Opinion

SA Zoo can do better by Lucky

People have insisted that Lucky the elephant’s solitary existence is not healthy. But San Antonio Zoo officials insist the healthiest thing all around for the 55-year-old Asian elephant is to stay put. She would have trouble with agressive elephants in a reserve and her health needs can be better treated at the zoo. Lucky has grown up in the zoo and has had companions from time to time. less People have insisted that Lucky the elephant’s solitary existence is not healthy. But San Antonio Zoo officials insist the healthiest thing all around for the 55-year-old Asian elephant is to stay put. She ... more Photo: Timothy Tai /Express-News File Photo Photo: Timothy Tai /Express-News File Photo Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close SA Zoo can do better by Lucky 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Inside San Antonio Zoo’s “Africa Live!” exhibit, you can find Lucky, the Asian elephant.

When I recently visited her, she was standing in the far corner of her exhibit, her back toward the crowd. Once the crowd thinned, Lucky turned around and made her way forward, ears wiggling and flapping, trunk reaching for food.

Lucky has been called “weird” and anti-social, so to see her approach the front of her exhibit was a splendid surprise. Even if it didn’t last long. After a few moments, another crush of families rushed her exhibit.

“His name is Mr. Peanuts,” one woman said. And as she shouted at “Mr. Peanuts,” Lucky, the zoo’s 55-year-old venerable female elephant, understandably trudged back toward the corner to stare at the old quarry wall. And so she stayed, butt to the onlookers, until the crowd left.

Weeks earlier, Karrie Kern, executive director of the nonprofit One World Conservation, had told me about such a scene.

“If you watch,” she said, “a big group of people comes, and they have a lot of loud children, if you watch Lucky, she will turn around, and if she is up by the front area, she will meander over to the back wall and turn her face to the wall with her butt out.”

For years, Kern, One World Conservation and various animal welfare groups have pressed, pleaded and protested to have Lucky moved to a better setting, one where she could socialize with other elephants and have more room to roam. A place where, Kern said, she could “blossom” instead of being dismissed as weird.

In early April, the Animal Legal Defense Fund, backed by One World Conservation, sent the zoo a 60-day notice of intent to sue over Lucky’s exhibit, alleging the conditions Lucky lives in violate the Endangered Species Act, injuring her physically and psychologically. The goal is to have Lucky placed at The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, where she will have the chance to connect with other Asian elephants.

That Lucky’s habitat is not ideal is indisputable. It’s too small. The San Antonio Zoo has plans to bring in a herd of African elephants after Lucky passes away (African and Asian elephants shouldn’t be mixed) but in an expanded and improved exhibit.

It’s also too isolated. Elephants are wondrously social and smart animals, even communicating through their feet. So social, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which accredits the San Antonio Zoo, now requires three female elephants to be exhibited together.

Except in Lucky’s case. The AZA has given the San Antonio Zoo a variance because of Lucky’s age and frailty.

“We don’t believe she would survive transport,” said Tim Morrow, the zoo’s new executive director and CEO. “And if she would survive transport, she would most likely be bullied in the new location. … The younger elephants would exert their dominance over her.”

Morrow wouldn’t comment on the potential lawsuit, but he was quick to highlight the care Lucky receives from seven trainers and two veterinarians. Care, he said, that is superior to alternatives. “Really, the easiest thing for the zoo to do would be, 'OK, we are going to send her away.’ And if she makes it, or not, we don’t have to do this anymore,” he said. “The constant interviews. The constant questions. That would be the easiest thing to do. But it’s not right for Lucky.”

And this gets to the heart of the dispute. Do Lucky’s age and frailty justify continuing mistakes of the past? There was a time when we didn’t know better, of course, but we do now. Let’s remember, Lucky was caught in the wild when she was less than a year old. She’s spent more than 50 years in captivity here and endured years in isolation. A sanctuary offers an experience — freedom — Lucky has been deprived of.

Barbara King, an anthropology professor at the College of William & Mary, whose most recent book is “How Animals Grieve,” touched on this when I asked her about Lucky’s plight.

“I think the zoo, no doubt, has her best interests at heart,” King said. “But I am skeptical whether she is too old to move. I am skeptical about any supposed inability to make new bonds with elephants.”

The zoo, she said, could ease such skepticism by inviting the sanctuary to evaluate Lucky. There would be no harm in a dialogue.

Elephants “are just set up to connect with each other, and I would just like the chance to see if this could be reawakened,” King said. “This is basic elephant biology, and can it be reawakened in an elephant who has suffered psychologically?”

What a tantalizing prospect. It sure beats being called “Mr. Peanuts.”

jbrodesky@express-news.net