Commission to Probe Death of Zoo Elephant

Los Angeles City Council President John Ferraro said Friday he will appoint an independent commission to investigate the death of Hannibal, the Los Angeles Zoo’s rowdy, five-ton African bull elephant who died last week after officials tried--and failed--to tranquilize him and ship him to a Mexican zoo.

A preliminary necropsy report on the elephant is expected to be released to zoo officials today by the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. The final report may not be completed until May.

Ferraro also sent a letter to the city’s chief administrative officer requesting that his department conduct a study and prepare a report detailing the zoo’s “policies and procedures for the shipment, sale, loan and purchase of animals.”

“The death of Hannibal is, without question, a tragedy,” Ferraro said Friday. “I think it’s imperative that we understand clearly and without question of bias what happened to cause this . . . animal’s death.”

Ferraro said he will appoint a five-member commission “and give them the task of reviewing the circumstances of the elephant’s death, including evaluation of the formal necropsy report.”

Hannibal died March 20, after a 10-hour ordeal in which he was sedated, then led into a specially constructed moving crate where he dropped to his knees, apparently in reaction to tranquilizers. He was then given an anti-tranquilizing drug, but never recovered.

He was tranquilized as part of a controversial plan to relocate him to a larger zoo habitat near Mexico City. The elephant had become increasingly difficult to handle in his relatively small confines in Los Angeles, zoo officials said.

But animal rights groups blasted zoo officials for sedating Hannibal. The elephant should have been trained, over a period of weeks, to enter a cage without the use of tranquilizers, activists said.

Hannibal was the third African male elephant to die under controversial circumstances at the Los Angeles Zoo in the last decade.

Mark Goldstein, the newly appointed Los Angeles Zoo director, has defended the decision to sedate and attempt to move Hannibal, and expressed doubt that tranquilizing drugs caused the elephant’s death. Hannibal’s death was unfortunate, Goldstein has said, but the zoo had to try to move him to an environment where he would have more space.