After living most of my life in Los Angeles, I moved to Manhattan where I sang with a gospel group, worked in an off-Broadway musical, and at the same time, worked with antivivisectionists who lived near me, and lobbied to ban the carriage horse trade. After 7 years of living in New York, I moved to Washington State where I grew up and where there was a possibility of a job teaching acting, but mainly I moved so I could spend time with my mother in her later years doing things with her that she loved to do. It was the best decision I ever made. During my time spent with her in Lake Stevens, Washington, we became closer than we ever had been. She encouraged me to avail myself of acting opportunities in Seattle and Vancouver, BC. and she was as thrilled as I was every time I was cast in a TV show or play.

At the same time, Ringling Circus decided to bring their traveling animal abuse show to Everett, Washington near where I lived. They had already been shut out of Seattle and decided the citizens of Everett would appreciate them more. We didn’t. Our campaign to close up their dirty business was constant and aggressive. It took a few years but we were persistent and we shut them down there and in Kent, Washington even before Ringling decided to go out of business completely. Those were sweet victories.

My friends and I were serious about getting Ringling out of town. Attendees had to walk within a few feet of where we were standing, loudly educating them about the treatment of circus animals. Eventually, they couldn’t stand having to deal with us anymore and just stopped coming.

CHAI AND BAMBOO

But, as someone who loves elephants and had been advocating for Billy since he first came to the LA Zoo as a 4-year-old baby elephant, I was very concerned for the elephants who were imprisoned at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. I became involved with Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants who were campaigning to move two female elephants Chai and Bamboo to a sanctuary.

I didn’t forget about Billy for an instant and kept writing and petitioning for him to be sent to a sanctuary as well. But in Seattle, I could do more. I joined activists in Seattle who were constantly pleading with the City Council to allow Chai and Bamboo to be sent to PAWS or the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. We contacted the press, held banners over freeways, picketed the zoo, and the head of the zoo. Lily Tomlin joined the fight. The citizens of Seattle were overwhelmingly on our side but the Seattle City Council was as immovable as the Los Angeles City Council has been towards Billy. They showed no compassion or concern for the welfare of Chai and Bamboo who were exhibiting all the classic negative symptoms of being incarcerated for almost their entire lives – head bobbing, swaying, and foot and limb problems. They were in physical and mental pain.

At one point, because Bamboo was reacting strongly to receiving especially harsh treatment, she was labeled “difficult” and transferred to a facility in Tacoma, Washington known for dealing with “problem” elephants. After a year of being dealt with as a problem, she was sent back to the Woodland Park Zoo. Then, despite overwhelming objections from activists and the citizens of Seattle, in April, 2015, after the Woodland Park Zoo shut down their elephant exhibit, both Chai and Bamboo were shipped to the Oklahoma City Zoo. Chai survived only for a few months in her new harsh environment and died at age 37 on January 30, 2016. She collapsed during the night and was found dead in the morning by zoo staff. Obviously she had been seriously ill in that facility for months. Bamboo survived longer and died at age 56 on November 15, 2022 after the staff euthanized her. Chai and Bamboo had never known one day free of pain, living a normal elephant life. All they ever experienced was cruelty and a daily hopeless existence.

WHY ARE CITY COUNCILS SO IMPLACCABLE AND DEVOID OF COMPASSION?

For 40 years, we in Los Angeles have been pleading with the City Council to free Billy and send him to a sanctuary. As he became more and more physically impaired, as one veterinarian after another testified to how urgent it was that he be moved to a sanctuary, councilmembers listened with closed minds and pandered to zoo officials who denied that elephants suffer in zoos. To most people it’s obvious how councilmembers should vote. It’s obvious that the elephants deserve an end to their suffering. Why do city councilmembers not agree? Why are city councilmembers like this? Why do they not care? We asked ourselves that question in Seattle and in Los Angeles over and over again. How can they deny these magnificent animals their freedom when it will cost them nothing?

In Seattle and in Los Angeles, city councilmembers usually end up doing the bidding of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. This organization is only concerned with zoos making a profit exhibiting animals and breeding more animals who will be held in captivity. The first-year mortality rate of elephants born in captivity is 30 percent due to stress and harsh treatment. Their lifespan is shortened as they are forced to endure the lack of space they need to be healthy and are prevented from exercising normal elephant behavior.

Animals, to the AZA, are nothing more than “things” that will make them money. To the public, they maintain that the unnatural imprisonment of animals is somehow “conservation,” that being in prison is good for animals instead of them running around free and getting shot by hunters. The fact is, conservation in the wild is not only the humane thing to do, it costs much less.

As reported by the Nonhuman Rights Organization, zoos like to say they support wildlife conservation and they give as an example their donation of $350 million to the cause last year. “The Brookfield Zoo, outside of Chicago, is spending $500 million on a zoo remodel while the Kenya Wildlife Service protects over 36,000 wild elephants across a vast landscape on an annual budget of about $140 million. For a fraction of what it costs to breed and maintain a handful of elephants in captivity, we could protect entire wild herds and their habitats.”

Here in Los Angeles the person who heads up the zoo, Denise Verret, is also the head of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. This means that the City Council has been subject to lobbying not only by the zoo as it has been all these years, but also by the AZA where Verret is chairman. And yet, when Verret and Major Bass stole Billy and Tina out of the L.A. Zoo in the middle of the night and sent them to the Tulsa, Oklahoma Zoo, the City Council was still debating where to send our elephants. Verret was so determined that the will of the AZA be carried out that they resorted to underhanded means to make that happen and used taxpayer dollars to move them. Sanctuaries would have accepted our elephants for free.

A HOPEFUL WIND IS BLOWING

But circumstances have changed for Verret, and that could bode well for a vote going forward and the City Council finally doing the right thing for Billy and Tina. In May of this year, GLAZA, the zoo’s independent fundraising organization, filed a Declaration in the Superior County of the State of California suing the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association. They outlined in 31 pages how “The Zoo has failed to improve the Zoo with funds available to it and has mismanaged the funds that it has received.” It includes information on how Verret spent money meant to go to the zoo, on throwing herself a party, to the tune of $26,000, to celebrate her appointment as director of the zoo. And details how she has spent thousands of dollars on travel expenses for her and her staff while allowing the infrastructure of the zoo to crumble.

Considering how the L.A. Zoo and Verret will fare in this lawsuit and that there is a possibility that Verret’s alleged misappropriation of zoo funds will be met with legal action, there is absolutely no reason any longer for City Council members to pander to the zoo or the AZA. And we all know how the citizens of LA feel about Mayor Bass. Why, at this point, continue to do her will as she accedes to Verret’s demands?” The odds are she will not be re-elected. Now city councilmembers are free to vote their conscience. Billy and Tina still belong to the city of Los Angeles and councilmembers can vote to send Billy and Tina to a sanctuary. If they do so, they can be certain that the people of LA and animal lovers all around the country will celebrate mightily and laud the actions of our City Council. It will be a win win for everyone, especially for Billy and Tina.

If Billy and Tina are forced to stay in Oklahoma much longer they will die. Like Chai and Bamboo who had to endure more suffering and incarceration in a new, unfamiliar, harsh space with no hope of ever being free, our elephants are down to their last reserves. It’s now or never for them. For me, who failed to protect Chai and Bamboo in Seattle and had to witness their deaths from afar, I have a special stake in Billy and Tina. I don’t want to fail this time. I don’t want my heart to break for two more elephants who are special to me. So I’m hoping that people who have not yet called or emailed the president of the City Council, Harris-Dawson, will do so. And for those of you who are faithfully still calling and emailing, I am ever grateful.

Thank you for keeping the calls coming in to councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson at 213-473-7008 and asking him to put Motion 25-0446 on the floor so the City Council can vote to send Billy and Tina to a sanctuary. His email is councilmember.harris-dawson@lacity.org.

You are all amazing.

We appreciate your tax-deductible donations large or small. Help us keep fighting for the animals by going to our site and donating. Thank you!