Dancing elephant statue stays, says Calgary Zoo

The Calgary Zoo said it has no plans to remove a dancing elephant statue after a complaint from a Christian group that it's an inappropriate religious icon.

A private donor gave the statue, modelled after the Hindu god Ganesh, to the zoo in 2006 to stand in front of the Asian elephant exhibit.

Concerned Christians Canada sent a letter raising its concerns that the statue was "selective religious partiality" to the zoo.



"A lot of people are saying we're being intolerant. I don't consider asking that the zoo look at this from a balanced perspective being intolerant," said national chairman Jim Blake on Friday.

Zoo officials said the three-metre-tall statue has no religious symbols and is meant to simply show the link between elephants and Asian culture.

"Our desire in putting the statue here was to demonstrate to our visitors the connection between cultures and animals, much like the same way the bald eagle for example depicts the American culture, the lion Britain, the beaver Canada," explained Grahame Newton, the zoo's director of corporate services.