After I learn the e-mail from the Oakland Zoo final month saying it had retired its single remaining African elephant, a 30-year-old 15,000-pound bull named Osh, to the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, I instantly considered a a lot tinier elephant that after lived on the zoo.
One cloudy winter morning in 1996, I arrived on the Oakland Zoo, together with Instances photographer Genaro Molina, the place we discovered the topic of the story we had traveled to the Bay Space for: a 3-month-old child African elephant named Kijana. His mom had rejected him after giving delivery, so the zookeepers embarked upon a tough and costly mission to boost him.
After we first met him, he was wandering outdoors his barn whereas staffers went about their chores. His again was draped with a blanket for heat. I hesitated to method him. At 38 inches excessive and 304 kilos, he was smallish — however he was nonetheless an elephant.
Genaro knelt on one knee as he began capturing footage, and Kijana, ever curious, trotted over and wrapped his trunk across the lenses, then moved on to the photographer’s hair. Genaro grinned and saved capturing. I walked over and Kijana, utilizing his trunk, effortlessly untied my shoelaces. We shortly discovered if he prolonged his trunk up, he needed you to rub it between the palms of your fingers. He was only a pachyderm model of a golden retriever. His concept of play was to return up behind you and head-butt you, which, at his dimension, may transfer you alongside. (Later, as he grew older and stronger, zookeepers got him a goat to play with. )
By the point we left, I adored him. So did his keepers. They had been decided to boost him to the purpose the place he didn’t want them. They bottle-fed him particular method flown in from Canada. Colleen Kinzley, the zoo’s elephant supervisor on the time, slept within the barn subsequent to him to maintain watch over him. He in flip used his trunk to play along with her hair at night time and adopted her round by day. The keepers ready for the day they might introduce him to the opposite elephants within the zoo’s herd.
However Kijana by no means made it that far. At 11 months, a virus attacked his physique. The zoo administered treatment, however he died in the course of the night time with Kinzley at his aspect.
After I heard, I known as the zoo for a remark and requested to talk to Kinzley. I used to be informed she couldn’t come to the telephone. It’s good she didn’t, as a result of if I had spoken to her, I in all probability would have began sobbing on the telephone at my desk within the newsroom. As a substitute I made it to the restroom and cried there.
Had Kijana lived, he can be turning 29 and may be on his option to a sanctuary. As a substitute it was Osh who was transported to Tennessee accompanied by zoo workers, together with the zoological supervisor, Gina Kinzley (sister-in-law of Colleen, who’s now vp of animal care on the zoo). Gina stayed 5 days to observe him get settled into his portion of the three,000-acre sanctuary. Then she bade him farewell. “As bittersweet because it was,” Gina says, “it was one of the best determination for Osh and his future.”
I understand how privileged I used to be as a reporter to have the chance to work together with Kijana at a quick stage in his life when he couldn’t harm us, permitting a uncommon up-close take a look at a wild animal, endangered and illegally poached for its tusks. Years later, on the Los Angeles Zoo, I accompanied keepers on a morning walk with their light feminine Asian elephant, Gita, across the grounds earlier than the zoo opened to the general public. In her barn, I fed her, plopping a corn cob into her open mouth. Simply months later, Gita would collapse in her enclosure and die.
Few of us will ever go to Africa and see elephants within the wild. And if zoos cease exhibiting elephants, we gained’t be capable of see them in our cities. In zoos, animals don’t must keep away from predators or hunt their subsequent meal, however they pay for that with a life in captivity.
Each the Oakland and Los Angeles zoos have needed to rethink the right way to accommodate the most important land mammal on Earth. They way back adopted the observe of “protected contact’’ that places a barrier between keepers and elephants and eliminates the necessity to bodily self-discipline the animals. Each zoos had been among the many first to banish the hurtful bullhook — now outlawed in the entire state.
Each have despatched feminine African elephants to sanctuaries — Ruby on the L.A. Zoo to a California sanctuary, the place she died at age 50 4 years after she acquired there, and Donna in Oakland, who moved to the Tennessee sanctuary final yr. That left Osh on his personal till he too went to Tennessee.
Sanctuaries usually have tons of of acres for elephants to roam. On the Oakland Zoo, elephants had six acres. However as Chief Government Nik Dehejia informed me it’s not nearly area. Proper now, he says, the zoo must renovate the world considerably to supply all of the enrichment, constructions and assist a multigenerational herd of elephants would want, which might take money and time. So bringing elephants again to Oakland appears unlikely, he says. “What’s the way forward for zoos within the subsequent 30, 50 years?” he asks. “All of these components go into considering rigorously about our position and the place we are able to assist animals in want and what are the appropriate species we have to take care of.”
Almost three dozen accredited North American zoos have gotten out of the elephant-keeping enterprise. Critics have lengthy known as for the Los Angeles Zoo to retire all its elephants — even after the zoo opened a $42-million exhibit for Asian elephants in 2010 with greater than three acres of out of doors area that includes sandy hills, a waterfall and bathing swimming pools. After the L.A. Zoo’s 61-year-old Jewel and 53-year-old Shaunzi had been euthanized for well being points, the Los Angeles Metropolis Council in Might ordered the zoo, a metropolis company, to report again on what led to their issues.
Nonetheless remaining are a feminine Asian elephant, Tina, and the zoo’s longtime Asian bull, Billy, who for many years has engaged in head-bobbing and swaying, which the zoo has mentioned is a innocent behavior and animal welfare advocates have mentioned is usually a signal of stress. “If it had been as much as me, I’d say we should always do what Oakland did,” mentioned Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who together with Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez launched the movement calling for the research. “Retire elephants and ship them to a sanctuary. It will be extra humane.” A zoo spokesman says the zoo is at all times evaluating its packages and its “dedication to the care and well-being of our animals is unwavering.”
I don’t doubt the zoo works arduous to maintain its elephants. However it might be past the zoo’s capability to supply what they want. That’s what the editorial board wrote three years in the past calling for the zoo to retire Billy. If he leaves, I’ll miss visiting him. However he and all elephants must be the place they’ll dwell their finest lives.
