What does a zoo do, we wonder, when an elephant gets too old to stay in the zoo? It’s a tricky issue deciding where to send the animal so everyone’s happy. Now, what if the elephant has a history of depression and the elephant-equivalent of PTSD? What then?

That last question is not a hypothetical thought experiment - it’s what the Dallas zoo is wondering right now. Jenny is an elephant that’s had a tough life, The New York Times tells us. She was orphaned, stolen from Africa, shipped to America where she was beaten in the circus, an finally taken in by the Dallas zoo 22 years ago. Now, her latest companion has passed away, and the zoo had made arrangements to send Jenny to another zoo in Mexico, where she would be a part of a five-acre exhibit with another female elephant.

But this decision has rankled some people.

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(*ITOTD = Inconvenient Truth of the Day)

The Bush administration is proposing major (and deeply terrifying) changes changes to the Endangered Species Act. The plan would would allow federal agencies unprecedented degree of discretion to decide on their own- without ANY supervision- if their activities are harmful endangered species and the environment.

Seriously?!

Well,  Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne stands by this plan:  “The existing regulations create unnecessary conflicts and delays.”  I can see why it is annoying to waste time on protecting animals.

“We need to focus our efforts where they will do the most good,” Kempthorne added. “It is important to use our time and resources to protect the most vulnerable species. It is not possible to draw a link between greenhouse gas emissions and distant observations of impacts on species.”

Hmm… Really? In May, the polar bear became the first species declared as threatened because of climate change.

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The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!

TakePart Gang:

35 Million Tons of Toxic Stew by Wendy Cohen

“Waterboard Thrill Ride” Opens At Coney Island by Blair Golson

* * *

Nicole Hughes:

Green Summer Music Tours Not To Be Missed

Eat Your Veggies: Quit Composting in the Fridge

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Andy Kondrat:

Almost Half of Earth’s Primates In Danger of Extinction

Beijing’s Pollution Not Gone, Just Moved Outside of Town

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Jon Popham:

GOP: Drill More Oil Or We’ll Shut Down the Government

Global Warming’s “Sausage Fest” Effect

* * *

Gina Telaroli:

Olympic Flag Bearer for the US: A Champion of  Darfur

Time to Act: Sexual Assault and Women in the Military

I think we were all relatively sure that primate populations around the globe were somewhat in trouble, but a couple days ago a team of experts stated that almost half of all primate species are in danger or extinction, many of them literally being hunted out of existence.

The study, issued by Conservation International, the IUCN wildlife network, and the International Primatological Society (apparently “primatological” is a word now), has found that 90% of species in Vietnam and Cambodia are in serious danger of extinction, where the problem is the worst. From the article on msnbc.com:

‘We’ve raised concerns for years about primates being in peril, but now we have solid data to show the situation is far more severe than we imagined,’ Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International and chairman of the primate specialist group at the IUCN wildlife network, said in a statement announcing the findings.

‘Tropical forest destruction has always been the main cause, but now it appears that hunting is just as serious a threat in some areas, even where the habitat is still quite intact,’ he added. ‘In many places, primates are quite literally being eaten to extinction.’

You can takepart to learn more about primates and their endangeredness from Conservation International.

A few months back, here at takepart we told you the good news that the Department of the Interior listed the polar bear as an endangered species, the first species that is protected due to climate change. Well, it turns out not everyone thought the protection of the Alaskan polar bears was such a good idea. Specifically, the Alaskans.

The Associated Press reports that the state of Alaska is suing Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne (awesome name) to have the ruling reversed to take polar bears off the endangered species list. From the article:

Gov. Sarah Palin and other state officials fear a listing will cripple offshore oil and gas development in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas in Alaska’s northern waters, which provide prime habitat for the only polar bears under U.S. jurisdiction.

In announcing the decision to sue, Governor Palin stated, “We believe that the Service’s decision to list the polar bear was not based on the best scientific and commercial data available.”

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I have a feeling things like this don’t happen very often.

The Wildlife Conservation Society’s gorilla experts say that they’ve found a group of previously undiscovered western lowland gorillas in the Republic of Congo. What makes this news so exciting is that these gorillas are critically endangered. How big is a group do you ask? Well in this case, the group makes up 125,000 gorillas, which is almost double what the worldwide population was thought to be.

It doesn’t get much more awesome than that..

However, there is of course some bad news to report with the excitement.

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The Caribbean monk seal has been declared extinct by the NOAA Fisheries Service after a five-year review of the seals’ endangered status. This is the first type of seal that has gone extinct from human causes, says NOAA biologists, who blame overhunting as the primary cause of the seals’ extinction:

“Humans left the Caribbean monk seal population unsustainable after overhunting them in the wild,” said Kyle Baker, biologist for NOAA’s Fisheries Service southeast region. “Unfortunately, this lead to their demise and labels the species as the only seal to go extinct from human causes.” [ENN.com]

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It’s May 16th, I’m Gina Telaroli and this is TakePart.com’s look at the week in social action…

The Interior Department has decided today to protect the polar bear population under the Endangered Species Act. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne says that polar bears are threatened because the Arctic ice is melting. And faster than we imagined.

This is the first time that the Endangered Species Act has been used to protect a species threatened by the impacts of climate change. But the New York Times reports, this ruling may not have the impact many are hoping for:

But the long-delayed decision to list the bear as a threatened species may prove less of an impediment to industries along the Alaskan coast than many environmentalists had hoped. While further protecting the polar bear from direct or immediate threats — like hunting — the Interior Department added stipulations, seldom invoked under the act, that will make it relatively easy for oil and gas exploration and development activities to proceed.

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There has been lots of bad news regarding natural disasters including the recent earthquake in China (check out Jon’s Takepart blog ). However here is some good news from China: 60 giant pandas, one of the world’s most endangered species, survived the quake.

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