Big draw, big controversy: Bamboo's life at the zoo

Bamboo popped carrots into her mouth with her trunk as the water, beige with dirt, slid down her back. Watching the 39-year-old Asian elephant get her daily bath, it's easy to think she doesn't have a care in the world.

But Bamboo has become the focus of one of the most heated and bitterly debated controversies the Woodland Park Zoo has seen in years.

"From my perspective, this Bamboo issue is by far and away the most significant thing we've ever had here before," said Bruce Bohmke, the zoo's deputy director.

What started as a citizen's note of concern has escalated into a letter-writing campaign, public rallies and even a lawsuit accusing the Seattle zoo of harming an endangered species.

A local animal-rights organization is trying to force the zoo to send Bamboo to an elephant sanctuary in Tennessee because, it says, she has become aggressive, stressed and neurotic from years of imprisonment and inadequate care.

Zoo officials say the critics are uninformed and using Bamboo as a pawn in a larger debate over whether zoos should keep elephants at all. Zoo officials describe her as healthy and "sweet" and say relocating her to a different climate, with animals and people she doesn't know, could be harmful.

The elephants are among the zoo's biggest draws. When the baby elephant Hansa was born there in late 2000, visitors waited in line for 90 minutes or more to see her.

NARN rally

The Northwest Animal Rights Network will hold a rally for Bamboo the elephant from 4:30-6:30 p.m. Friday at the Woodland Park Zoo north entrance on North 59th Street.

Bamboo arrived at the zoo in 1968 from Thailand when she was about a year old.

The controversy over her care started last August, when the zoo announced plans to move the elephant to Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma.

Point Defiance wanted another elephant in order to meet a national recommendation that zoos with elephants have at least three for social interaction. Woodland Park had four, and Bamboo wasn't getting along with one of the other adult elephants, the zoo said.

The zoo also said Bamboo wasn't exhibiting "predictable social skills toward newborns and very young calves" and was more suited to a herd of older females.

A citizen weighs in

Nancy Farnam, a nurse paralegal in Edmonds, said she became concerned about Bamboo when she read a newspaper article last year that said the elephant was being moved because of her aggressive behavior.

Farnam, a self-described naturalist, remembers seeing Bamboo in the late 1970s and early '80s being walked around zoo grounds by her keepers.

She said she contacted Woodland Park Zoo, asking that Bamboo be sent to The Elephant Sanctuary, a 2,700-acre reserve for old, sick and needy elephants about 85 miles southwest of Nashville.

When the zoo declined, Farnam took her concerns to the Northwest Animal Rights Network (NARN), which obtained copies of the zoo's daily keeper reports dating to 1986. The group says several incidents in which Bamboo either knocked down keepers or otherwise threatened their safety are evidence of the elephant's behavior problems.

A meeting between NARN and the zoo last August reached no resolution.

"We were both talking, but each side wasn't listening to each other," Bohmke said.

Each party called the other well-intended but misinformed.

NARN then tried to take its case to Seattle City Council members. The zoo is owned by the city of Seattle but operated by the nonprofit Woodland Park Zoological Society.

"We wrote letters, we called, we tried to meet with the City Council," said Diana Kantor, NARN president. "Basically we just got ignored."

Since August, the zoo has received more than 300 letters and e-mails about Bamboo, most asking that she be sent to the sanctuary.

But like Woodland Park, zoos across the nation are under pressure from animal-rights groups that say most exhibits don't provide the space the animals need to stay healthy in captivity.

Last month, NARN filed a lawsuit in King County Superior Court, accusing the zoo and the city of violating the Endangered Species Act and the State Environmental Policies Act, among other things, with their treatment of Bamboo.

A few days later, Bamboo's relocation to Point Defiance ended when the two Asian elephants there didn't accept her. She was returned to Woodland Park on June 11.

NARN's attorney, Valerie Bittner, said Woodland Park has caused "severe, almost irreparable damage to the elephant." Bamboo is experiencing an "elephant psychological breakdown" and will likely die prematurely, she said.

"They have lost their right to manage her any longer and they have to forfeit her," Bittner said.

NARN says Bamboo's psychological problems stem from the lack of space in the one-acre elephant yard, and a history of improper care.

"Much like Keiko the killer whale before he was freed from an egregiously under-sized swimming pool, Bamboo languishes and suffers," the lawsuit alleges.

In addition, Kantor says Bamboo and other Woodland Park elephants were beaten in the 1980s with ankuses, poles with sharp metal points that were used to train elephants.

NARN also says the zoo chained and isolated Bamboo for 17 days when Hansa was being nursed after her birth.

Zoo officials dispute the accusations.

Like "a day at the spa"

Bohmke said the zoo has plenty of space for its four elephants, which in addition to Bamboo include an adult and young Asian elephants, and an adult African elephant.

Space is not more important than other benefits the zoo provides, such as good veterinary care and a social environment, said Bohmke and Nancy Hawkes, the Woodland Park Zoo's general curator.

"It's like spending a day at the spa for these elephants every single day," Bohmke said.

Hawkes said the elephants were never abused with an ankus, and Bohmke said he doesn't remember Bamboo being chained when Hansa was first born. He said, though, that all the elephants were separated from Hansa and her mother in order to allow them to bond.

"The whole aggression issue is blown out of proportion," Bohmke said.

Still, NARN contends that Bamboo's improper care has caused her to exhibit signs of stress and neurotic behavior, particularly when she was housed at Point Defiance.

"She spent the entire time down there pacing and shaking her head," Kantor said.

Bamboo's head shaking and pacing did increase in Tacoma due to the change in environment, said Bruce Upchurch, the zoo's curator of mammals. But she has never been diagnosed as neurotic and the pacing and head shaking are habits, not symptoms of poor care, Upchurch said.

"Kids suck their thumbs," he said, giving examples of such habits in humans. "People tap their feet."

The behaviors also occur when Bamboo is anticipating something, such as attention from zookeepers, Hawkes said.

Bohmke said NARN's intent is not to simply relocate Bamboo.

"Ultimately they want all elephants out of zoos and ultimately they want to close zoos," he said.

Not so, Kantor said.

"Clearly these elephants need to be in captivity; they cannot survive in the wild," she said. "The question is, what are our standards of care for elephants?"

Anne Kim: 206-464-2591 or akim@seattletimes.com