For years, animal-rights advocates have pushed for the elephants at the Los Angeles Zoo to be moved to an animal sanctuary.
But in Southern California, even the elephants have celebrity backers. One in particular, Billy, has gotten some extra love from Cher.
“Billy doesn’t deserve this,” the singer said in an interview on Thursday. She says the 40-year-old pachyderm, who has been at the zoo since 1989, “has had a terrible life” in a restrictive enclosure, with minimal shade and hard ground that could damage his feet.
In recent months, the legal, political and zoological drama playing out over the fate of the zoo’s Asian elephants has escalated. After two aging members of the herd had to be euthanized, zoo officials announced in April that Billy and the only other surviving elephant, Tina, who is 59, would soon be relocated.
But instead of the sanctuary that Cher and other advocates wanted, officials said the elephants would be moved to another zoo in Tulsa, Okla., where they could join a larger herd. That has led to protests, a lawsuit, tense city meetings, anger at the zoo director and a legal declaration submitted by the pop icon on the elephants’ behalf.
The battle comes at a time when lawsuits from animal-rights advocates and the shrinking number of available animals have led more zoos to close their elephant enclosures. The Bronx Zoo has faced growing legal pressure to move its last two elephants to a sanctuary, and in 2023 the Oakland Zoo sent one of its elephants to a sanctuary in Tennessee after it was unable to find it a compatible companion.
Billy and Tina’s case was in Los Angeles County Superior Court this week, where a judge denied a temporary restraining order in a lawsuit filed by John Kelly, a longtime Los Angeles resident seeking to stop the relocation to Tulsa. The judge’s action allows zoo officials to move forward unless the City Council decides to intervene.
On Friday, the Nonhuman Rights Project filed a separate lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court to stop the move.
Visited by nearly 1.8 million people a year, the zoo is owned by the City of Los Angeles and has been Billy’s home since he arrived in California as a 4-year-old from Malaysia. Tina joined him in 2010 from San Diego.
Their herd also included Jewel, who was 61 when she died in 2023, and Shaunzi, who died last year at 53. Zoo officials have said that the elephants were declining for reasons unrelated to their enclosure, and that they were euthanized because of age-related health problems.
To keep their accreditation, zoos must maintain a herd larger than two, so that the animals can properly socialize with other elephants. Los Angeles officials said there weren’t enough Asian elephants available to acquire more, so they decided to move Billy and Tina to another zoo instead.
Five Asian elephants live on a 17-acre complex at the Tulsa Zoo, and they share a 36,650-square-foot barn — a space much larger than the one Billy and Tina have now. But animal-rights advocates say they are concerned about Billy and Tina being able to adapt, and the trip there being unhealthy or traumatizing.
“Billy and Tina may not be any better off at the Tulsa Zoo than they are at the L.A. Zoo,” said Chris Draper, an expert in animal behavior and management, in a declaration filed with the lawsuit by animal-rights advocates last week. Dr. Draper is on the accreditation committee for the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries.
The L.A. Zoo, which said in a statement this week that its elephants and other animals “receive the best care possible,” referred questions about the legal battle to the city attorney’s office, which declined to comment.
The zoo’s director, Denise Verret, has said that the decision to move the elephants was made in consultation with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which accredits zoos across the country. She is the current chair of the association’s board of directors.
The decision has prompted criticism from some city officials, and concerns about conflict of interest. At a budget hearing last week, Bob Blumenfield, a city councilor, asked Ms. Verret if she could promise that the elephants would not be moved until council members had a chance to study the move. She did not agree.
“What I can promise you is that I am always going to make decisions that are for the best interest of the animals at the zoo, including the elephants,” Ms. Verret said.
For now, it is unclear when the move to Tulsa will happen. Zoo officials said a date had not been determined.
On Friday morning, Tina appeared to be receiving some sort of treatment inside the zoo’s 16,600-square-foot barn. Outside, Billy paced around the 6.56-acre elephant enclosure, at one point stepping in his own feces.
For several minutes, he bobbed his head up and down, which could be interpreted as a sign of a happy elephant. But Cher, who is a co-founder of the animal advocacy group Free the Wild, says that when an elephant does that, “they’re having a breakdown.”
The singer acknowledged that she had never visited Billy or his companions at the zoo, but she said in an interview that she had viewed videos of their condition.
“Billy and Tina have served their time in confinement,” she said. “They deserve the chance to live out their lives in peace and dignity.”
Jesus Jiménez is a Times reporter covering Southern California.
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