From:   DawnWatch Los Angeles <news@dawnwatch.com>

Angelenos: This Los Angeles Times article opens the door for letters calling for  the release of the Los Angeles Zoo elephants to sanctuary. Please write.  The Los Angeles Times takes letters at letters@latimes.com

Multiple Ailments Plagued Elephant Before Death;  Animal rights group's review of L.A. Zoo records finds that Gita had  sores and infections.

When Gita, the L.A. Zoo's beloved 48-year-old Asian elephant, died in  June, zoo officials said that as recently as the day before she had  appeared to be doing well and had healed from surgery on her left front  foot.

But the zoo's medical records from the two months leading up to Gita's  death paint a picture of an animal battling a number of ailments. Gita  was suffering from several abscesses on her body -- probably from  leaning against the bars of her barn -- that continued to grow even as  veterinarians treated them. The sole of her right front foot had developed a  sore that had to be debrided and covered with a protective boot. And in  the days before her death, when the zoo's staff tried to administer  antibiotics intravenously to her left foot, the usually placid and  accommodating elephant was "antsy" one day and "agitated" another, making  treatment impossible.  

A complete necropsy on Gita is expected in the next couple of weeks,  according to an official of the lab performing the animal pathology.

The medical records were obtained by the animal rights group In Defense  of Animals through the California Public Records Act. Catherine Doyle,  a member of the group, gave a copy of the records to The Times.

"Over and over again, the zoo kept saying Gita is fine when in fact the  medical records show the animal was suffering daily," Doyle said.  "There were clear indications she was trying to get her weight off her front  feet, and the Los Angeles Zoo was negligent in monitoring her in order  to avoid the situation that did happen."

Gita was found in her enclosure, with her back legs tucked under her  and her front legs outstretched, about 5 a.m. June 10. The 8,000-pound  animal died at 9:40 a.m. after toxins from her muscles flooded her system  and caused vascular distress, zoo officials said.

Mel Richardson, a former zoo veterinarian now in private practice in  Paradise, Calif., near Chico, reviewed the records for the animal rights  group, which, he said, paid him for his time and medical opinion.

"Before I got to the end of those records, I thought, 'Why don't they  put her down?' They had to see she was doing badly," Richardson said.

But zoo Director John Lewis asserted that Gita's health had not  appeared grim. "Yes, she had some things going on, but none was causing great  alarm," said Lewis, who said Gita was still taking regular walks around  the zoo in the days before she died.

Gita, who had state-of-the-art surgery last fall for a raging infection  in her left front foot, had been under round-the-clock monitoring until  late April, according to zookeepers.

"If we had thought for a moment that we were that close" to her dying,  Lewis said, "we would have had her back on 24/7 observation."

Gita's ill health is a particularly controversial issue at a time when  zoos in general, and the L.A. Zoo in particular, are under fire from  animal rights activists for keeping elephants. Gita's death even  attracted the attention of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who last year  commissioned a study on whether the L.A. Zoo should continue with plans for a new  elephant exhibit (concluding that the planned exhibit should be made  larger) and who called for a full accounting of Gita's death.

The April medical records made note of a swelling above Gita's tail,  and by May the records referred to it as a "sterile abscess." "New  problem," the records note May 5: The elephant had developed a swelling on  the right hip. Five days later, the records say the causes were unknown  and that there were "no other signs of systemic illness." On May 12, the  tail base abscess was larger.

Notes indicate that veterinarians were aggressively draining, massaging  and medicating the swellings and administering antibiotics to treat a  staph infection in the abscess above the tail. But it was stubborn.

According to the notes from May 30, "Our efforts seem to be slowing  down the progress of the abscess but are not resolving it." By June 1, the  swelling on Gita's right hip had grown, and by June 5 there was another  swelling on her backside.

By June 9, the day before her death, the records comment on the tail  abscess and the right hip swelling: "In general these seem to be  progressing well at this time." But Gita had also developed more swelling on  her hind legs and underside. And that was getting worse.

Through all this, her left front foot appeared to continue to heal from  the surgery, but on June 3, due to her "agitated disposition," she  would not let keepers administer antibiotics to that foot.

"Think of those wounds on her rear like bedsores," said Richardson.  "That's my opinion, reading the records."

Richardson, who had seen but never medically examined Gita, said he  believed she was "in a poor condition. If she's leaning against the bars,  she's trying to get the weight off her front end."

Lewis cautioned against reading the records "in a vacuum" and said of  Richardson: "He's making diagnoses without examining the animals."

But Lewis did not deny that Gita had problems with abscesses and  swelling.

Richardson and Lewis agree on one thing: Gita probably balked at taking  more intravenous antibiotics because she was just sick of the process.  "We had this older elephant," said Lewis. "She had gone through a  fairly serious treatment for months and tolerated it.... She said, 'I've  been doing this for months, folks, and I'm kind of tired.' "

Original Article:  LATimes.com