USDA Complaint Filed: Six Flags Elephants Left Without Shade in Extreme Heat

This summer, aerial imagery obtained by World Animal Protection showed something that should trouble anyone who cares about animals: five African elephants, including Joyce, confined to a barren enclosure at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey, with little to no shade from the sun during the blazing heat of summer.

That's not a minor oversight. It could be a violation of federal law.

What the Imagery Shows

The elephant enclosure at Six Flags is small, sparsely vegetated, and largely without functional shade structures. There's a barn on site, but a barn isn't a substitute for shade during the day, when elephants need it most. Jackson, New Jersey summers are hot and humid—temperatures reached 103 degrees this past July—and African elephants are physically unequipped to handle that kind of heat without help.

Elephants don't have functional sweat glands. They regulate their body temperature primarily through evaporative cooling: wetting their skin through bathing, spraying, and mud-wallowing, and by actively seeking out shade. In the wild, elephants choose their habitat partly based on where shade is available, and as temperatures climb, they shift their behavior—resting more, feeding less, prioritizing shade and water over almost everything else. Without the ability to do that, elephants face real risk of heat stress and sunburn.

Six Flags’s elephant enclosure, based on what we documented, doesn't appear to give Joyce and the other elephants that option.

World Animal Protection Files Federal Complaint

World Animal Protection has formally requested that the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) investigate Six Flags Theme Parks Inc. for an apparent violation of the Animal Welfare Regulations—specifically 9 C.F.R. § 3.127(a), which requires that animals kept outdoors be given sufficient shade, natural or artificial, whenever sunlight is likely to cause overheating or discomfort.

This isn’t the only concern: These elephants are already living in a fraction of the space they'd need to express natural behavior—the kind of space-dependent activity that drives most elephant behavior in the wild, from foraging to choosing social partners. And in winter, the same animals are confined to that small barn to escape New Jersey’s freezing temperatures. Extending the amount of time they're forced indoors to avoid summer heat would only compound the harm.

We've asked APHIS to ensure the elephants are provided adequate shade immediately, and to assign a complaint number so we can track the agency's response.

Joyce Doesn’t Belong at an Amusement Park

Joyce has spent years of her life inside an enclosure built for entertainment, not for elephants. A roadside shade structure and a public complaint won't fix that. What will help her is getting Joyce and the rest of the herd to an accredited sanctuary, where they can access the space, social structure, and environmental complexity elephants actually need to thrive.

Six Flags has the ability to make that decision. We're asking the company to make it.

Take Action for Joyce

You can help turn up the pressure on Six Flags right now. Visit FreeJoyce.org to urge Six Flags to retire Joyce and the other elephants to a reputable sanctuary where shade, space, and a better life are the baseline, not the exception.