Posted on 07/20/2004 11:47:44 AM PDT by StoneColdGOP
After a yearlong effort to banish Ruby -- the meek elephant who's become quarrelsome -- to the American hinterland, Mayor James Hahn did an about-face Monday and ordered the city's 9,000-pound pachyderm returned to Los Angeles.
Under pressure from animal activists and a lawsuit that warned that her health was in jeopardy -- Hahn directed that the 42-year-old African elephant be returned after 14 months at the Knoxville Zoo in Tennessee, where she had become something of an outcast.
"Though the move of Ruby to the Knoxville Zoo was well-intentioned," Hahn said in a statement, "it is clear that she has not fully assimilated to her surroundings.
"Ruby is a healthy, vigorous animal who should not be retired, but rather brought home to encourage awareness for elephant conservation."
Hahn told zoo General Manager John Lewis to return the elephant as soon as weather and logistics allowed.
Because of summer heat, Lewis thought that Ruby likely would be transported this fall to rejoin three of her companions at the Los Angeles Zoo.
Animal-rights activists were elated by a decision they say was prompted by KNBC news reports this week of Ruby swaying back and forth in her pen.
"Oh, my God, psychotic behavior," said Gretchen Wyler, vice president of the U.S. Humane Society Hollywood office in Encino, which had backed the lawsuit to bring Ruby home.
"What a great day it is for those of us who have been in the fray. Ruby became the poster elephant for all the elephants who have been wrongly moved."
Animal-rights activists and elephant experts had alleged that Ruby had been held in a small concrete cage and showed signs of stress over solitary confinement and separation from Gita, her Asian elephant female friend of 16 years in Griffith Park.
A Los Angeles resident had sought a restraining order to keep Ruby in town. But before the order went in effect, zoo officials whisked Ruby to Knoxville during a midnight move May 30, 2003, to serve as "auntie" for a breeding program there.
For more than a year, zoo officials in Knoxville and Los Angeles had maintained that she was healthy and adjusting to her new herd of pachyderms and occasional diet of Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
The City Attorney's Office had sought a summary judgment to toss out a taxpayer lawsuit seeking to reunite Ruby with her longtime friend.
In April, a Superior Court judge ordered zoo officials to report back in six months on how well Ruby was getting along with the elephants in Tennessee.
"Wow, I'm just blown away," said Catherine Doyle, an animal-rights activist whose name is on the lawsuit, of the decision. "I didn't expect this.
"It's an election year, that's all I can say."
Zoo officials said they were responding to a promise to bring Ruby home if she couldn't fit into the herd in Knoxville.
But because of Ruby's recent behavior, they questioned whether Ruby could be reunited with Gita right away. Despite her years in Los Angeles, she will have to be assimilated again with the city's herd.
While Ruby had been somewhat meek in Los Angeles, Lewis said, she had became somewhat aggressive in her Knoxville habitat.
"When she got to Knoxville, she kind of found herself and became dominant," he said. "She got real pushy."
He added that the relationship between Ruby and Gita had been "overplayed quite a bit," as the two had merely tolerated one another.
Lewis said Los Angeles will not follow the lead of zoos in San Francisco and Detroit, which plan to send their elephants to wildlife sanctuaries.
The Los Angeles Zoo is now building a new pachyderm exhibit expected to open in 2006.
"Our position is, (Ruby) is healthy, she's vigorous, she has a reason to return," he said. "We could provide good care for her."
Ruby is coming home.
We'll have to go see her when she's back. :-)
According to the LA Times, being moved to Knoxville, TN is tantamount to being "banished to the American hinterland." Yet another instance of costal condesencion towards everything between NY and LA.
I'm glad we signed that petition for her, even if this is an election year type decision.
That must have been what was wrong the elephant (Gita) we saw when we visited.
She missed her friend.
Actually, it's an L.A. Daily News article
The Times would have outright called Tennessee a backward haven of illiterate troglodytes, or somesuch thing.
Miss Might & Magic a bit? ;-)
YES.
Iam so glad Ruby gets to go home. Nice story with a happy ending.
I guess that rock n' roll girl hated country music...
LMAO!
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