Elephants Billy and Tina are not the first giant mammals trucked out of L.A. overnight. Meet Orky and Corky

The middle-aged couple was nowhere to be found.

Billy, 40, wasn’t hanging out by the waterfall. Tina, 59, wasn’t in the barn.

On Tuesday morning, animal rights activists — who, for years, have fought for the two aging Asian elephants to be removed from the Los Angeles Zoo — were stunned to find the pachyderms’ enclosure empty.

“We don’t know where the elephants are!” the animal rights advocacy Social Compassion in Legislation wrote on Instagram.

Billy and Tina were whisked away in the dead of night

The L.A. Zoo, which is owned and operated by the City of Los Angeles, said Wednesday that the elephants were loaded into separate ventilated shipping containers for a 22-hour ride to a zoo in Tulsa, Okla.

“Transports like these,” the L.A. Zoo wrote on a website detailing the move, “occur at night taking into consideration optimal temperatures, traffic conditions, and the safety of people in the zoo during loading.”

The transfer to the Tulsa Zoo — announced last month — prompted weeks of protest from activists who wanted Billy and Tina to be taken to a sanctuary, not another zoo. Even Cher got involved.

“Billy and Tina have served their time in confinement,” Cher wrote in support of a lawsuit filed this month against the L.A. Zoo‘s director. “They deserve the chance to live out their lives in peace and dignity.” Tuesday, the day the elephants were moved, was Cher’s 79th birthday.

The secretive truck ride took place despite a motion by L.A. City Councilman Bob Blumenfield, who requested the move be paused until the zoo gave a report detailing options for moving Billy and Tina to a sanctuary.

In a statement to The Times on Wednesday afternoon, Blumenfield said he was “disappointed and frustrated” by the move and the lack of transparency surrounding it, calling the ordeal a “sad reflection on the government of Los Angeles.”

Advocates say the zoo’s relatively small enclosure caused health problems for the elephants

For years, advocates expressed anguish over Billy’s repetitive head bobbing. L.A. Zoo officials called it a harmless habit. But various animal experts, including veterinarians, said it was a sign of stress, trauma and boredom.

Over the last two years, the zoo — citing age-related health problems — has euthanized two female Asian elephants: Jewel, who died at age 61 in 2023, and Shaunzi, who died last year at 53.

That left just Billy and Tina, who lived in a 6.5-acre habitat.

To be in good standing with the Assn. of Zoos and Aquariums — an accrediting body whose board is led by Denise Verret, chief executive of the L.A. Zoo — facilities must maintain herds of at least three elephants because they are social creatures.

At the Tulsa Zoo, Billy and Tina will be joined in a 17-acre enclosure by five other Asian elephants.

Billy and Tina are not the first giant mammals removed from L.A. under cover of darkness

In 1987, Marineland of the Pacific, a theme park on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, trucked two killer whales, Corky and Orky, to SeaWorld in San Diego in the middle of the night under police escort.

Orky, who weighed 14,000 pounds, was put onto a special stretcher. Corky, who had shared a tank with him for nearly 18 years, tried and failed to throw her 8,000-pound body onto the stretcher with him.

“As the crane lifted her mate hundreds of feet in the air, above the bleachers and into a tank aboard a flatbed truck,” The Times reported then, “the sounds of her desperation filled the hollow tank.”

The theme park closed a few weeks later. Orky died the next year. Corky, now 60, remains at SeaWorld.

Today’s top stories

(Kelvin Kuo / Los Angeles Times)

San Diego small plane crash

• A private jet flying in dense fog crashed into a San Diego neighborhood early Thursday morning, leaving a huge debris field.
• The crash destroyed several homes. The only fatalities were the plane’s occupants, authorities said.
• While authorities have not named anyone who died in the crash, a spokesperson for Sound Talent Group, a San Diego-based music agency, confirmed to The Times that the company lost three employees.

The end of California’s new gas car sales ban

• The Senate voted yesterday to overturn California’s landmark ban on new gas-only car sales.
• Republican senators stamped out one of California’s most ambitious environmental policies and challenged the state’s authority to enact vehicle standards to combat its notoriously unhealthy air quality.
• California is staging a multipronged defense of its climate progress. Here’s how it’s going.

L.A.’s former deputy mayor and a fake bomb threat

• Brian Williams, L.A.’s former deputy mayor of public safety, admitted in a plea deal that he called in a fake bomb threat to City Hall late last year, federal prosecutors announced.
• Williams was placed on administrative leave in December after the FBI raided his home investigating the threat.

What else is going on

• Residents can now have their soil tested for lead around the Eaton burn area, thanks to a free county program.
• Memorial Day weekend travel is expected to break records. Here’s what you need to know.
• Two workers fired from LAHSA had accused top executive of improper behavior.
• Fertility clinic director vows to rebuild after Palm Springs bombing. ‘Life is preserved.’
• ‘Act of terror’: Israeli Embassy workers killed in D.C. were at a Gaza aid event.

Commentary and opinions

• Columnist Bill Plaschke writes an appreciation of the ESPN show ‘Around the Horn’ taking its final bow on Friday.
• Back in the news, the former mayor of Carson Albert ‘Little Al’ Robles still has a lot of bones to pick, writes columnist Gustavo Arellano.
• George Wendt, who died this week, brought his authentic self to what could have been superficial exchanges during ‘Cheers,’ argues guest columnist Colin Fleming.

This morning’s must reads

Entertainment & Arts

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Other must reads

• She’s 11 years old. She’s about to graduate from college. And she’s just getting started.
• A missing woman was ‘miraculously’ found in California’s mountains. Then came the chorus of skeptics.

For your downtime

(David Butow / For The Times)

Going out

• Beaches: Here are California’s dirtiest beaches. Take a look before you take a dip.
• Shuffle: What to do if you get stung by a stingray in the ocean.

Staying in

• Television: This season, ‘Hacks’ has ‘corporate greed’ in its crosshairs, in Hollywood and beyond.
• Books: ‘When It All Burns’ offers sobering lessons about growing fire dangers from the front lines.
• Recipes: Here’s a recipe for classic pound cake.
• Games: Get our free daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and arcade games.

A question for you: What is your favorite California city to visit?

Joanie says, “San Francisco, followed by Anaheim.”
Lynne says, “Cayucos! Cool beach town in Central California!”

Email us at essentialcalifornia@latimes.com, and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.

And finally ... your photo of the day

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Today’s great photo was taken by staff photographer Christina House of the Descanso Gardens.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Hailey Branson-Potts, staff reporter
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew Campa, Sunday writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

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