L.A. Zoo to Send Rogue Elephant to San Francisco
A rogue elephant that trampled a Los Angeles Zoo employee last fall will be loaned to the San Francisco Zoo, officials said Thursday.
Calle, a 30-year-old Asian elephant, will provide company for Tinkerbelle, a 31-year-old female Asian elephant that has been without an elephant companion since April 1995.
“It seemed like a good match,” said Michael Dee, the Los Angeles Zoo’s mammal curator.
Calle injured zookeeper-in-training Ronald Rotter last October, smashing Rotter’s collarbone and bruising his ribs and a knee. Whether the elephant charged or accidentally blundered into the man was unclear, but zoo officials decided to find another home for the animal.
In the interim, Calle was transferred to “Have Trunk Will Travel,” an elephant compound in Perris, Calif.
Unlike zoo handlers at the Los Angeles Zoo, who use a more hands-on approach, handlers at the San Francisco Zoo do not go into pens with elephants, officials said.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Zoo will continue to look into the possibility of permanently loaning Calle to the Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tenn.
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