Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant was rebuffed Monday in her attempt to fast-track legislation that would send Woodland Park Zoo’s two elephants to a California sanctuary.
Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant was rebuffed Monday in her attempt to advance a proposed ordinance blocking the controversial transfer of two Asian elephants from Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo to the Oklahoma City Zoo.
Woodland Park Zoo sent the pachyderms packing on April 15, just hours after winning a federal-court decision against activists who want the animals sent to an elephant sanctuary rather than to another zoo. But bad weather along the 2,000-mile route to Oklahoma City led officials on Thursday to order a detour to the San Diego Zoo.
Sawant has had the City Attorney’s Office draft legislation directing Seattle’s zoo to send 48-year-old Bamboo and 36-year-old Chai to the Performing Animal Welfare Society sanctuary in California, and she asked her colleagues Monday to approve a motion allowing the council to vote on the ordinance as soon as possible, on April 27.
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Click here or on the photo above to see The Seattle Times’ 2012 investigation into elephant deaths in U.S. zoos.Seattle’s elephants
Elephants from Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo were moved to the Oklahoma City Zoo in 2015 after a bruising political and court fight. Activists had wanted the elephants transferred to a sanctuary in California.- March 5, 2015: Seattle City Council won’t block elephants’ move to Oklahoma
- March 8, 2015: Jerry Large: Animal rights and why they matter
- March 9, 2015: Who owns Seattle’s elephants? Suit challenges zoo’s control
- March 16, 2015: How much does it cost to move two elephants? $111,000
- April 7, 2015: Federal judge ‘troubled’ by OKC Zoo, but won’t block elephants’ move
- April 15, 2015: Elephants loaded on trucks for move
- Photo gallery: The move from Seattle
- Jan. 30, 2016: Chai, elephant at heart of zoo fight, dies at 37
- Photo gallery: Chai, a life in captivity
Though the elephants already have left Seattle, Sawant believes the ordinance could continue to carry weight because the animals still belong to Woodland Park Zoo.
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But her motion failed when a number of council members voted against it. While there was no roll call, it appeared that only Councilmember Mike O’Brien sided with Sawant.
“I was surprised by the council’s vote,” Sawant said in a statement afterward, adding that she’s still considering what her next step will be.
Woodland Park Zoo announced last year it would close its elephant exhibit and said in February it would move its two remaining pachyderms to Oklahoma City.
The decision came after years of scrutiny that intensified in late 2012, after a Seattle Times investigation found problems with elephants in captivity, and after the August 2014 death of the zoo’s only African elephant, Watoto.
Pro-sanctuary activists with the group Friends of Woodland Park Elephants, wearing bright orange T-shirts and waving signs, have become a fixture this year at City Hall.
More than a dozen cheered Sawant at the start of the meeting Monday. Some of them later screamed at Mayor Ed Murray and the rest of the council, disrupting the meeting. They were escorted out of the council chambers by security guards.
The city owns the land where the zoo is located, and local governments provide about a third of its budget. But the facility is operated by the Woodland Park Zoo Society under a 20-year agreement signed in 2002.
The agreement transferred ownership of the zoo’s animals to the nonprofit. However, a provision cited by Sawant says the zoo must follow city policies.
Murray expressed frustration with Woodland Park Zoo officials Monday but insisted his hands are tied. The mayor worries that moving to exercise more control could break the agreement and saddle the city with more responsibility than it can afford, he said.
“I feel sorry for the elephants,” Murray said. “But the only thing I can see myself doing is breaking up the governance agreement with the zoo, which means the city would own the zoo and would have to come up with tens of millions of dollars more.”
Murray criticized the activists for interrupting the meeting. The mayor was present for the confirmation of new Seattle Fire Department Chief Harold Scoggins.
“I thought it was unconscionable the way our new fire chief and his wife and two school-aged children were treated,” Murray said. “It lacked civility.”
The Friends group accused zoo officials of rushing the elephants out of town, despite forecasts of bad weather, because of concern about Sawant’s proposed ordinance.
The bad weather was unexpected, a zoo spokeswoman said. And zoo officials weren’t aware that Sawant was drafting legislation, she added.
The elephants are now in San Diego, rather than a zoo along the planned route to Oklahoma City, because the San Diego Zoo was equipped to take them, the spokeswoman said.
As yet, there’s no timeline for the animals to continue their journey, officials said.
Correction: Information in this article, originally published April 20, 2015, was corrected April 21, 2015. A previous version of this story listed the wrong number of council members who voted against Councilmember Kshama Sawant’s motion.