Zoo Ships Out Elephant That Trampled Trainer

Ten days after one of its elephants stomped a trainer, Los Angeles Zoo officials conceded Tuesday that the five-ton animal was a risk to animal keepers and would be evicted--and that the zoo will evaluate its procedures for handling elephants.

Calle, a 30-year-old female Asian elephant, horrified zoo visitors when she knocked down and stepped on animal keeper Ronald Rotter on Oct. 19, smashing his collarbone and bruising three ribs.

Initially, zoo officials said Calle apparently slipped in a wet spot in her pen and stumbled onto Rotter, who had only been working with elephants for six weeks. When another animal keeper gave Calle the command to move, she did--evidence, officials said at the time, that Calle was not intending to attack Rotter.

But Los Angelez Zoo Director Manuel A. Mollinedo said Tuesday that Calle may have been trying to assert herself as the dominant female elephant in the herd--and that the zoo’s animal handlers may not have the experience to discourage her.

“We still don’t know what happened” Oct. 19, Mollinedo said, “but we had a situation where a staff person was injured, and I don’t want to put any person in harm’s way.”

Mollinedo said that after the incident handlers realized that Calle had been increasingly aggressive since arriving at the zoo two years ago, including grabbing handlers with her trunk.

“It hadn’t been documented, but some aggressive behavior had been demonstrated ever since she got here,” Mollinedo said. “She’s been testing the system. She’s pushing the envelope.

“If we had a more experienced staff, we could probably deal with her,” Mollinedo said. “But at this point, I don’t want to take that chance. Unless we move the elephant, there is potential danger to our keepers in the future, so we are taking the most conservative approach.”

Calle will be moved to Have Trunk Will Travel, a premier elephant compound in Perris, which is where the zoo acquired her initially. The zoo is looking for a permanent home for her.

Mollinedo said the zoo may consider a fundamental change in the way it handles its elephants--by moving away from the current hands-on approach to one called “protected contact,” in which handlers are segregated from the elephants. In that situation, the animals are trained through hand and verbal signals and rewarded for good behavior with food that is presented to them by handlers through a protective barrier.

The protected-contact approach is gaining favor around the United States because it minimizes handlers’ exposure to injuries. It has been wholly adopted at the San Diego Zoological Society’s renowned Wild Animal Park after a handler there was killed five years ago after being caught between two tussling elephants.

Right now, the Los Angeles Zoo only uses protected contact with a bull elephant. But Mollinedo said that if the zoo’s four remaining female elephants begin to exhibit aggressive behaviors like Calle--rather than accepting the trainers as the most dominant creatures in the elephant yard--”we would have to sit down with the staff and discuss the possibility of going hands-off.”

The zoo completed a $1.4-million renovation of its elephant barn and yards two years ago. Mollinedo said it would not be difficult to adopt a protected-contact approach.

Charles Sedgwick, director of animal health services at the Los Angeles Zoo, said he still endorses the hands-on treatment of elephants because the animals are better groomed and benefit from the increased exercise of working with trainers in the yard.

“We feel our elephants get better care, look better and are healthier with the very intimate contact provided by the hands-on approach,” Sedgwick said. “But you have to have animals that you’re confident with, for safe handling.”

In Calle’s case, Sedgwick said, “we have an individual that was trying to become the matron queen,” creating a potential for danger that could no longer be tolerated.

Mollinedo said the zoo would not seek another elephant to replace Calle, but instead would benefit from the increased keeper-to-elephant ratio.