Problem Elephant Breaks Collarbone of Keeper at Animal Park

A rambunctious female Asian elephant with a history of outbursts attacked an animal keeper without provocation Tuesday at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, sending him to the hospital with a broken collarbone.

The elephant, a 26-year-old named Cindy, shoved the keeper with her trunk and head. The trainer ended up at the bottom of an 8-foot-deep concrete moat before other keepers came to his rescue.

The keeper was identified as 21-year-old David SaoMarcos of San Diego, who had worked at the park for a year and was assigned to the Asian and African elephant yards.

Similar Attack 3 Years Ago

SaoMarcos was taken by San Diego paramedics to Palomar Medical Center in Escondido, where he was listed in fair condition with a fractured clavicle, bruises, cuts and scrapes.

Tuesday’s incident was the second in which the 8,000-pound Cindy caused injury to a Wild Animal Park employee, park spokeswoman Martha Baker said. Three years ago, Cindy lashed out at another keeper with her trunk, knocking him to the ground and also breaking his collarbone. Cindy has also tussled with other keepers at the park during her six years there, but without serious injuries, Baker said. SaoMarcos, who does not work directly with Cindy, was cleaning the Asian elephant yard Tuesday morning and was pushing a wheelbarrow of manure when Cindy “rapidly approached him from across the yard and struck him with her trunk and head,” Baker said.

“SaoMarcos tried to get away by going through a gate, but Cindy followed and continued to hit and kick him” with her front feet, Baker said.

“Then, the details get sketchy. SaoMarcos ended up at the bottom of the moat. He’s not sure if he slipped, jumped or she pushed him,” Baker said. “Within two minutes, other keepers came to his aid. He was climbing out of the moat, but was in great pain.”

The elephant was not disciplined after Tuesday’s incident, Baker said, because about two minutes had passed between the attack and the time other keepers arrived, “and she wouldn’t have associated any punishment with what she did.”

Reluctant to Compare

Baker said she was reluctant to compare Cindy to Dunda, an 18-year-old African elephant at the park that became the focus of investigations into the handling and discipline of elephants at the facility, renowned for its success in breeding endangered species.

Dunda was chained by all four legs, pulled to the ground and beaten on the forehead with ax handles and the wooden end of elephant hooks over two days last year as discipline for striking out at keepers, park officials said. Baker said Dunda was disciplined immediately after she lashed out at trainers. The San Diego city attorney’s office declined to prosecute trainers for the incident, which generated intense debate about proper discipline of the animals.

Cindy is on a breeding loan to the Wild Animal Park from Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma, Wash., where she was known as a rogue, having injured trainers there--one so badly that he too had to be hospitalized.

Cindy was a 2-year-old refugee from a traveling zoo and was the only elephant at the Point Defiance Zoo during her 18 years there, said Lily Moore, the zoo’s assistant director.

Moore said Cindy was maladjusted because of her years in isolation from other elephants, and said keepers hoped she would not only breed but experience the normal hierarchal nature of elephants at the Wild Animal Park.

But the park’s elephant keepers said Cindy never acclimated to her new surroundings and failed to socialize with the other animals.

Bull Doesn’t Like Her

The park’s breeding bull “does not like her,” Baker said. Even before Tuesday’s attack, the park was planning to transfer her to yet another zoo, thereby freeing her stall for a more willing breeding partner.

Cindy’s unruly behavior was well known among the trainers and keepers who work with the park’s elephants, Baker said. “The keepers are very wary around her and take extra precautions. Only two keepers will work closely with her. The other keepers stay away.”

Cindy is not used for rides at the park, nor does she have a role in the park’s elephant shows, although her trainers have had some success in teaching her to lie down and to raise her right foot in a sort of salute.

Baker described Cindy’s behavior Tuesday as “totally unexplainable, unpredictable and out of the blue.” The elephant was not removed from the herd of eight other Asian cows and the single bull Asian elephant.

“There was no point in isolating her,” Baker said. “She received nothing for her activity because, unless you catch them in the act, they can’t associate that (punishment) with that misbehavior.”

In contrast, Dunda has not misbehaved since she was disciplined, Baker said.

Not Sure What to Do

Point Defiance Zoo officials, meanwhile, are not sure what to do with Cindy.

“We are looking at a number of facilities as possible relocations for her,” Moore said, “including bringing her back to Point Defiance. We haven’t decided what’s best for Cindy, and that’s our bottom line: what’s best for her long-term care.”

Asian elephants live into their 60s, and are in their prime breeding years between 25 and 40, meaning that Cindy is potentially important for the endangered species, Moore said.

Cindy’s problem is a result of her upbringing as an only elephant, keepers said.

“She grew up alone, which isn’t a good idea because she’s a herd species and needed to be subjected to normal hierarchical kinds of things that elephants establish in a herd,” Moore said. “But Cindy didn’t have that, and that was part of her behavioral maladjustment.

“A parallel would be for a person to be raised to adulthood and never being taught manners, and expecting her to be able to behave by the rules. It’s certainly not Cindy’s fault she’s got behavioral problems, and it’s not the fault of the person who raised her here.”

Hard to Find a Good Home

Officials hoped she would do better at the Wild Animal Park, with its herd of Asian elephants and more room to roam.

“But the disappointment for them is that she’s still a difficult animal, and will be, wherever she is,” Moore said. “Since she is our animal, we’d like to bring her home or find a suitable home for her, but finding a suitable home is more than just name-that-zoo.”

Among the zoos negotiating for Cindy is the one in Syracuse, N.Y., which has a proven breeding bull.

Don Moore, curator of mammals at the Syracuse Zoo, said Tuesday that he is still interested in Cindy despite her attack on the keeper.

“These animals aren’t like dogs,” he said. “They’re bigger than Volkswagens. We know their danger potential. They are individuals, but they are handleable. In Cindy’s case, we’re prepared for a certain amount of hands-off management.”