Activists Blame Sedatives in Death of Zoo Elephant

Hannibal the elephant reacted adversely to tranquilizers administered in the days before the five-ton animal died at the Los Angeles Zoo during an attempt to move him to a zoo in Mexico, animal activists said Monday.

The African bull elephant died March 20 after a 10-hour ordeal in which he was sedated with drugs to which had reacted badly, then led into a specially constructed moving crate where he dropped to his knees, said the animal activists who based their conclusion on documents obtained from an unidentified zoo employee.

“What the Los Angeles Zoo did was torture him to death,” Pat Derby, president of the Performing Animal Welfare Society, said at a news conference.

“We were certain that Hannibal’s death was preventable,” Derby said. “These papers substantiate all our previous statements and prove that zoo management has deliberately misled the public and media in reporting the incident.”

Copies of daily treatment charts and a veterinary log kept on the elephant indicated that zoo officials administered at least two tranquilizers on March 13, 18, 19 and 20, Derby said. The documents were obtained by animal activists and distributed to reporters at the news conference.

According to one entry in the veterinary log dated March 19, the tranquilized elephant was lying on his sternum “unable to rise” as zoo staff workers were trying to “tighten rear leg chains.”

A separate entry dated March 20 indicates that Hannibal was checked at 1 a.m. “and he was moving. Checked again at 5 a.m. and he was dead.”

“That elephant was in trouble,” said Ed Stewart, co-director of the Performing Animal Welfare Society. “It’s shocking to see that nobody was sitting with that elephant all night long.”

Zoo officials said the move was necessary because the rowdy elephant had become increasingly difficult to handle in his relatively small confines at the Los Angeles Zoo.

Officials said the animal died of cardiopulmonary collapse while lying inside the crate during the process of relocating him to a larger zoo habitat near Mexico City. A post-mortem revealed that the elephant had fibrous growths on his heart, which may have contributed to his death, officials said.

In addition, a March 23 letter from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees animal welfare at zoos, concluded after a preliminary investigation that there were no “apparent violations” of federal law.

Zoo director Mark Goldstein was not available for comment, and spokeswoman Lora LaMarca would not discuss the documents obtained by the animal activists or their allegations that Hannibal had a history of adverse reactions to the drugs administered before he was placed in the crate.

City Councilman John Ferraro has appointed an independent panel of experts to investigate the circumstances leading to the death of Hannibal. It is expected to meet later this month.