LOS ANGELES : Elephant Returned to New $1.2-Million Barn at Zoo

Billy, an 11-year-old Asian bull elephant, came home to the Los Angeles Zoo on Wednesday after a few months hiatus, then strolled around his state-of-the-art quarters in the $1.2-million pachyderm barn.

Billy was moved to a Riverside County boarding facility Sept. 1 during construction of the barn because it would have been unsafe for workers to be near the animal, zoo Director Mark Goldstein said. Billy arrived at the Griffith Park zoo about 7 a.m., was met by Annie, a 24-year-old Asian elephant, and followed her into the barn, Goldstein said.

The barn was upgraded to improve care for the animals and make it safer for elephant keepers, officials said. It has individual stalls for the mammals, and remote-controlled mechanical doors and video cameras so that keepers can put the animals to bed at night without entering the barn, according to zoo officials.

The improvements also include protective bars, behind which animal handlers and veterinarians can work while trimming an elephant’s hoofs or drawing blood.

Last spring’s announcement that Billy, a brown, 10-foot-high pachyderm, would be moved to a Perris Valley facility a few months later prompted immediate controversy.

It came about a year after an elephant named Hannibal died at the Los Angeles Zoo as his keepers were trying to transfer him to a zoo in Mexico. The elephant, tranquilized before being loaded into a truck, collapsed and died. Zoo officials came under condemnation from animal rights groups and others.

“I think watching Billy come back, and watching how the staff worked and how the (renovated) barn (has) worked . . . we can stand up and say we responsibly care for and manage our elephants,” Goldstein said. He said another female elephant will be brought to the zoo in September.