Pupils Trumpet Their Indignation at Elephants’ Fate

If it’s true that elephants never forget, then the four that live at the Los Angeles Zoo will long remember one group of schoolkids who showed up Thursday outside their enclosure.

Instead of the usual clutch of oohing and aahing children there to admire them, the huge animals found themselves facing youngsters loudly criticizing their presence and condemning zoo officials who keep them there.

Students from two private schools in Santa Monica accused the zoo of mistreating the elephants and demanded that all four be turned loose to “roam free” in private sanctuaries.

Rather than displaying live elephants, the zoo should upgrade itself by installing computerized “virtual reality” elephants--a kind of electronic imagery that would be far more educational than the real thing, according to students from the exclusive Crossroads and New Roads schools.

The proposal shocked members of the Board of Zoo Commissioners, who were expecting a less controversial presentation when the youngsters asked for time to address the panel during a routine commission meeting at the zoo.

But the criticism positively frosted the zoo’s day-to-day staff members, who are in the middle of designing an $11-million Pachyderm Forest exhibit that is intended to be a zoo centerpiece.

The students’ suspicions about the elephants’ welfare have been festering since a zoo field trip last spring. Commissioners were smiling as 11-year-old Carly Blitz stood up Thursday and began recounting the trip. But they weren’t smiling long.

“The elephants in the zoo either stand or take a couple of steps back and forth, and that’s it!” the sixth-grader said. “One of them was bobbing his head nonstop like a crazy person, the others moved their legs with difficulty, like they had arthritis--probably a result of standing so much rather than walking.”

Tenth-graders Daniel Schuler and Rosa Flores said the students had found an elephant sanctuary in Tennessee with room for the animals, “whose nature is to walk 20 miles a day.” Twelfth-grader Erin Hunter suggested that a virtual-reality elephant display would be something “kids will really enjoy and would really educate us.”

Zoo board President Shelby J. Kaplan Sloan said members of the commission are willing to talk further with students. But she emphasized that Los Angeles’ elephants are in good hands.

“Their condition will be improved dramatically” when the proposed elephant habitat opens in about four years, Sloan promised. “They’ll have much more space. Their behavior will improve.”

The debate continued when students left the meeting and headed for the elephant compound. Handlers were accompanying Gita, 40, and Ruby, 37, on their daily one-mile exercise walk as the youngsters arrived.

Handler Todd Ashker bristled when one student shouted that the elephant he was leading seemed to be abused. “If I mistreated this animal, I’d be fired. Please consider that,” he yelled back.

Nearby, other students confronted animal curator Michael Dee, charging that the elephants were improperly locked indoors at night. Sixteen-year-old Daniel Alter suggested that a lack of exercise might be the cause of one elephant’s arthritis.

Dee responded that elephants are free to walk outside in their compound at night and countered that old age might be a more likely cause of the arthritis. “My mother has severe arthritis,” Dee said.

Interjected Schuler, also 16: “Maybe she isn’t walking enough, either.’

Zoo Director Manuel A. Mollinedo agreed that Los Angeles’ elephants are showing their age. But he urged the students to look elsewhere for animal abuse.

“We’re stationary targets,” he said. “To me the real culprits are circuses and traveling sideshows.”

Mollinedo said zoos have evolved from entertainment venues to conservation sites, where endangered species are protected from encroaching development and poachers.

The private school students--whose parents pay annual tuition of up to $14,995--were hardly mollified by that explanation, however. They left the zoo vowing to step up their efforts--both political and financial--to free Los Angeles’ elephants.

They’ll help raise the $180,000-per-elephant endowment needed to place them in sanctuaries, they said.

And next, added Crossroads teacher Melya Kaplan, “They’re going to the mayor and City Council.”