IDA Charges St. Louis Zoo Conditions Responsible For Clara the Elephant’s Death

San Rafael, Calif.—An international animal protection organization is charging today that inadequate conditions at the St. Louis Zoo are directly responsible for the death of the 52-year-old Asian elephant named Clara who was euthanized last night.

“For years, Clara suffered from painful and debilitating arthritis and chronic foot infections. These conditions are a direct result of decades spent in the St. Louis Zoo’s tiny yards and concrete-floored barn stalls,” said Elliot M. Katz, DVM, president of In Defense of Animals (IDA) “It’s shameful that the St. Louis Zoo allowed Clara to decline to the point where she could barely walk or stand. Had the zoo taken action several years ago to provide Clara with the space and natural conditions she needed to heal, Clara might still be alive today.”

The largest yard at St. Louis Zoo is one-half acre, totally inadequate for elephants which can walk tens of miles a day in the wild. In addition, elephants spend nights and prolonged periods during the winter locked in the zoo’s concrete-floored barn stalls.

Experts agree that lack of exercise and standing on unyielding surfaces wreak havoc on elephants’ joints and feet. Recent surveys show that a majority of elephants in zoos suffer from painful and potentially lethal foot and joint disease. Clara is the eighth elephant to die in 15 months at Association of Zoos and Aquariums-accredited facilities. Seven of those elephants suffered from severe foot and/or joint disease prior to death.

Over a year ago, IDA had called on the zoo to transfer Clara to The Elephant Sanctuary, a 2,700-acre natural habitat refuge in Tennessee. The sanctuary’s space and natural terrain has restored quality of life to many elephants debilitated by years spent in a circus or zoo.

“Instead of addressing the cause of Clara’s problems, the zoo continued to hold her in the same environment that was causing and exacerbating the degenerative conditions,” Katz said. “All the while the zoo was masking Clara’s pain with ever-increasing doses of pain killers, even to the point of causing bleeding ulcers and signs of kidney damage.”

“Clara stands as a national symbol for the suffering elephants needlessly endure in zoos,” Katz concluded. “If zoos cannot provide the vast space, soft ground and natural conditions elephants need, they should not keep elephants at all. It is elephants like Clara who pay the price for zoos’ unwillingness to provide what science tells us elephants need.”

Elephants have a natural lifespan of 60-70 years. Even though elephants in zoos are protected from poaching, drought, famine and disease, they typically die decades short of their natural lifespan.

THE EXPERTS AGREE: ZOO CONDITIONS CAUSE FOOT AND JOINT DISEASE IN ELEPHANTS

“There is general consensus that lack of exercise, long hours standing on hard substrates, and contamination resulting from standing in their own excreta are major contributors to elephant foot problems.”
- Intro to The Elephant’s Foot, proceedings of North American conference on elephant foot care, 2001

“A zoo really isn’t conducive to the health of elephants and the feet are a large part of it. You just have to accept this as a chronic condition, because you aren’t going to cure it.”
- Blair Csuti,, zoologist who organized the first North American conference on elephant foot care in 1998, Wall Street Journal, Nov. 17, 2006

“We believe that no matter how good a foot care program is, eventually foot problems will be seen because they are the result of keeping elephants in captivity.”
Alan Roocroft, consultant who has worked with captive elephants for over 30 years and James Oosterhuis, DVM, San Diego Wild Animal Park, The Elephant’s Foot, 2001

"Foot-related conditions and arthritis are the leading cause of euthanasia in captive elephants in the United States. Activity allows the elephant to wear down the structures of the feet normally. In the wild, elephants move or walk up to 18 hours daily in search of food and water. Although captive elephants may have large enclosures, they do not need to, and sometimes they cannot or often will not, move around. This contributes to the development of foot disease and arthritis. Unyielding, hard surfaces, which are present in most elephant barns and yards, also contribute to foot diseases.
- Gary West, DVM, Oklahoma City Zoo, The Elephant’s Foot, 2001

"There are no substitutes for walking in a restricted environment, no enrichment strategies that motivate a captive elephant sufficiently, no boomer balls or tire that replace walking and no food dispensers that will create activity patterns in elephants that even come close to being beneficial to the long-term management of captive elephants. The absence of walking from an elephant program, considering the elephant is genetically programmed to move, must have a dramatic long-term effect on the elephant¹s physical and mental stability and must ultimately affect its longevity and propagation."
­ Walking, Outline of USDA Elephant Course, Seattle, August 3, 1998

“The first, and undoubtedly the single main reason zoo elephants have so many foot problems is the universal use of concrete floors in zoo indoor elephant enclosures. . . . The number one cause of illness and premature death of zoo elephants is zoo-genic foot disease caused by decades of life spent in the traditional zoo elephant enclosure… it is by far the number one source of suffering and premature death for elephants in every zoo."
- Dr. Michael Schmidt was Chief Veterinarian and Senior Research Veterinarian for the Portland Zoo for 25 years, specializing in the care and breeding of elephants, Jumbo Ghosts: The Dangerous Life of Elephants in the Zoo, 2001.