Girls doing great, say elephants' caretakers
http://www.freep.com/news/nw/elephants-bar111e_20050411.htm
BY HUGH McDIARMID JR
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
April 11, 2005
SAN ANDREAS, Calif. -- Across a rolling green meadow, past a glittering pond and to the top of a small hillock, Wanda the elephant lumbered Sunday morning, moments after the gate to her new universe -a 45-acre enclosure at a the Ark 2000 elephant sanctuary -- opened to her new life.
She waved her trunk through thick patches of green clover and purple lupine still wet with morning dew. She grabbed low-hanging oak tree branches. She squeaked in apparent approval.
Her former zookeepers clung to the steel cables of the enclosure, watching her grow more distant and fighting their emotions.
"It's hard to believe it's her," said Detroit elephant keeper Patti Miles as she watched Wanda, the arthritic 48-year-old who some believed would be hobbled by the long truck trip from Detroit.
"God, it's just so incredible to see her that far away from us," said Scott Carter, the zoo's director of conservation and animal welfare, as he watched Wanda.
Her companion, Winky, played it more cautiously, leaving the safety of the barn several times to experience the novelty of tall grass and open space, making it a few yards farther from the barn each time.
The sanctuary's three other Asian elephants watched Wanda's progress curiously, rumbling and squeaking greetings to her from a gated outdoor enclosure. Elephant keepers were waiting Sunday afternoon to see whether Wanda would introduce herself over the fence to the trio. If she does, they might release them into the same yard quickly. Or, it could be several days before they're together.
It all depends on the elephants: "We're on elephant time now," said Carter, noting that human timetables are irrelevant in the elephants' world.
Wanda's aggressive exploration of the acreage and Winky's limited forays outside the barn were more than many of their handlers had expected during the delicate adjustment period after their arrival Friday morning.
Some elephants have taken months to venture into the full 45-acre grounds, said Pat Derby, founder of the Performing Animal Welfare Society, of which Ark 2000 is a part.
"Our elephant Annie stood by the gate for four months," Derby said. "So this is fantastic. These girls are doing great. We're going to have to put track shoes on Wanda."
Contact HUGH McDIARMID JR. at 248-351-3295 or mcdiarmid@freepress.com.
Copyright © 2005 Detroit Free Press Inc.
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PACHYDERM PARADISE: Sanctuary gives animals second chance to roam
http://www.freep.com/news/nw/elephants11e_20050411.htm
BY HUGH McDIARMID JR.
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
April 11, 2005
SAN ANDREAS, Calif. -- Cobo Hall was an annual stop in the 1970s for Pat Derby, who performed at every North American International Auto show with her cougar, Christopher, to tout the Mercury Cougar automobile.
That was then. This is now: Derby, her husband, Ed Stewart, and dozens of employees and volunteers are the new parents of the Detroit Zoo's retired elephants, Winky and Wanda.
Their new home in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains is one of three sanctuaries founded by Derby and Stewart to let retired and abused animals roam free - or as free as is practical in an environment often thousands of miles from their native habitats.
The facilities house dozens of species including tigers, emus, bears, cougars, antelope and monkeys. And, of course, elephants.
In the '70s, Christopher was part of the menagerie of animals that Derby rented out and performed with in commercials, TV shows and Hollywood movies.
She and Stewart grew increasingly disenchanted with what they saw as exploitation of the animals, and called it quits in the early 1980s.
"For Hollywood trainers' animals, an 8-by-10 cage is all they get," Derby, 62, said Saturday. "I realized, gradually, it just wasn't right."
She and Stewart, 54, retired their animals and formed the Performing Animal Welfare Society sanctuary for them in Galt, Calif., in 1984.
Soon, requests started pouring in: Could the sanctuary take a lion confiscated by local police? A bear that had grown too big for its owner to handle? Inbred tigers treated wretchedly by an unlicensed breeding mill?
Derby couldn't say no. Stewart couldn't stop her.
The operation grew, funded solely by grants and private donations buoyed by high-profile benefactors like actress Kim Basinger, who last year gave the organization jewelry that netted $140,000 at auction. This year she has pledged wardrobe items, including a gown she wore to an Oscars ceremony.
Derby plans to consolidate all the sanctuaries in a 2,300-acre tract purchased for $2 million in 1999. So far, PAWS has sunk $7 million into building Ark 2000, which consists of the elephant sanctuary, which now is home to eight elephants and a separate sanctuary for 38 tigers.
The animals are tended by an extraordinary crew of animal lovers like Glory Quiggle, 50, who carefully relocated every spider before cleaning the cobwebs from the elephants' 10,000-gallon Jacuzzi; and Fred Cruz, 40, a muscular, hyperactive former Wal-Mart manager whose arrestingly bald head is adorned only with a fist-sized shock of hair at the base of his skull, from which a short ponytail dangles.
The staff members rotate nights sleeping inside the elephant barns on a spartan stack of mattress pads, waking every two hours to check on their "girls."
But at the center of it remains Derby, whose shock of dyed-red hair and collection of singsong elephant calls make her easy to spot as she monitors the elephants' every movement on the sprawling grounds.
Last Thursday, as Detroit's elephants snaked their way across the Plains States in a semi-trailer truck, Derby shuffled out every two hours in a nightlong rainstorm to check on the three Asian elephants that had refused to come into the barn that night.
With a 10,000-candle power spotlight, she verified their whereabouts -- while often wallowing in a pond that night - and returned for another fitful 120 minutes of sleep.
"If they go down, you've got about two hours to get them up before they suffocate" under their own weight, she explained.
Earlier this year an elephant did go down. Tinkerbell, who had only been at Ark 2000 for four months after her transfer from the San Francisco Zoo, collapsed and had to be euthanized.
"We were ready to get her up" using a special harness hooked to construction equipment, Derby said. "But the veterinarian told us she was so bad off - her bone was exposed through her foot - that she'd never stand again."
The traumatic experience has reinforced Derby's efforts to closely monitor the herd, which now includes Winky and Wanda.
"We owe these magnificent creatures," she said. "We are going to do all we can to make them happy animals."
Contact HUGH McDIARMID JR. at 248-351-3295 or mcdiarmid@freepress.com.
Copyright © 2005 Detroit Free Press Inc.
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