Fly? Drive? Or go absolutely nowhere
Our Toronto elephants’ 4,500-kilometre California trip is uncertain — yet again
What can Iringa, Toka and Thika possibly be thinking?
They’re going, they’re not going, they’re flying, they’re driving, they’re being crate-trained for travel — nobody knows for sure.
For the past two years, controversy has swirled around the pending transfer of the three African elephants from the Toronto Zoo to the Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) in California. Now, at the last minute, with the zoo having already posted a notice to its patrons to visit the elephants before they leave after Thanksgiving, there’s a snag that may mean another winter in Toronto.
The latest player in this serpentine scenario — the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) — has issued a memo raising concerns about the transport plan for a roughly 4,500-kilometre road trip. Issues are, among others, the “transport conditions, primarily in relation to the fitness of these aging elephants and the long duration of transport in a confined space.”
Margaret Whittaker, the animal behavioural consultant heading the PAWS transport plan, met with four CFIA vets in Toronto on Thursday. Whittaker, whose team has a total of 120 years’ experience in transporting elephants, thought she’d addressed all concerns in a written response to the federal agency.
By phone from California on Friday, she told the Star that at the meeting (which she thought would be with zoo personnel about the elephants’ progress), one of the vets kept saying: “I guarantee the elephants will suffer (with your transport plan).”
She told them the very point of her organization, Active Environments, is to improve animal welfare and “we would never put an animal in distress.”
If it looks like Iringa, 44, Toka, 43 and Thika, 33, are in for another white Christmas, it should be stressed that nothing is final and preparations for their transfer are ongoing. Whittaker praised the efforts of their Toronto keepers in training the elephants to travel in crates. “I have a job to ensure the safety of these elephants and I’ve got to assume we’re going.”
Julie Woodyer, from the animal welfare group Zoocheck, was more insistent: “There is no question in my mind that we are moving these elephants. We will satisfy (any outstanding issues) one way or another.”
Matt Berridge, vice-president of CUPE Local 1600, which includes zookeepers, said staff don’t know what will happen. “The keepers are unsure what CFIA concerns will mean for the elephant transport. We’re still preparing them to go, but it all seems up in the air with so many issues.”
CFIA is responsible for enforcing the justice department’s “health of animals regulations” and overseeing the elephants’ journey during loading and the estimated five hours of Canadian transport. The U.S. Food and Drug Agency approved the plan on the U.S. side and other permits are in place, according to Woodyer.
If the elephants stay in Toronto, it would be the third winter since city council approved their move to PAWS in October 2011 and the second since councillors reaffirmed the choice in 2012. An explosion of problems erupted after the vote. They involved everything from getting a plane to fly them (the travel preference of zoo management) to opposition from the U.S.-headquartered Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Toronto elephant keepers have always opposed the move to the sanctuary and, at times, the battle has been ugly. Whittaker said it hasn’t been decided whether Toronto zoo staffers would take part in the two-truck and car caravan but certainly none of those who publicly attacked PAWS co-founder Ed Stewart in social media outlets would. The road trip is to take 40 hours’ driving time plus breaks. Among other issues, the CFIA team raised concerns of weather exposure. City councillor Michelle Bernardinetti, who introduced the PAWS motion at council, is confident CFIA concerns about health, rest times, heating and crates have been addressed. Plan A had always been for air travel, with costs covered by the $800,000 expected to be donated by Bob Barker, animal activist and former game-show host. But who would provide the plane? In March, when it appeared the Royal Canadian Air Force would fly the elephants in a large Hercules, Woodyer said publicly that if the RCAF declined, “there are no other aircraft options.”
There was a proposal on the table with PAWS from Stephen Fritz, an American elephant transporter who has moved 73 elephants. He said in an interview he had planned to truck Toronto’s elephants but, with all the focus on air travel, he submitted a proposal to use a B747-400 cargo plane.
PAWS declined his offer. Whittaker said Friday that the plan didn’t allow enough room for the biggest elephant, Thika.
Fritz rejects that and says he thinks it’s a bad time of year to be driving into the mountains.
Toronto Zoo CEO John Tracogna wrote July 31 that he had reviewed the PAWS transport protocol and found it acceptable provided all oversight authorities signed off.
“Very few African elephants over the age of 40 have been shipped by truck for cross-country travel in the last 10 years.”
Meanwhile Thika, Iringa and Toka wait at the Toronto Zoo, removed from all the human squabbling.
They don’t have a vote on their transfer from a hectare of paddock space in Toronto to 32 hectares set aside for elephants at the San Andreas sanctuary.
Maybe that’s too bad.