The Lone Star State taking important cue from Detroit Zoo?

Might there be the beginning of a trend — which started in Detroit – to remove elephants from display in zoos around the world?

Jenny, a 32-year-old pachyderm, has been residing in the Dallas Zoo for 22 years. When the zoo took Jenny in, she was a wreck — depressed, traumatized, prone to ramming her head into a wall and mutilating herself, thanks largely to a sadistic trainer at the circus that employed Jenny earlier in her life.

After her companion died, the zoo made plans to send her to the African Safari Park in Puebla, Mexico, where she would have five acres to enjoy with another female elephant.

The problem? Five acres can feel claustrophobic to a free-roaming elephant, who in the wild will meander several miles a day.

So elephant lovers have been pressuring the Dallas Zoo to instead send Jenny to a 2,700-acre Tennessee sanctuary for traumatized elephants.

If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because about three years ago the Detroit Zoo faced a similar dilemma. The zoo was getting ready to embark on a significant expansion of its exhibit for its elephants, Wanda and Winky, from one acre to about five acres. But during the study process, the zoo, led by its director, Ron Kagan, concluded that zoos really have no business keeping elephants at all.

“A fundamental requirement for keeping animals in captivity is that we provide an excellent quality of life,” read “Questions and Answers about not having Elephants at the Detroit Zoo” on the zoo’s Web site: 

“In order to do that we must meet a species’ and an individual’s physical, social and psychological needs. We feel that we can accomplish this for all the animals at the Detroit Zoo, but can’t for elephants. Elephants in general in captivity live shorter lives than in the wild, do not reproduce well, show numerous physical problems and often display psychological problems.”

Kagan had to wage a prolonged battle with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums to secure permission to send Wanda and Winky to the Performing Animal Welfare Sanctuary in California. The association accredits zoos and wasn’t ready to concede that elephants — a big attraction for zoo-goers — couldn’t be properly cared for in zoos.

Ultimately, though, Kagan prevailed, and the Detroit Zoo became the first zoo in the country to close its elephant exhibit for humane reasons. Much of metro Detroit eagerly followed the elephants’ precarious journey west to PAWS and their happy settlement into their new, sprawling home.

It remains unclear if officials in Dallas will take a similar stand to Kagan’s, or if they’ll acquiesce to the zoo association and the pressure to keep elephants displayed for the enjoyment of ticket buyers.

“If we stripped everything away and say what is in the best interest of Jenny, the sanctuary would win hands down,” The New York Times quotes retired Los Angeles Zoo animal curator Les Schobert. “But then you have to add in all the politics.”

Winky died this spring at the age of 56. She had to be euthanized because of severe arthritis — a condition resulting from years spent walking on concrete. But before she went, she had three happy years of retirement, wandering lush grounds and making friends with other elephants.

Here’s hoping Jenny gets to live out the rest of her years in peace, too.