To the editor: As the Los Angeles Times reported, the L.A. Zoo sent elephants Billy and Tina to the Tulsa Zoo instead of a sanctuary. Tina faces a life-threatening uterine infection. Billy faces the prospect of invasive sperm extractions — a procedure that failed repeatedly at the L.A. Zoo (“Hollywood rallies around former L.A. Zoo elephants Billy and Tina as they reportedly suffer in Tulsa,” March 31).
Last year, I represented Billy and Tina in a habeas corpus action brought by the Nonhuman Rights Project. Eight experts submitted testimony detailing how elephants are self-aware, cover their dead with earth, share information vocally in a manner similar to humans and comfort others in distress. The L.A. Superior Court did not doubt that elephants are “extraordinarily cognitively complex beings” yet refused to apply existing law protecting individuals from wrongful restraint of their liberty.
The L.A. Zoo and the courts failed to protect Billy and Tina. Los Angeles should ensure that an injustice like this never happens again.
Christopher Berry, Oakland