The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously agreed with city zoo officials and animal rights activists that the two elephants remaining in local captivity should be moved to a sanctuary.

So why are zoo officials and animal rights activists still at odds over the fate of the elephants?

It seems it's a matter of timing. Zoo officials say they need to examine information submitted by two sanctuaries -- one in California and another in Tennessee -- and prepare the pachyderms for the move, which could take two to four months.

But representatives of a group called In Defense of Animals say that's just a delaying tactic, and that the elephants should be moved immediately -- before zoo officials have a chance to bow down to opposition from the zoo's accrediting organization, which wants the animals sent to another one of its member facilities.

Meanwhile, the supervisors -- without discussion -- on Tuesday came down on the activists' side and passed a nonbinding resolution urging the zoo to immediately bring in representatives from the Performing Animal Welfare Society, located in San Andreas, Calaveras County, and begin the transfer.

The ballyhoo began after the deaths this spring of elephants Calle, 37, who suffered from degenerative joint disease, and Maybelle, who died of heart failure at age 43. According to zoo spokeswoman Nancy Chan, Maybelle was one of the three oldest elephants in captivity at the time of her demise.

"We are not stalling," Chan said.

But In Defense of Animals has a different point of view.

"They don't want to send the elephants to a sanctuary, really. We're suspicious that they want to have this whole evaluation process," said Suzanne Roy, a spokeswoman for the group. "The elephants are so sick, and every day they go on in that small lot, and standing on the hard surface, and ingesting sand, is another day that their health declines."

Chan, however, said the remaining pachyderms, Lulu and Tinkerbelle, both 38, are healthy, and the main concern with them is that they are social animals and should have company. Lulu, an African elephant, and Tinkerbelle, an Asian elephant, can't mingle because they can catch diseases from each other.

Both elephants arrived at the San Francisco Zoo in the 1960s and have never left.

"To uproot them would be traumatic," Chan said. "We want to do this slowly."

Co-founder, director and "chief elephant pooper-scooper" Pat Derby at the 100-acre PAWS elephant sanctuary echoed Chan's concerns that zoo officials have time to prepare the animals for any move -- and that the process involve keepers with whom the elephants are familiar.

"It's in the best interest of the elephants if the people who have been working with them associate them with a trailer, where they're comfortable going in and out," Derby said. "Trailer training is critical."

The animals' transition won't end with their arrival at a sanctuary, Derby said.

"It's a very long, hard process, particularly with the African elephants," she said. "They have tusks, and they know how to use them."