Elephant Talk
L.A. City Council decides to expand the elephant exhibit at the zoo, but many animal advocates are m
By Perry Crowe
Billy bobs his head. A lot.
"He's dancing," a smiling teenager tells me as I stand outside Billy's home at the Los Angeles Zoo's elephant exhibit.
Fella, that ain't dancing. Seems more of a nervous tic, making his enormous grey body ungulate in sickly repetition.
A little later, a zoo employee leads a group of students to see Billy. The khaki-clad man runs through a series of elephant facts. He hesitates a bit and then addresses the head bobbing. "We're not sure where he picked up that particular trait," the guy says, "but we are trying to break him of it."
Could it be a product of living in captivity? Zoo officials aren't sure, but the state of the elephants' health at the Los Angeles Zoo has been the subject of some controversy for years, and have now inspired some big changes coming to Billy's world.
On April 19, the L.A. City Council approved a nearly $40 million expansion of the L.A. Zoo's elephant exhibit. The plan includes waterfalls and bathing holes and lush greenery spread over 3.7 acres. It's definitely a step up from the current 2-acre exhibit, which is broken into two small enclosures, one of which is Billy's daytime home. And the size of the elephant barn in the city's expansion plan suggests an eventual population of 10 elephants as L.A.'s elephants become a breeding herd, with Billy as the lone bull.
So, maybe the 28-year-old Billy got wind of the city-sponsored pachyderm booty call and that's what's got his head bobbing. He has been alone a long time. Ruby and Gita, Billy's former female roommates at the zoo, have been away from public view for two and a half years.
Removing Ruby and Gita from the general exhibit stemmed from a foot infection incurred by Gita, a common ailment for captive elephants. As Les Schobert, a former curator of the L.A. Zoo and elephant rights advocate, explains to me, with elephants weighing so much, and their space so limited in zoos, they invariably compact the ground in their exhibits, leaving it a hardened slab. It's murder on the feet and legs, cracking the pads of their feet. In addition, elephants tend to poop a lot. In big piles. Which they then walk through. So you've got cracked feet stepping in poo, and pretty soon you've got an infection. Unfortunately for elephants, they have poor circulation to the feet, so they can't fight infections very well. And once the infection hits the bone - known as osteomyelitis - amputation is the only way to stop the spread. So now Gita wears a "boot" full of antibiotics on her infected foot, and everybody hopes for the best - or that she at least won't suffer Tara's fate.
In 2004, employees of the L.A. Zoo found Tara, a 39-year-old African elephant, lying on her side, suffering from heart failure. The zoo euthanized her. During the contentious debate surrounding the zoo's expansion, Bob Barker invoked Tara's sad legacy, saying, "She gave her life for the amusement of man."
But Barker wasn't the only celebrity to weigh in on the subject. Corey Feldman got in on the act. Betty White spoke to the council, urging them to give more space to the elephants, or "babies" as she called them. Granted, White has something of a privileged relationship with L.A.'s elephants, as she recounted her Saturday morning routine of walking the zoo's paths with the elephants before the zoo opened. It sounded like a magic time, a special time shared between man and beast. A sort of "secret, special" zoo.
This idea of secrecy is exacerbated by the zoo's reticence to discuss its policies and procedures. Many activists paint a grim picture of the zoo's director, John Lewis (who didn't return calls for an interview). There is a reoccurring theme of self-righteousness and a lack of transparency when it comes to dealing with the L.A. Zoo.
In a recent NPR radio interview, Lewis says Gita is "spoiled rotten. She's not suffering." When I mention this comment to Melya Kaplan, founder of Voice for the Animals, she says, "That's not a fair comment."
Regarding another of Lewis' remarks, this time that wild elephants only walk as much as they do because they are searching for food - therefore well-fed zoo elephants don't need to walk as much - Kaplan again gets irritated. She likens the situation to feeding a human whose hands are tied.
"Sure, he gets food," she says, "but his body is still restricted. He's not happy!"
And Kaplan doesn't like the city's decision to expand the elephant exhibit rather than send the pachyderms to a sanctuary.
"L.A. is supposed to be a cutting edge city," she says, "and instead we're going backwards."
In 2005 the San Francisco Zoo sent its last elephant to the Performing Animals Welfare Society's 2300-acre sanctuary in Northern California. The Detroit Zoo has sent their elephants to the PAWS sanctuary, as well. Mayor Villaraigosa promised to send L.A.'s elephants there, but that was back when he was running for office.
In August, the mayor called for the city administrative officer, William Fujioka, to investigate L.A.'s elephant situation. Four months later, Fujioka came back with a report recommending the city keep the elephant exhibit. One reason cited was the conclusion made by an "independent veterinarian," saying, "It is unlikely that any other staff or facility could offer a better level of care and management than the elephants receive at the Los Angeles Zoo."
"That's self-serving," says Devin Murphy of Last Chance for Animals. "It doesn't take into account that the elephants only need that level of veterinarian care because the zoo environment isn't healthy for them."
Murphy's group will continue to fight the elephant exhibit expansion, even with the city council having already approved it. One plan of attack is to demonstrate support for a bill moving through the state Assembly. Created by Assemblyman Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys), the bill would criminalize housing elephants in anything less than a five-acre exhibit for up to three elephants with a half-acre added for each additional pachyderm.
The city council is aware of Levine's bill, having recently passed a resolution calling for support of the bill - provided it is amended. The resolution says the bill's space requirements are "arbitrary and not based on scientific research" and calls for the space requirements to conform to those of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, an organization that accredits zoos and used to be run by John Lewis.
Another of the reasons given by Fujioka as to why the elephants should stay in L.A. is because of the potential loss of AZA accreditation. As an accredited zoo, the L.A. Zoo is required to send the elephants to a facility accredited by the AZA. The AZA is currently reviewing the San Francisco Zoo's accreditation after that zoo sent their elephants to the non-accredited PAWS sanctuary.
Last Chance for Animals is also working on acquiring the 75,000 signatures needed to get a citizens' initiative on the ballot and let the people of L.A. directly choose the elephants' fate. Murphy says they currently have about 25,000.
That leaves another 50,000 to go. By my count, that's about the same number of times Billy bobs his head a day.Published: 05/18/2006
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