Sorry, but Winky Wouldn’t Fit in at Wild Animal Park

Her trunk is ready, but Winky has no place to go.

The Sacramento Zoo’s only elephant had been scheduled to move to the San Diego Wild Animal Park. But park officials now say they can’t take the 38-year-old Winky because their own elephants aren’t getting along well.

“Things just weren’t clicking the way they wanted them to,” said Sacramento Zoo spokeswoman Liz Brenner. “So they said they’re no longer in a position to receive Winky.”

The zoo has been trying to find a new home for Winky because she has been alone since the zoo’s other elephant died and because her enclosure, her residence for 35 years, doesn’t measure up to modern standards.

Elephants are social animals and zoo officials had hoped Winky could assimilate into the San Diego Wild Animal Park’s herd of eight female Asian elephants. But herds are tightly knit groups with strict pecking orders and it can take weeks or months before a newcomer is accepted.

The San Diego herd still hasn’t accepted Omar, a male elephant born there eight months ago. Park officials said Omar’s mother and the rest of the herd had never seen a baby elephant before and rejected it.

“It’s taking a lot longer than we imagined to get Omar accepted,” said park spokesman Jeff Jouett. “Trying to add the baby is going to cause some shifting and rumbling in the herd.

“To try to add an adult at the same time could really upset the order of things and be dangerous for the baby, Winky and the keepers involved.”

He said the park doesn’t have the personnel to provide constant care and companionship to Omar and work with Winky at the same time.

Sacramento Zoo officials, meanwhile, are seeking a new home for Winky at other zoos.