Former L.A. Zoo Elephant Ruby Goes From Rags To Riches Celebrates One-year Anniversary at PAWS Sanctuary

Bob Barker Cheers Happy Outcome For Ruby

Los Angeles, Calif.—One year ago Thursday, Ruby, a 47-year-old African elephant, packed her trunk at the Los Angeles Zoo and departed by truck to her spacious new home at the natural-habitat PAWS Sanctuary in Northern California. The highly social elephant went from being held alone in a tiny, barren back area of the L.A. Zoo, to roaming more than 70 acres of rolling Sierra foothills with four other African elephants, plucking tasty acorns from the trees.

In Defense of Animals (IDA) and other animal protection organizations, plus numerous private citizens including television personality Bob Barker, had pressed for the move. "I am so pleased that Ruby is at the PAWS Sanctuary enjoying the life that an elephant should live that I'm going up to help her celebrate her first anniversary in her new home,” said Barker.

Ruby gained national attention in 2003 when the L.A. Zoo separated her from Gita, her companion of 16 years, and sent her to a Tennessee zoo, spurring a massive public outcry and a citizen lawsuit. Ruby returned to L.A. in late 2004. She is one of three elephants to be transferred last year from a zoo to a sanctuary. Sixteen zoos have either closed or plan to close their elephant exhibits.

“Ruby finally has what all elephants so desperately need,” stated IDA campaign director Catherine Doyle, “vast space, the company of other elephants, and the natural conditions that elephants require to thrive. No zoo can provide all that.”

The sole remaining elephant at the L.A. Zoo is the 23-year-old Asian elephant Billy, who lives in a tiny, impoverished pen and repetitively bobs his head up and down, an abnormal behavior caused by stress and boredom. Male elephants do not naturally live in isolation. According to experts, males need “other bulls, females and space.”

The L.A. Zoo plans to construct a taxpayer-funded, $40 million, 3.5-acre elephant exhibit, subdivided into four smaller yards, that still will be woefully inadequate for elephants. The space increase is insignificant considering elephants’ immense size and their need to walk many miles a day.

“It’s wrong to keep elephants at the L.A. Zoo because it can never give elephants anything close to the life nature intended,” says Doyle. “The City should cut its losses, cancel the elephant exhibit, and send Billy to a sanctuary where, like Ruby, he can live a more natural and healthy life.”

For more information, please visit www.HelpElephants.com.