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Detroit Zoo's Elephants Headed for Calif.

Posted on: Saturday, 4 December 2004, 12:00 CST

DETROIT - Two aging, arthritic elephants will live out their days in the foothills of California's Sierra Nevada mountains and away from the cramped, cold Detroit Zoo.

Under an agreement announced Friday by the Detroit Zoo, Columbus Zoo, San Antonio Zoo and the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, Wanda and Winky will be sent to the Performing Animal Welfare Society sanctuary about two hours east of San Francisco.

The deal vindicates Detroit Zoo director Ron Kagan, who has been trying for six months to find more room and a milder climate for the 46-year-old Wanda and 51-year-old Winky.

"We appreciate the clear commitment to doing what is best for these two elephants by the Columbus Zoo, San Antonio Zoo and the AZA," Kagan said in a statement released Friday by the association.

Winky and Wanda will be moved as soon as the weather permits. They are expected to be replaced by rhinoceroses in the spring, the statement said.

Kagan's voluntary decision to give up the elephants primarily on ethical grounds drew praise from the public and animal welfare groups.

However, the AZA - the Detroit Zoo's accrediting organization - decided Wanda and Winky should go to the Columbus Zoo. Kagan opposed that recommendation, saying the conditions and weather at the zoo in central Ohio would be scarcely different from Detroit's.

Complicating the dispute was the fact that Wanda was on long-term loan to Detroit from the San Antonio Zoo, which supported the AZA's recommendation. Kagan said he did not want to separate the elephants, who have spent the past 10 years in Detroit.

Defying the AZA's order could have resulted in possible sanctions for the Detroit Zoo, including loss of its accreditation, something Kagan had said he might be willing to risk. Keeping Wanda also could have exposed the Detroit Zoo to criminal repercussions.

A break in the impasse came when a test indicated that Wanda either carries the endotheliotropic herpes virus or has the antibodies to it, the zoo association said. The disease would not be detrimental to her health but could be fatal to young elephants exposed to it.

Since the Columbus Zoo has an active elephant breeding program and a 9-month-old calf, the zoo could not accept Wanda, Gerald Borin, executive director of the Ohio zoo, said in a statement released Friday by the AZA.

Because other accredited zoos with breeding herds might have similar concerns, the zoos and the AZA re-evaluated the case and decided Winky and Wanda could be transferred to the PAWS sanctuary in San Andreas, Calif. Of its 2,300 acres, about 100 are set aside for elephants.

The sanctuary received its sixth elephant from the San Francisco Zoo last month amid public protests that the city's exhibit space wasn't large enough. A second elephant from San Francisco will be sent to the sanctuary later this month, said Deniz Bolbol, a spokeswoman for Mill Valley, Calif.-based In Defense of Animals, an animal welfare group that lobbied San Francisco officials to relocate the elephants.

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On the Net:

Detroit Zoo: http://www.detroitzoo.com

Columbus Zoo and Aquarium: http://www.colszoo.org

American Zoo and Aquarium Association: http://www.aza.org

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

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