Resources - Memphis Zoo Fact Sheet

Overview

Memphis Zoo is home to two African elephants. Asali, a young female, has been subjected to numerous failed breeding attempts through artificial insemination. The zoo’s medical records document the ill effects of the invasive artificial insemination procedures on Asali (see below), yet Memphis Zoo continues to try to impregnate her in this manner. One frustrated elephant handler resigned from Memphis Zoo to protest the continued attempts to artificially inseminate Asali, despite the trauma this has inflicted on this young elephant.

The Zoo’s other elephant, Ty is about 16 years older than Asali. She spent her early years in the Ringling Circus. A zoo profile on Ty describes her as anti-social and aggressive toward humans.

Exhibit
The Memphis Zoo exhibit is very small. Until summer 2006, when it was expanded slightly, the exhibit included a 9,106 square foot (.2 acre) yard and only 1,791 square feet (smaller than 6 parking spaces) inside. Also in summer 2006, a 160,000 gallon pool was added to the yard.

According to the Memphis Flyer, the zoo plans to enlarge the exhibit slightly by expanding into a nearby rhinoceros pen.

The elephants have access to the outdoor area for 23 hours/day during the warmer months (7 out of 12). For the remaining five months of the year, they have access to the yard in the daytime and are confined indoors at night.  (Photo taken Oct. 2006 at Memphis Zoo)

Management
Protected contact since 1996

Daily foot treatments involve scrubbing feet with soap during morning bath. The zoo’s elephant management manual states that, “This is especially important during winter months when the elephants spend the evenings indoors, as they tend to get urine burns around the edges of the pads."

The elephants are chained daily at the zoo for routine foot care and maintenance. (Photo taken Oct. 2006 at Memphis Zoo)

Elephant Profiles

Tyranza (Ty)
Ty was born in 1964 and wild caught from Africa by Ringling Brothers Circus when she was about 3 years old. She stayed at Ringling until she was 12 and put on the surplus list. She is “high spirited” and Ringling gave up on her, according to Memphis Zoo records.

Ty is described as somewhat anti-social and aggressive toward humans.

Her medical problems include chronic dermatitis on her back (a “10-year history of dry skin on this animal’s dorsum), which seems to improves when left outside and worsen when confined indoors. She broke her tusk in 1998 when Asali arrived. She has also had several bouts of colic and gravel ingestion. In October 1997, she passed 20 pounds of gravel in her stool.

Behavioral problems are alluded to in the veterinary records, including this entry on July 5, 2000: “Due to animal’s latent wish to turn this member of the vet staff into an inkspot, unable to get close look at the area.”

Ty has also had rectal polyps, a growth behind her ear and a vitamin E deficiency.

Asali
This young female was captive-born at the Gladys Porter Zoo in Texas in 1985. She was transferred to the Memphis Zoo in 1996. Asali arrived at Memphis Zoo as a high-spirited and untrained young adolescent, and was socialized with a bull and two females.

Since then, she has been forced to undergo multiple, prolonged artificial insemination procedures using invasive procedures, some of which involve surgical incisions that are left open for days.

The zoo started working with Asali in 2002 in preparation for AI. They tested different tube sizes to put in her vagina, but she would not stand still. Unable to pass it fully due to “rear limb dance.”

In July 2003, Dennis Schmitt performed the AI procedure on her. It took one hour to find the correct opening in which to insert tube with semen. A surgical incision was made. The samples got contaminated. The main problem was too much back and forth movement in the chute. The next day, Schmitt reopened and they tried again but could not insert pipette all the way due to movement.

After this first AI attempt, Asali suffered abrasions on both hips due to rubbing the sides of the chute during her struggle. Following the procedure, the surgical site was swollen, with pus/purulent discharge from the site.

It took over 1 ½ months to heal.

On January 24, 2004, Schmitt tried again and left the surgical site open for another attempt the next day. On January 25, they tried for two hours to position Asali correctly in the restraint with a chest strap to prevent her from moving forward. When they were unsuccessfully, they gave her two doses of sedation, but it still took another hour to get the chest strap positioned. Then Schmitt tried for 40 minutes to pass the speculum before giving up.

The records state that Asali “struggled very hard in chute” during this prolonged attempt at AI. A week later, Asali had “copious amounts of purulent drainage from surgical site.”

AI was attempted two more times on September 18 and 20, 2005. Asali was reported as calm this time, but it does not appear that the procedure was a success.

Asali is still considered a good potential for breeding. It is reported that the zoo’s treatment of Asali during these AI procedures, and the plans to continue to conduct them, prompted a keeper and a docent to resign from the zoo.

Asali’s health problems include a right tusk that broke off at a young age. In 1999, the socket became infected. Asali has also had a series of body ulcers and abscesses on her left rear leg and left elbow, her right hip, and a lesion on her face below the temporal gland. The right hip ulcer was characterized as a “pressure sore” in the medical records. Pressure sores on key points like the hip, face, elbow are common in zoo elephants and are believed to result from lying on concrete.

Asali also had scars on her side inflicted by Ty, who is the larger, older and more dominant of the pair. In 2002, she suffered from frostbite on her ears. In Dec. 2003, she had a problem with the nail on the middle toe of her right front foot. Keepers removed “fowl smelling debris” from underneath it and she lost part of the nail subsequently.