGHAM -- An animal protection group is protesting the treatment of an aged Asian elephant named Mona, which it says is the most-mistreated zoo elephant this side of Alaska.

The California-based In Defense of Animals placed the Birmingham Zoo atop its list of the 10 worst U.S. zoos for elephants because the 7,900-pound Mona lives alone in an indoor/outdoor enclosure roughly the size of two basketball courts.

Zoo officials say Mona is well cared for, and they dismiss the group as extremists who've never even visited her.

Accreditation standards of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums normally require that zoos have at least two elephants to keep each other company, but the group granted an exception for Birmingham's zoo because of Mona's advanced age, believed to be near 60.

Catherine Doyle, director of the elephant campaign for In Defense of Animals, said elephants are highly social animals that live in herds in the wild, and keeping one in a pen by itself "is cruel and unusual punishment."

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