Report On Elephant Death Angers Animal Advocates

July 22, 2005
Originally published in NCTimes.Com
By: ANDREA MOSS - Staff Writer

Original Article: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/07/23/news/sandiego/14_58_187_22_05.txt

Local animal advocates reacted with anger and disgust this week to a report on the death of a 36-year-old African elephant that spent most of its life at the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park before being sent to Chicago in 2003.

Written by investigators with the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, the report gave heart-rending details of a two-day road trip that was supposed to move Wankie the elephant from Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo to Salt Lake City's Hogle Zoo. The move was carried out after two other elephants that accompanied Wankie to Chicago from San Diego died, leaving the elephant alone.

The latest relocation began April 29 and was supposed to end with the pachyderm joining a new herd at Hogle Zoo. The animal collapsed in its crate en route, though, and ended up being euthanized because it could no longer stand and had trouble breathing upon arrival.

Zoo association investigators identified serious concerns about the way the transfer played out. Even so, they found that Wankie's handlers were not negligent.

After reading copies of the report Thursday, San Diego Animal Advocates spokeswoman Jane Cartmill and Florence Lambert, founder and director of The Elephant Alliance, both questioned the association's ability to be impartial.

Revealing information in the report ---- including a Lincoln Park vet's decision to OK Wankie's shipment three days after the animal was sick with colic and disagreements during the trip over whether the elephant's crate should be covered in cold weather ---- bolster animal welfare groups' position that zoos need to close their elephant exhibits, the women said.

"It isn't the details of Wankie that are disturbing to me so much as the whole concept of this musical chairs, moving the animals around, the breeding frenzy, and this obsession that (zoos) have with keeping the elephants in captivity," Cartmill said. "As (some zoos) are waking up and saying, 'We can't do this,' others are trying harder to raise the number of elephants in captivity."

San Diego Animal Advocates plans to launch a campaign soon aimed at getting the San Diego Zoo to shut down its elephant exhibits, she said.

"It's time for San Diego, it's time for Lincoln Park, it's time for all of the zoos to get on board and to acknowledge that keeping these animals in captivity has been wrong," Cartmill said.

The animal park's mammal curator, however, said San Diego Zoo officials believe the association did a good job of looking into the elephant's death and agree with the report's conclusions.

"We had discussed everything with both AZA and (the U.S. Department of Agriculture), so there was nothing in there that surprised us," said curator Randy Rieches.

What the report does not reflect, he said, is that the Lincoln Park Zoo vet reported, outside temperatures of as low as 27 degrees during Wankie's trip notwithstanding, the air inside the elephant's crate seemed warm whenever it was opened, the curator said. That correlates with growing evidence that heat ---- and not cold ---- is a problem for large animals during transport, he said.

"Body heat is hard to dissipate in a large animal because of their body mass," Rieches said. "It's like in a dairy farm in the Midwest --- they don't have any heat (in winter) and they have to open the windows because it gets so hot in there."

San Diego Zoo officials therefore recommended that thermometers be required in large animals' crates whenever they are moved, he said. That suggestion is included in the association's report.

A necropsy on Wankie showed the elephant had a rare but long-term bacterial disease that had reduced the animal's lung capacity by at least 30 percent. The zoo association's investigators concluded the disease was probably the cause of Wankie's death.

The bacterial disease also killed another female elephant, Tatima, that was sent to Chicago from the Wild Animal Park near Escondido with Wankie and a third pachyderm. The third elephant, Peaches, has also died, with zoo officials declaring old age as the cause.

On Friday, Rieches said researchers took tissue samples from Wankie's body before it was buried at the Hogle Zoo and are doing DNA tests to determine whether the same strain of the bacterium killed Wankie and Tatima, and whether it matches strains found in animals in Africa. All three of the Wild Animal Park's former elephants came from Africa, the curator said.

The Department of Agriculture is conducting its own investigation into the death of Wankie and the other Lincoln Park Zoo animals. In May, San Diego Zoo officials said they expected agency investigators to visit the San Diego Zoo and conduct environmental tests at the Wild Animal Park as part of the effort.

USDA investigators were at the San Diego Zoo to interview its officials about three weeks ago but decided not to test the soil and other materials at the Wild Animal Park for evidence of the bacterium, Rieches said. He did not know when the federal agency would release a report with its findings, and attempts to reach a USDA official who was familiar with the investigation were unsuccessful Thursday and Friday.

Contact staff writer Andrea Moss at (760) 739-6654 or amoss@nctimes.com.