Savannah is a 71-year-old Asian elephant currently confined at the El Paso Zoo. She has spent nearly seven decades held captive in tiny, unnatural enclosures, deprived of everything she would have experienced had she been allowed to live freely with her familial herd in India. Savannah is held alone with no elephant companions, where she suffers from her facility’s lack of sufficient space and from being unable to engage in her natural behaviors.
Savannah has spent almost 98 percent of her 71 years of life held
captive in tiny, unnatural enclosures, deprived of everything she
would have experienced had she been allowed to live freely with her
familial herd in India. Currently held alone in a tiny, barren
exhibit at the El Paso Zoo in Texas, Savannah is the oldest Asian
elephant in the United States and the longest held captive. There
are surprisingly little available records of Savannah’s life story.
Born in India around 1952, Savannah was captured and imported to the
United States in 1954. For 27 years, from 1954 until 1981, she was
held captive at the Dallas Zoo. Grainy footage of the elephants
there, possibly of Savannah, shows an exhibit that looks remarkably
similar to the elephant exhibits that exist in present day
AZA-accredited zoos. In 1981, Savannah was moved to the Baton Rouge
Zoo where she was confined until her transfer to the El Paso Zoo.
Savannah has been held captive for almost 27 years at the El Paso
Zoo, which has been named one of the worst zoos for elephants in
North America multiple times. An elephant keeper was recorded
beating an elephant named Sissy in 1999, resulting in Sissy’s
transfer to an elephant sanctuary. This happened while Savannah was
at the zoo. In 2005, advocates and elephant experts around the world
strongly urged the zoo to transfer Savannah and the zoo’s other
elephant, Juno, to an elephant sanctuary, citing the zoo’s inability
to meet the elephants’ complex physical and psychological needs
(Juno was euthanized in 2021 after battling cancer). The El Paso
City Council, which has oversight of the municipally owned and
operated zoo, declined to relocate the elephants and only committed
to providing them with a nominal amount of additional space.
At the El Paso Zoo, Savannah has access to less than an acre of
land, including a barn–unlike an elephant sanctuary where elephants
have significantly more space and social opportunities. Savannah is
being treated for early-stage cancer, suffers from arthritis, and
has been observed engaging in stereotypies– behavior indicative of
brain dysregulation and stress. The zoo subjects her to gimmicky
acts, such as having her “choose” which football team will win the
superbowl (an activity her keepers claim is physical and mental
enrichment for her). In a telling example of the zoo’s lack of
seriousness with meeting Savannah’s complex needs, the El Paso Zoo
Director, Joe Montisano, claims Savannah is happy because she likes
to watch television.
The AZA justifies holding elephants like Savannah captive by
contending that captivity aids in the conservation of their species.
However, allowing wild elephants to remain free and have their own
offspring, thereby increasing the wild population, would actually
serve conservation efforts. The dubious rationale of conservation
cannot justify the lifetime of subjugation, deprivation, and
prolonged suffering that Savannah has endured.
Those continuing to hold Savannah captive still have the opportunity
to make a meaningful difference in her life. The El Paso Zoo should
transfer Savannah to an accredited elephant sanctuary if she is
healthy enough for the move. If that is not possible, she should be
allowed to live the rest of her life without being placed on
display, with as much peace and dignity as possible. Confining an
elephant for over seven decades is an unjustifiable wrong and it is
time for the AZA’s elephant program to end.