Zookeepers Aim Angry Barbs at Animal Park, Superiors in Dunda Case

The dispute between keepers at the San Diego Zoo and their colleagues at the San Diego Wild Animal Park escalated Friday with angry allegations at a rancorous public hearing prompted by the beating of Dunda the elephant.

In their strongest language yet, the zoo handlers accused their superiors of lying and covering up the incident, which occurred in February at the Wild Animal Park.

Steve Friedlund, senior elephant trainer at the zoo, said Dunda’s beating was “obscene and completely unnecessary,” and said the Zoological Society management had “engaged in a series of distortions and outright lies.”

Job-Transfer Plans Alleged

Another keeper, Lisa Landres, said she learned that zoo officials planned to transfer her from her job of caring for elephants as punishment for pressing an internal complaint about the beating. But the officials changed their minds two months ago when stories about the incident were first published, Landres said.

Officials of the Zoological Society of San Diego, which operates both the zoo and the park, continued to deny Friday that Dunda was abused, but announced that, because of the controversy, new disciplinary procedures for elephants have been developed.

The tense hearing was the first occasion on which most of those involved in the bitter controversy have faced each other since the allegations against the world-renowned institutions became public. By all indications, the event did little to restore harmony.

The hearing was called by state Sen. Dan McCorquodale (D-San Jose), chairman of the Senate Natural Resources and Wildlife Committee, who said Friday that the committee will take “a serious look at what we’re doing in California relating to care of animals.”

A representative of the Humane Society of the United States gave the committee a letter of protest Friday from Stefan A. Ormond, chief wildlife officer for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in England.

“If this allegation proves to be true,” the letter says, “I am shocked to learn that such an incident could take place in a zoo with San Diego’s international reputation and somewhat ashamed that the suffering was afflicted by one of my countrymen.”

Trend Away From State Role

Alan Roocroft, the supervisor in charge of elephants at the Wild Animal Park, is a British subject and has worked at zoos in England.

“Beating an elephant in the manner described is certainly not an accepted training procedure in the United Kingdom, and if Mr. Roocroft behaved in this way here, it would give me the greatest personal pleasure to prosecute him,” Ormond said.

It has been California’s policy in recent years to move away from supervision of zoos, McCorquodale said. “The thinking was that perhaps there wasn’t any reason for the state to be involved,” he said.

But the Natural Resources Committee is now considering legislation that would place a greater obligation on the trustees of zoos to oversee their institutions, he said.

McCorquodale said he requested the committee hearing after reading newspaper articles about the beating of Dunda, who was transferred from the zoo to the park in February. At the park, Dunda was chained by all four legs, pulled to the ground and beaten on the head with ax handles over a period of at least two days in February.

“I think if I had been watching it--I couldn’t have controlled it--I think I would have been sick to my stomach,” McCorquodale said toward the end of the daylong hearing. “I doubt that the (Zoological Society) trustees could have watched it, either.”

More than 200 people jammed a meeting room at Escondido City Hall, where the hearing was held, frequently cheering, applauding and booing the more than 30 witnesses who testified.

Roocroft, who drew both cheers and hisses, told McCorquodale that the damage to Dunda’s head was superficial and that at no time during the sessions was her skin broken. The large, jagged areas of peeling hide still visible on the elephant’s head are the result of cracks that developed from swelling of the bruised areas, he said.

“Since we administered the necessary discipline six months ago, Dunda has been socializing well in the herd,” Roocroft said. “Our course of action is, in my opinion, the most effective way to bring a violent animal under control.”

Roocroft was backed up by all five of the the Zoological Society officials who testified Friday, including Dr. James Oosterhuis, a Wild Animal Park veterinarian who said it is acceptable to strike an elephant on the head.

“It’s important to remember that the elephant skull is 6 inches thick at this point and the skin is an inch thick,” Oosterhuis said. “There is limited blood flow and nerve presence here, which means the area is slow to heal.

“In my view, it is an appropriate and non-harmful place in which to administer required discipline,” he said.

Cleveland Amory, founder of the Fund for Animals, clearly disagreed. Amory appeared with a number of supporters and bitterly attacked the Zoological Society.

“Think long and hard of the message you have sent all over the world,” he said, “to every rotten roadside zoo, to every rotten circus, to every person who keeps a big animal in rotten circumstances: ‘Go ahead and beat that animal. You have to dominate it.’ That’s not only a rotten message, but you’re lying.

“You sent a rotten message around the world, and you’ve got to stop that message. It was wrong what you did to Dunda,” Amory said.

However, Joan Embery, the zoo’s “good-will ambassador,” strongly defended the society and Roocroft, saying, “It offends me when people with limited experience and no firsthand knowledge attack this institution and its employees.”

The new procedures that have been developed because of the controversy require that written plans be drawn up outlining measures to be used anytime an elephant needs serious discipline. At least two high-level supervisors also must be present at any disciplinary session.

However, the procedures do not spell out whether the chaining and beating technique used on Dunda will be considered an approved method of discipline.