Childrens Rides on Tubercular Elephants -- "Care" of Elephants

At Southwick's Zoo in Massachusetts a second elephant used for children's rides has died of tuberculosis. My letter to the Zoo president follows:
Dear Ms Justine Brewer,

I was saddened by the death of the elephant named Dondi by her owners at Southwick's Zoo, and more so because she is the second elephant to die of tuberculosis at your facility. First, it's upsetting that the Zoo continued to use elephants for children's rides after the first elephant died of TB, highly transmittable to humans. Since it's difficult to tell whether elephants have TB, since TB is highly contagious to elephants and humans, and since one had already died would it not have been the better part of sense to stop the children's rides after the first death?

In general can you please consider another approach to the use of elephants? Ask yourself whether they are treated, in effect, as prisoners forced to perform not only rides with nervous children and no breaks, but degrading circus tricks for their food and shelter. It's indisputable that elephants are intelligent, sensitive and social creatures who, as captives, suffer continuously from being in the kind of inadequate and artificial environments you provide.

The elephant who died was named "Dondi" by her human owners. She had another and more valid identity to the other elephants in her life at the time and formerly. We haven't yet tried to know what may be the true identities of these beings who are as much individuals as humans are. Certainly consideration of their needs and respect for their lives needs to be the foundation of our relationship with them. Humans who make their living by the use of captive animals need to transform from owners to guardians.

A new consciousness is emerging on the earth about the human relationship to animals. Please consider this in your thinking about the web of life without which humans cannot live. Thank you.