Action Sought on Treatment of Zookeeper : Animal Care: A state senator wants the district attorney to file a complaint against the Zoological Society, saying it violated state law after the Dunda elephant-beating incident.

A state senator has asked the San Diego County district attorney to file a complaint against the San Diego Zoological Society for allegedly violating a state law that protects employees who report their bosses’ wrongdoing.

Sen. Dan McCorquodale (D-San Jose) said Wednesday that he met with Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller last week to discuss what he described as the illegal harassment of Lisa Landres, an elephant keeper at the San Diego Zoo who has been outspoken, especially regarding the beating last year of the elephant Dunda.

McCorquodale said he is sending Miller information he collected as chairman of the Senate Natural Resources and Wildlife Committee, including the zoo’s annual evaluations of Landres’ performance before and after the Dunda incident.

“What the information shows is a very clear pattern of good evaluations up to 1988, but bad evaluations after that, including references to ‘bad’ things she’d done in the periods covered by previous evaluations,” McCorquodale said, adding that he believes that conduct “certainly” violated a 1987 employee-protection statute. “It was like they were trying to add things that would make her look bad after the fact.”

Landres, who resigned Tuesday after 10 years at the zoo, said Wednesday that she and another elephant keeper have endured “retaliation” from zoo officials since they spoke out about the treatment of Dunda, an 18-year-old African elephant. She said she quit because of the way the zoo treated her after the Dunda beating.

In January, Landres said, she will start a job as an investigator for the U.S. Humane Society in Washington. In that capacity, she will respond to complaints about zoos, circuses and other keepers of animals around the country.

“If things were going along well at the zoo, if I felt like a valued employee, if I felt that in any way I was a contributing member of the Zoological Society staff, I would not leave--never,” she said Wednesday. “But I am treated like dirt, like an invisible entity.”

Last month, she said, she received her latest evaluation. “It said I was not satisfactory in any way, basically. It made me feel so bad, particularly because I care so much for the animals that I go above and beyond. I’ve gotten reprimands and nasty memos. I’ve had enough.”

Jeff Jouett, a spokesman for the San Diego Zoo, said he had not heard from McCorquodale but said the allegations are “ridiculous. We categorically deny it.”

Jouett said he could not discuss the specifics of any employee’s evaluation, but commented: “Our performance evaluations are done in a fair and objective manner for all employees. They are directly and purely based on performance criteria, and they apply to everyone who works here, so-called whistle-blowers or not.”

Miller said he has not received the information McCorquodale promised and has not yet reviewed the statute. A violation of the statute, which says it is illegal for a manager to discipline an employee who makes legitimate complaints, constitutes a misdemeanor, subject to a one-year jail sentence and a fine of up to $10,000.

“He gave me the scenario, but that’s all I have so far,” said Miller, who said he cannot predict when or how he will proceed. “He asked me to look into it. I am, and I will, and then I’ll see what to do.”

If Miller does not file a complaint, McCorquodale said, he will seek action from the state attorney general.

“I’ll even go so far as to explore with him the possibility that my committee would file a complaint,” he said. “I don’t intend to let it disappear.”

Last year, keepers at the San Diego Wild Animal Park conceded that they chained Dunda by all four legs, pulled her to the ground and hit her on the head with ax handles and other instruments over a period of at least two days in February, 1988. They said it was necessary discipline, not abuse. Dunda had recently been transferred from the zoo, where she had lived most of her life, to the animal park.

The Zoological Society operates both the Wild Animal Park and the zoo.

Landres and another senior elephant keeper, Steve Friedlund, complained that Dunda was poorly prepared for the transfer and then brutally beaten. Soon afterward, Landres has said, she learned that zoo officials planned to transfer her from her job, as punishment for pressing an internal complaint about the beating. The officials changed their minds, she said, after news articles about the incident appeared.

Landres and Friedlund said they were forced to hire lawyers to defend themselves against a campaign of harassment by zoo officials. A series of formal disciplinary actions have been brought against them, they said.

In the summer of 1988, Landres and Friedlund each got a warning when they commented on a log sheet that they thought a proposal to leave some elephants outside the barn at night was unsafe. Zoo officials said the comment was inappropriate editorializing.

Last January, a month after Landres quit smoking, Landres said, the zoo charged that an anonymous visitor had complained of seeing her smoking a cigarette in the elephant enclosure against zoo policy. Then in July, she and Friedlund found themselves at odds with their superiors once again when they protested a new policy that required keepers to work alone with the elephants for four hours each shift. They said the policy, which directly contradicted written zoo memorandum, was unsafe.

Zoo officials have repeatedly denied that they have harassed Landres or Friedlund.

When told of Landres’ new job with the U.S. Humane Society, McCorquodale said, “I hope they assign the (San Diego) Zoo to her.”

Landres said that, since she will be charged with investigating significant complaints anywhere in the country, it is possible that she could scrutinize the San Diego Zoo in the future.

“I will be an investigator. If I hear a complaint, it will be up to me to look into it,” she said. “To be perfectly frank, I do have some good sources in San Diego. I’ll be even more frank: I think right now there are plenty of things that need looking into at the San Diego Zoo.”

She added: “The elephants are the major joy of my life. The thought of leaving them is almost overwhelmingly sad to me. If it weren’t for zoo management, I wouldn’t be leaving them, a city I love, my friends, my family.”