Dallas Zoo slated to have 6 elephants soon

The Dallas Zoo plans to have six elephants on display just two years after animal rights activists were calling for the shutdown of an aging exhibit with just one pachyderm.

Zoo officials stirred controversy in 2008 when they said they planned to move their lone remaining elephant, Jenny, to Mexico. Activists wanted the facility shuttered and the elephant placed at a U.S. animal preserve.

Guidelines require zoos to keep at least two elephants because they need social interaction.

The Dallas Zoo decided to keep Jenny and added a new companion, Gypsy, last year. Two African female elephants — Kamba and Congo — were recently brought in, and two more are expected to arrive this month.

The new shipment will include 41-year-old Stumpy, who weighs 10,500 pounds, and Mama, 37, who weighs 4 tons.

The elephants are kept separate for now but will be introduced to each other gradually over the coming weeks. They are scheduled to go on display over Memorial Day weekend, when the zoo's $40 million Giants of the Savanna habitat opens.

Gregg Hudson, director of the Dallas Zoo, said there were discussions of closing the elephant exhibit when he arrived in 2006 because of the cost of maintaining the animals. He said officials decided to keep and expand the elephant facility because "when people bring their kids to the zoo, the kids want to see an elephant."

The zoo used existing land and money from a city bond to build an expanded habitat that includes a 10,000-square-foot elephant house with padded, heated floors and a community room with a 7-foot-deep sand base. The house opens to a 6-acre grassland, which includes features designed to keep the animals occupied.

Margaret Morin, a Dallas-area nurse who headed protests about plans to move Jenny two years ago, remains skeptical.

"None of this makes any sense," she said. "They treat elephants as commodities. They're not commodities."

Courtesy of Mark Rosenthal

"Look's like the Doug Terranova elephants are going to a new home."