After 40 years of the Edmonton Valley Zoo’s habitual sub-zero winters, Lucy has recently became a flashpoint in the debate over whether elephants belong in captivity

Lucy hesitated in the doorway as she debated whether to leave the warmth of home and venture out into the sub-zero cold.

Then she plodded forward, scooping up freshly fallen snow with her trunk and shoving it in her mouth. Every minute or so, a deep rumbling punctuated the air – a symptom of a decades-old respiratory problem that forces her to breathe through her mouth. Zookeepers hovered around her, monitoring her body temperature with an infrared scanner to ensure she wasn’t getting cold.

For 40 years Lucy’s life has played out in the 110 acres of the Edmonton Valley Zoo. But beyond the steel gates and electric fencing of her 2,600 square foot barn, Lucy has become one of the most controversial elephants in the world.

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Some argue Lucy is a well-adjusted Asian elephant who shares a deep bond with her keepers and trainers. Others say that – as the only elephant living in a Canadian city where the mercury at times drops to 20 below zero – she is the prisoner of a practice whose time has long passed.

“Honestly, there is no elephant in as bad a situation in the entire world as Lucy is,” said Julie Woodyer of Zoocheck Canada. Woodyer claims that Lucy is the world’s “the most northerly elephant” and has been fighting for years to have Lucy relocated to a warmer climate.

Lucy arrived at the zoo from an orphanage in Sri Lanka when she was two, and has become one of the main draws of this 350-animal zoo.

When Lucy was about 15 years old, the zoo hoped to provide her with a companion and acquired a one-and-a-half-year-old orphaned African elephant. But the relationship between Samantha and Lucy was fractious at best, forcing staff to keep the pair separated at times.

“The closest I’ve come to having a heart attack – [was] finding Samantha in the moat, because Lucy had pushed her through a very heavy gauge electric fence,” said Dean Treichel, operations supervisor for the zoo.

Samantha was relocated to North Carolina to join a breeding program in 2007, just as opposition to the idea of keeping intelligent and highly social animals in captivity was gaining momentum.

Petitions calling for her to be moved south gathered tens of thousands of signatures; in 2012 Zoocheck and the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals urged Canada’s supreme court to consider Lucy’s fate, but the court refused to hear the case.

The zoo argues that Lucy’s herd is the people who look after her, some of whom have been at the zoo for decades. For 11 hours each day, at least two keepers are with Lucy at all times, engaging her activities that range from kicking around a ball to taking long walks around the zoo.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lucy the elephant. Photograph: Ashifa Kassam/The Guardian

But Lucy has became a flashpoint in the debate over whether elephants belong in zoos. Dozens of celebrities, from Paul McCartney to Joan Jett, signed on to the “Save Lucy” campaign.

Zoo officials decided that Lucy would be the last elephant at Edmonton Valley. But they have resisted the push to relocate her, pointing to the many questions left unanswered by the idea.

Could Lucy – with her respiratory issues – survive the days of transport demanded by relocation? Would any facility be able to provide her with the level of keeper attention she has become used to? And would an elephant in the last third of her life be able to bond with others of her kind?



“You’re dealing with an elephant who is 40 years old,” said zoo director Denise Prefontaine. “She’s set in her ways and also very comfortable with what she knows and comfortable with the support that we provide her with.”

The zoo has rejected the idea of finding another elephant as a companion for Lucy.

“Bringing in another elephant is really difficult … they’re few and far between, certainly in Canada right now,” said Treichel. Only four accredited facilities in Canada still have elephants while moving an elephant from the US is not an option. “Who would move an elephant from a southern environment to a northern environment for this particular thing?”

In a report released last year, British veterinarian Jonathan Cracknell examined Lucy – describing her as “an unusual elephant in an unusual situation” – and added his voice to the chorus of veterinarians who have recommended that Lucy remain at the zoo for health reasons. “The respiratory pathology would not make transfer impossible but it would be highly likely to carry the risk that she could potentially die on route,” Cracknell wrote in his report.

The report was used to allow the Edmonton zoo to obtain special permission from Caza to keep Lucy despite regulations that bar solitary elephants in Canadian zoos.

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But his assessment has been rejected by Zoocheck, who point out that Cracknell was brought in by Caza, the organisation that represents Canada’s zoos and aquariums.

Bob Barker, the long time host of the television gameshow The Price is Right, added his voice to the fray in 2011, offering the city of Edmonton $100,000 if they would allow Lucy to be examined by an independent professional.

“She’s been all alone all these years and that is just torture for a female elephant,” he said in an interview.

In 2013 Barker spent nearly C$1-million to have the last three elephants at the Toronto Zoo sent to a sanctuary in California, and he has called for Lucy to be evaluated by independent experts.



“If they say she should not be moved, that she will die as a result, why of course, I don’t want to move her. But if she can be moved and be happy and be with other elephants, my goodness that’s the thing for us to do.”

“Lucy has a pitiful life,” he said. “Canada is a wonderful place, but it’s no place for elephants.”