The Los Angeles Zoo puts an indefinite break on its elephant program and moves its two members of the remaining herd, Billy and Tina, in Oklahoma, where they will live in an elephant habit newly extended to the Tulsa zoo.
The elephant program has been criticized by animal rights defenders for decades due to its small size of enclosure and the history of deaths and challenges of health among its inhabitants.
Celebrities such as dear, Lily Tomlin and the late Bob Baker have already pleaded for Billy – who has been at the Los Angeles Zoo since 1989 – to be transferred to an elephant sanctuary, citing concerns about his mental and physical health in the enclosure. Requests to move it were offered three times by the municipal council.
The Los Angeles Zoo, however, has long defended the quality of care provided to its elephants and has not mentioned any health problems as the reason for relocation, which was announced on Tuesday.
The zoo said that it was currently impracticable to replace the two former members of the herd of Billy and Tina, recently deceased, and that elephants must live in larger social groups, so those responsible have chosen to move them. Jewel, 61, and Shaunzi, 53 were euthanized in 2023 and 2024 respectively, due to health problems which, according to the zoo, were linked to age and not because of their speaker or their care.
“The creation of a wider social herd at the Los Angeles zoo is currently not a viable option due to the limited availability of Asian elephants within the AZA population (seated zoos and aquariums),” the zoo wrote in a press release. “Moving them to Tulsa, another zoo accredited by Aza with an excellent program of elephants, will allow Billy and Tina to continue to receive exceptional care with opportunities to integrate into a larger herd.”
Courtney Scott, an elephant consultant to the organization of animal welfare in the defense of animals, said that she had mixed feelings on the announcement of the Los Angeles zoo.
“I am happy that they do not stop at least and, hope it, ends up putting an end to their elephant program,” she said. “It is very disappointing that they send them to another zoo, especially when you know that there have been years and years of effort through the municipal council to send these elephants to a sanctuary.”
A date has not been set for the moving of elephants, so Angelenos still has the chance to visit the animals of Griffith Park. Billy and Tina will join five other Asian elephants at the Tulsa zoo, which recently expanded their elephant complex to include a barn of 36,650 square feet and a wooded reserve of 10 acres.
In the defense of animals, classified the zoo of the as n ° 1 on its list “10 worst zoos for elephants” for the second consecutive year this year, citing the poor health and social isolation of Billy and Tina.
“The two elephants suffer from serious zoo -related medical problems,” the organization said in its report. “Billy has recurring foot problems – one of the most common causes of death for the elephants in zoos – while Tina suffers from osteoarthritis, joint diseases and decrease access.”
In addition, the organization said, the two elephants have levels of distribution of what they say to be a zoochotic behavior. Billy is often seen in the process of swinging, punctuating and swinging – all the signs of brain damage caused by years of captivity, the organization said.
Scott said the two animals would be better in a sanctuary where they have many hectares to walk openly, rather than in the holder of another zoo speaker.
Billy’s winding is one of the main reasons why the members of the public and the Los Angeles municipal council recommended that it was moved to a sanctuary.
“I cannot overcome Billy’s head. In 2009, the council voted to allow the zoo to finish the exhibition and keep Billy.
The concerns about Billy’s health were again deceived in the Town Hall in January 2018, when the colleague of the colleague, Paul Koretz, pleaded for a motion to move Billy, invoking concerns about his mental and physical health. Koretz tried to advance a similar motion in December 2022, but neither qualified for a full vote.
California Daily Newspapers
