And then there are the foot and joint problems, which are widespread. In the wild, elephants walk as much as 30 miles a day, and movement keeps their feet and joints healthy. In many zoos -- and certainly most circuses -- elephants spend long hours standing still on concrete. As zoo leaders explain, however, the alternatives may not be better: Many elephants are killed in the wild by poachers, and their habitat is quickly vanishing.
The nation's two major elephant sanctuaries -- a 100-acre elephant range in California that is part of a 2,300-acre preserve for formerly captive animals, and a 2,700 acre facility in Tennessee -- have agreed to take Wanda and Winky. Both offer large open spaces and mild climates, and the California facility even has a massive hot tub for the elephants. However, the sanctuaries, which are nonprofit organizations that take in abused and "surplus" animals, have not been embraced by the zoo organization, in part because the sanctuary leaders have been quite critical of AZA guidelines and practices.
Detroit zoo officials say their elephants need a warmer spot with room to roam.
(Rebecca Cook -- Reuters)
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In the sanctuaries, the animals are largely allowed to do as they choose. In addition, keepers and the animals never come into direct contact, and keepers use only positive enforcement methods to encourage the animals to behave. In many zoos, elephant keepers still have direct access to the animals inside their enclosures, a practice that requires some level of dominance and physical intimidation to train the animals and protect the keepers.
One of Kagan's objections to moving Winky and Wanda to the Columbus zoo is that the facility -- acknowledged to be one of the nation's best for elephants -- nonetheless uses dominance techniques.
"We just don't see how threatening or punishing an elephant can be ever okay," Kagan said.
Gerald Borin, executive director of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, acknowledged that his keepers do enter the enclosure of one female elephant regularly. He said the keepers carry an ankus -- a short metal staff with a sharp, curved end -- for protection, but almost always work with the elephants using positive reinforcement. The hands-on approach inside the enclosure, he said, allowed keepers to help the elephant with the recent successful birth of a baby male.
Borin said his zoo asked for Wanda and Winky in order to create a larger and more complex herd for the highly social elephants. He said a large new indoor elephant enclosure allows the animals to move about even during the winter months. But he said he was not opposed to sending some elephants to sanctuaries "if that would clearly be best for them."
Detroit's action follows the San Francisco Zoo's decision earlier this year to send its two elephants to a sanctuary. That decision, also contested by the AZA, was prompted by accusations of inadequate facilities and care, not ethical considerations, but the coincidence means the "AZA is finding itself not just trying to contain a brushfire, but seeing the blaze break out all around the country," said Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States. The society strongly supports the Detroit zoo's position.
In resisting calls to send Wanda and Winky to a sanctuary, the AZA is also trying to stave off difficult questions being raised about keeping any elephants in captivity -- questions that could easily mushroom into a broader debate about rhinos or lions or other big mammals.
Michael Hutchins, the association's conservation and science director, pointedly made the connection by bringing up the Detroit zoo's large new polar bear display and noting that in the wild, the bears travel extensively and never experience the summertime temperatures that occur in Detroit. "Using their logic," he said, "then polar bears really shouldn't be in Detroit, either."
Kagan says there is no comparison between his zoo's polar bear display -- which features one bear rescued from a Mexico circus and large pools of cold salt water with fish -- and the elephants' situation.
"By many indices, elephants just don't do very well in captivity," he said. "They have more difficulty adapting than most other animals, don't breed as well, and show signs of stress. This is a challenge that zoos need to talk about, and that the public needs to learn about, too."
