African elephant Shaba, 25, in this 2004 photo at the Reid Park Zoo, is nearing the end of her breeding age. The American Zoo Association recommends that Shaba should have two babies, since she's unrelated to any other zoo elephant. But breeding elephants in zoos has proved difficult.

Jeffry Scott / Arizona Daily Star 2004

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Do elephants belong in zoos? Closer to home, do elephants belong in Tucson's Reid Park Zoo? These questions are being raised again by the death 18 days ago of Toni the elephant at Washington's National Zoo, and by the Bronx Zoo's announcement last week that it will phase out its elephant exhibit, after more than 100 years of displaying the popular animals.

The issue has some urgency in Tucson, where the City Council is planning a new $8.5 million elephant enclosure at Reid Park Zoo, but work has not yet started on the expansion.

City staff members are drafting recommendations for the improvements and for raising the money, at least part of which will come from donations. They are expected to report to the council in April.

If elephants don't belong in zoos — and some zoo directors believe they do not, as does the Humane Society of the United States — then there is still time for Tucson to reverse course and give up its elephants before the money is raised and spent.

Her trunk for a crutch

Toni the elephant was 40 years old — about 20 years less than she could have been expected to live — when National Zoo officials decided Jan. 25 to euthanize her. She suffered from severe arthritis, and despite being administered elephantine doses of ibuprofen, she had lost hundreds of pounds and suffered from shrinking muscles, the Washington Post reported.

Ironically, Toni's death came just one week after zoo officials had said euthanasia wouldn't be necessary. But zookeepers changed their minds after Toni began "trying to take the weight off her front legs by leaning on her trunk, by rocking back on her hind legs and by sitting down," according to the newspaper.

Toni's health problems were not unique. In the wild, elephants will roam as many as 50 miles a day. In a zoo, the lack of opportunity to walk and get sufficient exercise, plus being confined to areas with hard surfaces, causes many elephants to suffer severe foot problems and arthritis. At their most extreme, these problems lead to premature deaths.

Moreover, elephants are intelligent, social animals, which prefer to live in matriarchal herds of at least a half-dozen. Consequently, zoo life, without sufficient contact with several other elephants, can result in stereotypical weaving, pacing and head bobbing — all signs of stress or boredom. In the Oakland Zoo, before making significant changes in their elephant management, officials observed one elephant engaging in such abnormal behaviors for five hours each day.

It was elephants' complex social patterns, in fact, that prompted the Bronx Zoo's decision not to replace its three female elephants when they die. Tuss, the zoo's matriarch elephant, died in 2002, and the three remaining elephants still have not figured out a new social arrangement, according to news stories.

Research also has shown that elephants have shorter lives in zoos than in the wild. That contrasts sharply with the experience of most other species, which live considerably longer in zoos because of the regular source of food, medical care and lack of predators.

"Extremist" zoo critics

Because of such acute problems, some experts have concluded elephants don't belong in zoos. Of course, this has ignited a debate that, at times, is heated.

Leaders of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, as well as some Tucson city officials, depict such critics as a small minority of animal-rights "extremists." But that is neither accurate nor fair.

The "extremists" include such people as Ron Kagan, the director of the Detroit Zoo, who last year voluntarily gave up his two elephants, Wanda and Winky, out of concern for their welfare. He sent them to a sanctuary near Sacramento, Calif. "By many indices, elephants just don't do very well in captivity," Kagan told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Another "extremist" is David Hancocks, former director of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, who wrote in a Seattle Times commentary last year that "the history of elephants in zoos is full of mental and physical pain."

A third "extremist" is the Humane Society of the United States. "We don't think that elephants can be kept humanely in zoos," Richard Farinato, a Humane Society executive, bluntly told a Portland, Ore., weekly newspaper.

And now that list of "extremists" includes the Bronx Zoo, which eventually will divert the $58,000 it spends annually on each elephant to conserving elephants in the wild.

In its defense, the zoo association's strong reaction to the critics is understandable: It is difficult to accept criticism when you are trying to do your best.

Tucson's elephant plans

Yet there is an even more important issue underlying the debate. If the public decides that it is not good for elephants to be kept in zoos, how long will it be before the public decides that it is harmful also to keep other animals in zoos?

When the City Council decided in June to expand the elephant exhibit at Reid Park Zoo, it had just two choices: Either provide better facilities for its two elephants, Connie and Shaba, in accordance with new guidelines from the American Zoo Association, or send the elephants elsewhere.

Shaba is important nationally because she is reaching the end of her breeding age, and she is unrelated to any other zoo elephant, which prevents inbreeding problems. The zoo association has recommended she have at least two babies.

That recommendation carries extra weight because elephants are an endangered species in zoos, as well as in the wild. Elephants will not exist in zoos in as little as 30 years if more are not bred, according to documents provided to me by Fred Gray, director of Tucson Parks and Recreation Department, which oversees the Reid Park Zoo.

Tucson's plans call for a 7-acre expansion of the zoo, with a new barn that could house up to six elephants. If Shaba has a baby, that would give Tucson three elephants. But breeding Shaba is not a sure thing. Over the years, zoos have done poorly at breeding elephants.

Organized opposition to the council's decision has arisen from a group that named itself "Save Tucson Elephants." Nikia Fico, a UA law student, told me members of her group go to the zoo every week and have collected more than 4,000 signatures to present to the City Council.

Fico's group wants the city to transfer the elephants to the Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tenn. The sanctuary occupies 2,700 acres and specializes in providing a healthy environment for elephants to live the remainder of their lives without the stresses and ailments that come from being exhibited in zoos or worked in circuses.

Carol Buckley, the sanctuary's executive director, offered in June to accept both elephants, at no cost to the city. She told me Feb. 1 that the offer is still open.

However, city officials say they will not accept the offer but instead will keep the elephants.

Popular people magnets

Elephants are hugely popular with the public, especially schoolchildren.

When the Nashville Zoo opened a new elephant exhibit last year, monthly attendance shot up by 15,000. That means additional revenue and greater levels of public support.

In Tucson, Connie and Shaba are the zoo's most popular attraction, parks director Gray told the City Council in June.

Indeed, the public response to elephants in the Tucson zoo has "far eclipsed any reaction to the garbage fees or anything else," Andrew Greenhill, chief of staff to Mayor Bob Walkup, told me. Greenhill said the mayor supports expanding the zoo, adding, "The community has made it very clear they want the elephants here."

Moreover, were the city to give up its elephants, it would move them to another zoo, not the sanctuary, both Gray and Assistant City Manager Liz Miller told me. One reason: The American Zoo Association has threatened to withdraw the accreditation of other zoos considering sending their elephants to a sanctuary. The Detroit Zoo encountered months of conflict with the association over its decision to send its elephants to a sanctuary.

As part of its arguments, the city staff produced a document disputing that sanctuaries are better for elephants. But Hancocks, former director of the Desert Museum, disagrees. Here is what he wrote in his Seattle Times commentary: "The quality of life at the Tennessee sanctuary, the abundance of love the elephants receive, and the joy they experience are beyond anything I have seen at any zoo. It seems an obvious choice."

It is relevant, too, that the Pittsburgh Zoo has joined with the Conservation Fund in purchasing a 724-acre ranch for animal conservation and breeding. Its first phase will focus on elephants. And at the National Zoo, where Toni recently died, officials hope to replace the elephant house at the main park location and to add a 100-acre or 200-acre elephant facility at the zoo's research center.

Those efforts seem to acknowledge that any zoo planning to breed and exhibit elephants needs to think in terms of hundreds of acres, not just a few.

Indeed, the Elephant Sanctuary's Buckley told me that Tucson's planned expansion would still be inadequate. "Seven acres are no better than 1 acre. No better for the elephant," she said.

The Elephant Sanctuary started with 100 acres but doubled its size when officials noticed elephants were not recovering from health problems as well as expected. Even so, with 200 acres to roam in, Buckley said, "The elephants laughed at us. They said, 'For us, we're still living in a closet.' " Consequently, officials expanded the sanctuary to 2,700 acres.

Move Shaba and Connie?

Should the council decide to move Shaba and Connie to another zoo or a sanctuary, Tucson children and many parents surely would protest.

But it is time for Tucsonans to face the issue: It is unlikely that the city can provide appropriately for its elephants, even with an expanded exhibit, and even if the city were to spend millions more than the $8.5 million already tentatively planned.

I am convinced Tucson should give up its elephants, with their unique needs, and focus on providing better facilities and care for its other zoo animals.

I am convinced, too, that the City Council made its decision without engaging the public in a needed discussion about the appropriateness of keeping elephants — and about the degree of commitment that keeping elephants demands from a community.

If that public discussion ever is held, Tucsonans likely will come to recognize that what is good for zoos is not necessarily good for elephants.

A key expression of a parent's love for a child is, at the appropriate time, to let it go. The same may be true of a community's love for an elephant.